“I really feel like a new person”

Background:

This client came to me as someone with a track record of being a really high achiever, who had achieved impressive roles with a solid career trajectory and had just acquired a new senior role.

However imposter syndrome and self-esteem were really holding her back from being the great leader and manager she could be. She had just started a new job and was feeling stressed and pressurised to perform.

While she had achieved a lot of career success over the years, she lacked self-belief and self confidence in work.

Key symptoms: How she felt before RTT™️

• Weekly presentations and keynote speeches, which was her “worst nightmare”, caused her to feel anxiety in her chest, stress and many sleepless nights.
• She had a constant fear of making a mistake and sought validation for work completed as she felt defined by her success at work.
• Imposter Syndrome and a feeling that others are more competent than her was an everyday thought.

The Journey: What I experienced as her therapist:

She described herself as a teenage “terror” and rebelled in those years. She grew up not feeling safe and didn’t trust easy. She did not feel smart or good enough and caused her to then push and prove later in life that she was no longer “the terror” that she was when she was a teenager.

She often believed others in work were a threat to her success, while at the same time feeling she did not deserve success. She could not understand why she were always striving to achieve. Why she needed more. No matter what she did or how hard she worked it was never good enough. As such she feared attention as she feared being judged because deep down she did not feel competent enough or believe in herself.

This type of thinking is something that I often come across in my work, clients with so much potential yet they don’t trust themselves and they don’t trust others around them which prevents enjoyment and puts the breaks on their ability to flourish naturally.

The result: How She felt After RTT™️

She has now reached a place where she is relaxed about weekly presentations and keynote speeches. She knows she delivers and therefore feels less attached to how other people perceive her. She feels confident and proud and sure that she is delivering good work. She no longer allows the opinions of others to define her.

What she has come to realise is that we all make mistakes, there is no such thing as perfect. The biggest mistake is not making the mistake in the first place as mistakes are our opportunity to learn and change. She now accepts praise with ease and without doubt, as she knows and believes she is doing a great job. Instead of seek validation she has developed a natural practice of praising herself every day because the best praise is the praise you give to yourself. At presentations and key note speeches she now speaks naturally and relaxed and with great flow and most of all, work has become an enjoyable experience.

Reflection:

Like this client I also allowed my corporate job to define my success, always terrified of making a mistake. And this is one of the key learnings here. Mistakes are part of a life-long learning and success is where you love what you do.. Achieving this type of success enables you to flourish naturally in every moment without anxiety or fears of judgement.