Have the Courage to Go Deeper: Challenging Perfectionism and Moving Past Imposter Syndrome
Everything was going great, until it suddenly wasn’t. I graduated college early. I had a fruitful launch of my career in process analysis and optimization. Insightful and collaborative team members, empowering leadership, and engaging clients have made the last 5 years an educational and inspiring journey that I have been proud to be on.
My journey was uninterrupted until a significant personal life change resulted in the loss of focus, fatigue, constant overwhelm, and stress from processing these changes. My focus was constantly pulled away from work. From writing emails to designing process optimizations, every task was daunting and felt entirely out of reach.
So, I informed my leaders and asked for coaching. I was optimistic about getting back on track. I then quickly realized I had no idea what to work on or even talk about with my coach. There was no specific skill I was having issues with. Nevertheless, I hoped to have a lightbulb moment where everything clicked and I would be able to pull my focus back to work, away from the more daunting and complex personal life struggles.
In the first couple of meetings with my coach, I asked for advice about upskilling my task-tracking and time management. The idea was, if I could get myself to complete the tasks asked of me, I’ll be able to successfully bring my focus back to my workday and away from that constant background processing.
The meetings came and went and that lightbulb moment didn’t come. Analysis and sense-making was becoming harder. I needed extra project management and task management support from my teammates, which used to be effortless before for me, in order to complete my work. I was struggling to bring my best-self to work and I couldn’t help but think that maybe I’m not cut out for this sort of work after all.
That changed when my coach offered a framework that finally gave the clarity and insight I needed to make progress.
The Immunity Map
The Immunity Map created by Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey is a four-column table that holds four questions:
Visible commitment: What is the commitment or improvement goal you are trying to live into?
Doing / not doing instead: What are you doing or not doing instead of living into the commitment?
Hidden competing commitments: What commitments do you hold that may be in conflict with the commitment from question 1?
Big assumptions: What unexamined (and possibly false) assumptions might you be holding?
My initial commitment? To present to clients with confidence and clarity – easy peasy. The next column was straightforward as well. Instead of presenting to clients with confidence and clarity, I avoided presenting as much as possible. In those instances where I had to present or even speak up in client meetings, I delivered the information as quickly as possible, so I could stop talking sooner. What I wished to do was describe how our work enabled our clients to achieve their goals as a part of the overall engagement.
The third column is where things started to get interesting. What hidden commitments was I holding on to that held me back from practicing my meeting skills? After a series of curious questions and long pauses, I jotted a few down. I wanted everything I said in meetings to be the most understandable, helpful, and relevant thing I could possibly say. And if I couldn’t think of something good enough, then I should keep it to myself. This was standing in the way of the one thing that would help my meeting skills the most: practice.
Then, we tackled the last column: big assumptions. We began to uncover the assumptions that held those hidden commitments in place. I uncovered all sorts of assumptions about competence, credibility, and self-worth. Presenting something? I’m not good enough. Offering something in a collaborative session? What I have to say isn’t helpful; I felt like I was failing at the things I was supposed to be getting better at.
The biggest assumption was that I don’t deserve to have this job. Once I uncovered this last assumption, I realized how it was showing up in my work life. When I had an idea to offer in a group setting, I talked myself out of offering it before I even articulated it. And when asked to contribute, I froze from the stress of it and couldn’t think of anything. That made me feel even worse.
And just like that, I realized I was my own adversary. I was so critical of my own performance, that I wouldn't allow myself to practice speaking up out of the fear of failure. Uncovering this assumption helped me recognize that I couldn’t develop professionally or personally while standing in my own way.
After working through each of the four columns, I realized that I had a major struggle with imposter syndrome and perfectionism. In the past, I convinced myself that imposter syndrome showed up for people who are actually capable and deserving, and since I’m not that, it didn’t apply to me. The way I experienced imposter syndrome was sneaky in that, I couldn't have it, I was actually not good enough! I didn't think I was a perfectionist, I just wanted to do a good job. The impact of this discovery had a ripple effect that went beyond my professional world and resonated deeply with my personal struggles outside of work.
A great coach asks powerful questions to help someone move forward and grow. While the immunity map might not be the questions you need to make progress – it was exactly the right questions at the right time for me. Without coaching support, I would have continued to chase task and time management strategies in hopes that a lightbulb moment would arrive and things would just get better.
Answering and examining my answers to the questions in the immunity map that my coach brought in wasn’t easy. It revealed hidden assumptions that manifested inside and outside of my work life, and the disruption on my personal life made my existing imposter syndrome bigger and louder. This process required the courage to go deeper – to focus on the underlying causes of confusion, overwhelm, and doubt. By bringing these assumptions to the surface and talking about them, it became easier to loosen the grip of perfectionism which stands in the way of sharing early ideas, collaborating with others, and having a good time at work.
Overcoming this kind of negative self-talk is a process – when my imposter syndrome and negative assumptions bubble up it’s still a major distraction. With each new challenge, I return to these same questions. Each new cycle offers a new learning experience. Noticing our natural reactions, challenging our mindset, and adjusting our perspective is a journey, not a destination, and it takes practice in big and small moments, at home and at work.