The Secret to Building Unstoppable Confidence at Work

Hey there. This is Meadow Devore, author of the Worthy Project, and I teach tools to help you build self worth. Today I'm going to talk about self worth at work, and I want to start with what it looked like before. I had really done what I call worthy work, worked on my self worth, and really understood how self worth actually grows or how it depletes. So, you know, before this work, especially as a coach, I really overly identified myself with my achievements. And it's interesting, when your business is literally your name and your logo is basically your face, it's hard not to do that. However, I know that I did this even when I was a secretary. I know that I did this when I was a piano teacher. I know that I did this even as a student. When I was little, I. I was my achievement. I also saw myself as a failure. If, like, I was the failure, the failure became me. So my before at work was really like, if I wasn't successful, that meant I personally was a bad person. I personally wasn't worth loving. I personally wasn't worth spending time with or, or even taking up space. So I would try harder. I would just give more of myself away. I would overwork myself completely, all the time over, deliver to the millionth degree and hustle harder. I wouldn't ask myself the hard questions. And what I mean by the hard questions, like, if I wasn't successful at something, or something didn't quite fit right, or somebody didn't quite like that, I offered them. I didn't ask myself hard questions. In fact, I remember somebody I was, when I had the conservatory, the music conservatory, one of the clinics that I went to, they said, oh, you should always have a suggestion box so that people can give you suggestions. And I remember thinking, oh, my God, I could never do that. Like, I could never read that that would affect me so much. Like, I couldn't. I couldn't hear criticism. I couldn't. Was as if me and my work and what I did and whether or not you liked me made all the difference between me being a person that was allowed to be on this planet or not. So I took criticism way too personally. And I also took flattery too personally. So if somebody started to flatter me, I would. Oh my gosh, I would cling on to it, like, oh, they me, oh, they really love me, that kind of a thing. I was always shape shifting, trying to read people. What do you want from me? And how do I deliver the packaged person that you're looking for? How do I become that person? And how do I make you happy? So all of this basically became what a lot of people call imposter syndrome. Now, I, looking back, it's interesting because my self worth was terrible. However, I believed in myself enough to do a lot of things. Sometimes people with debilitating self worth, they actually won't even put themselves out there. I would put myself out there and then. And why I think I was able to do that was because I wasn't putting my real self out. It was like I was doing a performance or it was like I knew the acting role that I need to play, and I became that character. So even though I took it very personally, and I felt like I was that character in a way that that character shielded me enough to make me able to be brave in some places or to start businesses or to, you know, raise my hand for things that I wanted to do. So I wanted to talk about this idea of imposter syndrome because I don't think I would have defined myself as having that. I felt like I was good at my job most the time. But I know that I always had this terrible fear of being a fraud or that somebody would find out that I was a fraud, which is basically the definition of imposter syndrome. So, imposter, the word imposter, the definition is a person who pretends to be someone else in order to deceive others, especially for fraudulent gain. Now, if every single day at my work, I was basically pretending to be more confident than I was pretending to be more valuable than I felt, pretending to be what I thought I needed to be, to be liked or to be hired or to be able to keep my job, well, that, by definition, is someone pretending in order to deceive others, right? So really, even though I wouldn't have said it, oh my gosh, that is the definition of imposter syndrome. So really, what the problem was is I valued my ideal image rather than my true self. So I'm going to read you from the Worthy project. Just a tiny little thing here on page 28. I say, to build self worth, you must do the opposite. The opposite of valuing ideal image rather than true self, you have to do the opposite. You need to value the true self more than the ideal image. Rather than chasing your idealized fantasy, you must pour your time and effort into being a caretaker of the true essence of who you are. So let me say that again, because this is literally the antidote to imposter syndrome right here. To build self worth and to get out of imposter Syndrome, you must do the opposite. You need to value the true self more than the ideal image. Rather than chasing your idealized fantasy, you must pour your time and effort into being a caretaker of the true essence of who you are. So now my after story. Does criticism hurt my feelings? Of course. Do terrible reviews hurt my feelings? Of course. I'm careful with myself about that. Just do. Am I tempted to listen to flattery? Of course I am. I'm still human. However, I realize that that is not where my value lies. If people give me compliments, that doesn't make me more valuable. If people don't like something, that doesn't make me less valuable. So I realized there's. There's a difference between who I am, my true self, and my achievements, who I am and my failures. And sometimes success and failure has actually nothing to do with me. Sometimes I just happen to be in the right place or the wrong place at the right time at the wrong time. I don't need to make it a about me anymore. So if something isn't successful, now I do sit down and I ask