Let’s talk about hats, more specifically the number of hats you’ve found yourself wearing recently.
Today has been a pretty ordinary day for me. As I write this I can honestly say I haven’t had a particularly busy day and nothing extraordinary has occurred and yet as I reflect on this ordinary of days, I have in fact worn/adopted more than 8 different ‘hats’ throughout the day. Now obviously, I’m not talking about literal hats but about the hats we metaphorically wear in our different roles, be they chosen, expected, needed or warranted.
In my capacity as a wife, mum, daughter, dog mum, home owner, coach, business owner and sibling, I have (relatively) seamlessly moved through these roles as my day has unfolded, adapting and flexing as I go and without a doubt I know that you do that too <insert name>. I also believe that you do it amazingly well, with a good dose of patience, understanding, care and knowledge.
So, what’s my point here other than to tell you that you’re doing an amazing job? It’s to remind you that the next time you give yourself a hard time about not being good enough, or the next time you doubt your ability with something or find yourself wondering whether you do indeed deserve to be sat at the table you find yourself; please remember all of the hats you already wear so well, every single day.
Yes, I accept that some of those hats fit more comfortably than others but we wear them anyway; we do the work and we congratulate, console, commiserate and celebrate where needed.
Those feelings of doubt that creep in as imposter syndrome or as a lack of confidence are part of being human, they allow us to be fallible, humble, vulnerable and reflective – none of which are to be avoided in my opinion.
What if, when we doubt ourselves we are merely considering whether we can accept another hat, another role, another responsibility?
I honestly believe that instead of asking ourselves ‘am I good enough?’, ‘do I belong here?’, we would do better to remember all of the other hats we wear, our success with those and whether this new hat is what we want. Does it fit? Does/will it serve us well?
Having a confidence wobble is to be expected, as I said earlier it’s part of being human, but allowing that wobble to affect our career, our relationships and our future is a short sighted and destructive pattern of behaviour that quite honestly you don’t deserve or need.
Finally, to help with this spend some time reminding yourself of the various ‘hats’ you wear each day, remind yourself of your successes, your experience and your knowledge in all of these roles and you may be surprised by what you remember about yourself.
Much love
Lisa