I love the way that sports and life tend to intersect. As a lifelong athlete, I’ve been the recipient of more lessons via sports than through any other means. As a coach, I like to use sports references and stories to better explain and make sense of various situations in life. Today, I want to take the opportunity to share one of those stories from my own life which serves as a great example of something that many of us face: imposter syndrome.
The Volleyball Game
My husband and I sit at the scorer’s table for our daughter’s volleyball matches. He keeps the official scorebook, and I do libero tracking. We make a good team, and most of the referees who work our matches enjoy working with us.
One day, my husband was out of town and unable to make a match. I arranged for someone to sub for him so that the scorebook would be covered. Long story short, there was some miscommunication and the sub didn’t make it. We didn’t have anyone to keep the scorebook — except for me. The only problem with me keeping the book is that I have never done so before.
At this point, I had been playing volleyball for over 30 years, so I was intimately familiar with the sport. Since I understand the rules quite well, I was fairly confident that I could figure out how to keep the book. I decided to suck it up, swallow my nervousness, and get to work.
A few minutes later, the referees walked in. Both were people that my husband and I have worked with before. They both approached the scorer’s table and said, “we are so happy to see you, and so glad the book will actually be done right tonight.”
No pressure, right?
Since I had confidence and the appearance of being in charge, they just assumed that I knew how to keep the book. And I wasn’t going to correct them at this point.
Normally the home team keeps the official book. However, we were the visiting team that night. Shortly into the first set, the home team scorebook keeper didn’t realize that her team was out of rotation. The referee closest to me walked over to the home team table, told the scorebook keeper that I was now going to keep the official book, and then asked her to sit right next to me so that I could teach her how to do it.
What?! I’d never kept the book before, so I certainly wasn’t officially “qualified” to teach her. But I went with it.
The result of the evening? Everything managed to turn out well. I now officially know how to keep the book, and so does the girl from the other team.
So, What’s the Point of Me Telling You All of This?
Many of my clients (and quite honestly, I) suffer from imposter syndrome.
What is imposter syndrome? In short, it is the feeling that you aren’t ready or qualified to take on a task, a job, or some other aspect of life.
It’s the little voice in our heads that constantly screams that we don’t have enough experience, or asks “who are you to say you know what you are doing?.”
But 95% of the time, we do know what we are doing.
There are always going to be people who are more qualified or more experienced. But that doesn’t mean that we don’t know what we are doing, or that we shouldn’t step into our personal expertise.
We aren’t talking about pretending to be a heart surgeon if we’ve never gone to medical school. We’re talking about stepping into and owning what we already are, and how we want to serve people (whether as a business owner, a coach, a person who specializes in a particular niche, etc).
Gaining Confidence
Overcoming imposter syndrome can be achieved. If you believe in yourself even a little bit, and then build on from there…If you trust in yourself enough to know that if you run into unfamiliar territory, your life experiences and intelligence will allow you to figure it out — they will believe in you too.
STACY OLDFIELD
After nearly 25 years in Corporate America, Stacy launched Minerva Management Partners as a way to combine those years of business experience with her life coaching certification and love for coaching women. Minerva Management Partners is a business coaching practice designed to support women entrepreneurs committed to launching and growing their business. Also, as a Results Coach with Robbins Research International, Stacy helps business women to focus their ideas and efforts and holds them accountable for achieving their goals. Whether it’s helping women discover creative solutions to their business challenges, coaching them to be clear and decisive, or helping them see and take action on new opportunities, Stacy guides them to achieve the business and career results they are seeking. Stacy is also the creator of the Minerva 3-Day Networking Challenge and the Network Like a Boss Lady On-Demand training program. Stacy has been invited to speak to many audiences within South Carolina including the Center for Women, Women Entrepreneurs of Charleston, the Women of the Workforce program of the Naval Information Warfare Center (SPAWAR), Charleston Women in Business, Association of Fundraising Professionals, SCANPO, graduate classes at both The Citadel and the College of Charleston (CofC), and Leadership CofC. She currently serves as a mentor through the Women of Excellence Program at Xavier University and previously served on the Board of Directors for the Beautiful Gate Center and on the advisory board of the SC Women’s Business Center.
