Overcome Perfectionism & Imposter Syndrome: Speak up despite the Fear

Hello and a very warm welcome to Cultural Communication Confidence with me, Victoria Rennoldson. And, it’s great to be back with a solo episode. We haven’t done one of these for a while and I wanted to choose a topic which has. Seems to be coming up quite a lot recently with my clients. And I wonder whether it is something that you are experiencing too. So have you ever experienced perfectionism? Have you ever felt like you had to go that extra mile to really achieve the highest standards in what you do? Have you ever felt imposter syndrome at any point of your career? Maybe you felt it in certain situations and were very aware of who you were and how you were showing up in the moment and how others were perhaps perceiving you.

I really want to talk about perfectionism and imposter syndrome here today because, as I say, it’s a theme that’s coming up quite regularly recently. And, there was a particular client that I was talking to and she was explaining to me how it was impacting the way that she was speaking up and showing up. So this was somebody who was quite a senior manager in her organization. And she quite regularly needed to do updates to the board, giving, them a presentation on what the latest picture was. But she felt that she had a secret, which was she really found these challenging. She worried greatly about being asked questions that she wasn’t able to answer. She was also telling me that she spent a very long time scripting out everything she was going to say. So not only preparing presentation slides, but also writing a script in full sentences so that she could clearly have in her mind what she was going to say.

She explained to me that her favourite type of presentation was virtual, because what that meant was that she could then just read the script. And, that took the pressure off completely. Now that is a scenario which is probably more on the extreme side. I mention it because I think that some of you may have done that in the past or maybe even are doing it today. But whether you do that or not, there may be other presentations, events, speaking, elements that you’re preparing where you feel that you need to go that extra mile to do that level of detailed preparation so that you can speak up, and show up perfectly. And so I want to talk about this.

Why is this perhaps not such a great idea and, how you can overcome it? Because it’s difficult if this is your normal way of doing things. But first of all, let’s just analyse why is this going on, particularly when it comes to your communication. And let’s start with defining what we even mean by these words imposter syndrome and perfectionism, because they get talked about an awful lot. Imposter syndrome basically just means that when you’re in a particular position or role that you at some point feel that you are not good enough to be there. Perhaps you look around the room, look at your peers and feel that you’re perhaps just not operating at the same level. And there’s often a deep seated worry that you will be found out, that you will be exposed, that you’re not at that level. Now this is something that really shows up in communication because when you’re speaking, presenting, you’re very much on the spot, you’re often the person who everybody is looking at and that imposter syndrome can come up really, really loudly at that point. What happens is that for people who experience imposter syndrome, they often try to overcompensate by going that extra mile by over preparing. So they feel very much in control. And that’s where perfectionism comes in.

Now perfectionism, again, if I define it, is really about aiming for perfect, aiming for those high, high standards. And for people who are often high achievers, very used to over performing, then perfectionism may be again a very deep rooted way of working where everything has to be delivered not just at 75 or 80%, but absolutely 100% every single time. Now you might say, well, what’s wrong with that? Well, what can be challenging with perfectionism? M is it is exhausting. It takes energy, it takes time. And particularly when it comes to your communication, it can feel like it’s the impossible standard to try and show up, to speak up in that perfect way. And because there is this high goal, what often happens is that success is judged by the result, by the outcome. And if that result or outcome is less than perfect, then there’s a sense of sometimes really strong failure and that mistakes are a bad thing. And this can really cause somebody to feel like they are not great, good enough, that they’re not doing a great job. Now I know myself in my career, actually two careers that I have experienced imposter syndrome for sure at different moments, and also really struggled with perfectionism and knowing when good enough is enough and when to let go. And it particularly actually showed up in my career in my speaking. And that is something I’m very passionate therefore about to help others to overcome this, to find their way through this.

Now I have to say at this point that if you are somebody who’s experiencing deep anxiety, then I highly recommend that you seek out the help of a specialist in this area. So that is important. However, if you are generally experiencing this finding this is coming up and you want to learn the strategies to move through this, then I absolutely will share this here and now with you.

