Career Questions & Answers
Looking at the Ikigai image below there arise some career coach questions and answers. If at work you are experiencing feelings of “Excitement, complacency and uncertainty” This means you are meeting three of the four needs of your Ikigai. You are doing what you love. You are providing something the world needs. You are being paid for it…
What’s missing is the sense ..? trust…? or knowing that you are good at what you do.
This can arise for a variety of reasons including
- Impostor syndrome
- Wrong feedback loops
- Not enough practice
- Wrong gaining or mentoring
- Working in isolation or with bad communication
All these can lead to self-doubt, self-doubt can lead to the downward spiral that is the corrosion of your confidence which will eventually lead you either to take action to remedy it, or allow yourself to sabotage it, or it sabotage you!
Best take some action to remedy it if I were you. Why do I say that? Because in the past I didn’t, and, I paid a heavy price for it.
Picture this: Way back in the dark of distant decades, I was incredibly shy, and under confident. I would always give the expected answer> I would always doubt my work” I would never, ever dare ask for feedback on what I had done. why? Just in case I blew my cover and it was noticed that I didn’t actually know what I was doing. Somewhere in my youth, I had picked up the belief that it was a crime not to know the answer. And, if you’re busy pretending you know that answer then you cannot ask for the answer. I never learned anything by asking directly. Instead, I observed, copied and emulated others behaviours. All the while I was praying but doubting in equal measure that I was doing it ‘right’.
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Sometimes I got promoted (but I didn’t know why). Sometimes I got demoted. Sometimes I dreaded being found out so much that I left. Once I was even sacked and I didn’t even really understand that either!
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What I was trying to do was to operate in a vacuum. I couldn’t let any information in. I couldn’t ask for any feedback. I was literally making it up as I went along and it was pot luck which way the outcome went.
Career coach questions and answers
Now I know it’s ok to not know. I know this because as a coach my job is to learn of the ins and outs of the sectors of all my clients and in order to do that I have to ask a lot of questions. And, I have to admit I don’t know, at least a hundred times a day… and that way I learn. By asking questions I learn and I get to be really good at what I do. By risking looking daft, over and over I gain real authority in my field.
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So, if your confidence is lacking, take a little look at the list above. If you can work out which of those is getting in your way, then you can find a way to remedy it!
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