myself hard questions, like, really hard questions, like, why didn't this succeed? And I try to give myself the most brutal answer that I could possibly think about. And this isn't to make myself feel bad. And it's not to berate myself, and it's not to beat myself up. It's actually to be real with myself. Why didn't it succeed? Like what? You know, did you not do your homework? Did you not think about the outcome? Did you not have a really clear goal? Is this just not a topic that somebody really wants to be involved in? Something like that. So that's one hard question I'll ask myself. And another hard question I ask is, how else could I invest my time and energy to get what I actually want? So when you're sitting in that seat of true self, it's like, okay, if every little ding, if I'm not reacting to every little ding in my ego and every little ding in my ego isn't making me feel great about myself or worthless about myself, I'm actually more resilient than that, then I can start to look at, okay, what do I actually want? What do I actually value? What goal am I trying to really achieve here? And then how can I invest myself in the best way possible to really create that outcome? What is the goal is the goal. Vanity Goal is the goal. A real goal is the goal. Something that feeds my soul. And then the last thing that I'll ask myself Is what feedback did I get? That doesn't necessarily mean reviews or criticism or whether you had a great evaluation or something like that. It's more like the feedback that you got along the way. So at work, what kind of feedback are you getting? Are people afraid of you? Are people kind to you? Do they like your ideas? Do they want to participate with you? Do they want to collaborate? You're looking for that kind of energy. And make it not about whether or not you're worth something, because you're worth an infinite amount. You're infinitely valuable all the time. So if. If you just remove that from the equation, what feedback are you getting? Like I said, I was so afraid of having that. You know, what. What is it called? The suggestion box. And. And it is. It's a difficult thing to open yourself up to suggestion. It's a difficult thing to be able to hear that and not crumble when you're feeling bad about yourself. So I wouldn't say, oh, no, I just totally go read my reviews on audible. No, I know that's actually going to probably. I don't know that. I don't know that I'm strong enough to actually do that, and here's why. I could read a hundred great reviews, but the one that sticks is the bad one. And in a hundred reviews, you're always going to have a bad one. And I don't see that as being valuable to the work I want to do, nor to my overall life. However, if I do see something and that's valuable feedback, even if it might be considered negative, it's like, how can I use that? How can I use that to make what I offer better or to be able to deliver something more valuable? And then I really do try as best to come from my true self. I try not to spend energy, time, and attention on what I think I should be. I try not to show up as who I think you want me to be. Instead, I invest in who I truly am and I try to be as real as possible. That's why you'll hear me make mistakes on here. You'll hear me not have perfect grammar. You'll hear me go, you know, I don't. I don't want to try to look better than I am. I. It didn't serve me, and it doesn't serve you. What I do want to do is not waste your time, give you something super valuable. And in return for your time, because I realize you just gave me 10 minutes of your life, I hope that you get something valuable in return. So what this has done is create the opposite of imposter syndrome. And I looked up antonyms to imposter and there wasn't any, which I think is interesting, except for honesty. So if an imposter or the imposter syndrome is someone who pretends to be someone else, the opposite would be a truth teller. And I would say in general, I do try to be a radical truth teller. I'm going to tell you the good. I'm going to tell you the good about me. I'm going to tell you the bad about me. I'm going to tell you what's great about a certain thing. I'm going to be able to hear what's not great about a certain thing. And so the opposite of imposter is real, genuine, truthful, authentic. So, tips for building self worth at work. Stop pretending. This is, number one, stop pretending and try to be as real as possible. Number two, instead of defaulting to insecurity, lean towards humility. Okay? They're actually really close to each other, but one feels terrible and one feels better. So humility means you're not worse and you're not better than someone else. You're just humble. Like, you have things to learn. You have things that you're great at. They have things they can teach you. They have things they can learn. So humility is that even playing field? 3. Instead of thinking you need to impress, serve. Instead of thinking that you need to be better than you are, just do the work. Just, you know, do the action of your work. Number four, more of you doesn't always mean better. So giving more attention, more time, more hustle, more stress, more worry doesn't mean it's going to be better. So be thoughtful with supply and demand of you. Okay? That what I mean by demand. Don't cheapen yourself by being too available, by giving too much of yourself to something or to someone or to some project. And be thoughtful about the supply and demand of yourself, because if you're not careful with the supply and demand, you can end up devaluing yourself. When there's too much of you and too little demand for you, your value goes down and so you kind of have to hold yourself back. All right, let me know how this works for you. Thanks for listening, you guys. If you find this helpful, please share with your friends. And if you'd like to know more about me, my courses, my books, or about privately coaching with me, please go to my website, meadowdivore.com.