So the first idea that I want to share with you is the big secret, which is with imposter syndrome, everybody experiences it at some point in their career. And in fact there are lots of different research points out there. But some people believe that Even up to 82% of professionals have experienced imposter syndrome at some point. And it’s not that you only experience it perhaps at ah, the more junior levels of your career when you’re less experienced. In fact, anecdotally through my own research and working with my clients, what I find is that you can experience imposter syndrome if you are a C-suite level board member or you are the most junior member in the team. It really doesn’t matter. It’s not about how experienced you are. You can still experience that sense of imposter syndrome. And, why is that? Well, ultimately we talk a lot, or people talk a lot about imposter syndrome, but it’s not usually static. What, in my experience, what I found is that people experience it at different moments when they start to stretch out of their comfort zone, their context changes or the people they’re working with changes.

So a great example of that is when people get promoted. Of course, this is a moment when people feel sometimes out of their comfort zone, perhaps they’ve stretched a step up and then they feel that sense of am, I good enough to be here? Sometimes it’s when you’re stretching your comfort zone with your speaking, when you decide that you are going to put your hand up and be on that panel or speak at the conference or really be speaking to the larger audience, whatever it looks like to you, I’m sure that you are nodding right now and saying, yeah, I have had that moment in my life. So the secret is, and the first point I want you to remember is that everybody experiences it at some point in their lives. And that is a good thing to recognize. It’s normal to experience imposter syndrome.

Okay, so from there I want us to now talk about perfectionism. And the second point for me is really recognizing the downsides of perfectionism. So, so often people think about the positive benefits, even subconsciously to themselves. So they think about what does it mean when I’m perfect? Well, it means all these positive attributes in the way that I show up and how people see me. Now that may be something you haven’t really considered before, but normally perfectionism is driven by this sense of there is a positive benefit or outcome to being perfect. But now I want you to consider the other side of this, the negative side. So how is perfectionism, holding you back? Where is it holding you back? What is it costing you? You might want to really consider this and spend some time after this episode reflecting on this, journaling on this. But if I think about it in my own example and context, perfectionism for me held me back because I would spend so much time practicing and preparing my presentations. In my mid-20s, I was terrified of standing up in front of people. I didn’t admit it, but I really hated it. And so I would overcompensate by not quite scripting everything I would say, but spending a lot of time preparing my notes, practicing over and over again until I felt super confident. And I think that costed me energy, it costed me time with my family and my friends. And ultimately. And this is the really, really big thing: did it make the difference ultimately whether I was perfect in that presentation or not?

We’re going to come back to that question in a minute, but for now I want you to think about this. What is it costing you? What is holding you back with your perfectionism? How is it holding you back? Okay, the next question, which is quite a big one as well, is what does it mean if you’re not perfect? I’m going to repeat that. What does it mean if you’re not perfect? I know that’s a big question and I struggle with this question when I first asked myself this, but it’s a really good question to ask yourself because you’ll start to then bring up the fears that sit behind it. What is driving and motivating the perfectionism? You can start to recognize some of the things that you’re subconsciously telling yourself, maybe about how others would judge you, how people will think negatively of what you do, of how people might see you as less than what you are. And this kind of process of pulling out the fears is also a process of confronting them and recognizing that: are these actually real fears? Do you feel genuinely that this is the situation? Is this something that you could challenge yourself on? Are these really beliefs that are genuinely going to help you in your career, next steps, and as you step up and show up in a different way with your speaking.

So that is an exercise I’d love again for you to take away from today to try out and journal and around that from reflection. I’m now going to give you a couple of concepts which are very core to how I think about speaking and presenting, which I think are very practical and helpful. The first one is it’s about them, not you. So whenever I hear and I work with a client who is saying some of the things around perfectionism, that they’re worried about how they’re going to show up, like how they’re going to get it right, that they start to whir, in their mind in this spiral of all the worries about what might happen on the day, I get them to pause and take a step back and to really recognize that what we want to do, what our job is ultimately when we speak, is to connect, to connect with humans like ourselves, to connect with people so that they hear us.

So even if, let’s go back to the client I mentioned right at the beginning of the story, even if you scripted everything you wanted to say and you could remember that script and deliver it perfectly, even if you remembered every single word, it still may not land. Because if it’s not engaging, if it sounds robotic, if it’s basically boring to listen to because you’re reading it, then it’s not going to land and therefore it won’t be perfect. So if you get into the mindset of it’s about them, not you, you’re really, from the beginning, thinking about, how can I best in my speaking in this presentation, at this event, connect with the people that I’m talking with? And that’s when you get into thinking about questions like, what do they need to know? What do I want them to feel? What do I want them to do As a result of this presentation, and this is a really powerful reframe, particularly for those of you who find yourselves in this mental whir as you get ready. So that’s the first practical strategy.

The second one that I want to give you is the idea that said is better than perfect. So I, actually, I’m going to admit it now. I almost got it messed up, what I was going to say there. And that’s good. So I admit it. I almost made a mistake there. But I’m going to keep going. And this is really important illustration of this point: ‘said is better than perfect’. Again, you need to be able to share what you’ve got to say. You have to keep going. You have, once you’re standing up and speaking, you have to find your way through. And it doesn’t have to be perfect, but you do have to say it and in this way others can hear it. So I’m a great believer in we keep going, we keep speaking, we keep talking to people and in this way we connect with them as well. Being perfect does not add a layer, to this.

The final few points and strategies I want to share here today is the frame of zooming forward. So let’s imagine that you’re practicing or preparing for a big presentation to a large part of your company and you are finding yourself moving into that space of over preparing, getting it perfect and you want to obviously do a great job but at the same time not go to this nth degree, go to the 100% which is costing you the energy. A great reframe on this to help you with this is to imagine what life looks like in six months time. And I want you to imagine whether you being perfect in that presentation at, that speaking event is going to have an impact in six months time on your performance review or your career development. So really look forward now you might be, you say, yep, Victoria, this is the presentation where this is going to unlock my next promotion. In which case maybe perfectionism does matter in this moment. But I think for the vast majority of cases the answer is probably no. And the zooming forward idea is really helpful to us because we often get quite fixated on the presentation, the event being the end point, when in reality it’s a greater part of what we’re doing in our performance in our career. So zoom forward those six months and look backwards. Would this really make a big difference to your performance and to your career?

Okay, the final point I want to land here today with you. The final strategy is that if you have been listening to this and thinking great, yes, absolutely agree, I need to be less perfectionist about preparing for certain presentations and speaking events, but I just don’t know how to do this. I want to give you some practical ideas to take away from this which are really about being kind to yourself, recognising that if you’re going to go for 80% in your preparation rather than 100%, if you’re going to drop the scripts, you’re going to practice but not over practice, then this is going to be uncomfortable to start with and therefore you may make mistakes, you may slip up, you may say the wrong thing and have to start your sentence again. And I want you to know it’s totally okay, it’s totally normal and to be kinder with yourself about that. If you’re a perfectionist, then it may be really hard to do that. It might be hard to be kind and to not focus or over focus on those mistakes instead of focusing on what went well, the wins that you had through the presentation. So take that with a light touch and know that it really requires you to have a different attitude to yourself in the way that you judge yourself so you can feel comfortable and keep feeling more and more comfortable in this way of being.

So let me ask you, where are you experiencing perfectionism today? And, where is it holding you back? What is it that it’s costing you in your professional life? Maybe energy or time or even relationships, possibly? Which of these types of strategies are most helpful to you? Is it about reflecting on the fears behind the perfectionism? Perhaps it’s about zooming forward six months and putting this presentation or speaking event in context. Or maybe for you it’s really about this idea of said is better than perfect, or it’s about them, not you.

Really consider what you’re taking from this episode today and I’d love to know what you have found most useful from this. Because I love our conversations. When you come back to me, give me feedback, on LinkedIn is the best place for me, so that we can understand what it is that is most resonant for you. I also want to share that, as I’ve mentioned a couple of times today, if you are experiencing deep anxiety, then please, please do seek specialist help in this area. However, if you are experiencing that general sense of perfectionism and imposter syndrome, particularly to do with your speaking and the way that you show up in certain meetings or with certain groups of people, then this is something I help my clients with and I would love to be able to help you too.

It’s hard to do this by yourself, particularly when you have been experiencing this for a long time. So if you are a perfectionist, if you are experiencing imposter syndrome and would like my support with you alongside the journey, then message me to find out more about my global leader, communication program. You can do that. Find me over on LinkedIn and message me on my personal profile, Victoria Rennoldson, and I’ll put the link in the show notes. Well, thank you so much for joining me here today. We’ve covered quite a lot here and I really hope you have found this episode valuable. And, I very much look forward to seeing you. Next time on Cultural Communication Confidence.