Mastering the ICF Performance Evaluations: Conquering Self-Doubt | Susan's MCC Journey, Part 3

Hey everyone, Susan Britton with the Academies, and I am sharing an Encourage Your Brain as part of a series that I'm doing about the process that I went through to get my MCC credential, my Master Certified Coach credential. So as you— if you see some of the other videos about this, you'll know that the credentialing exam was kind of an interesting process for me. You'll know that it took me an entire 24 years to be able to actually finally get to this point, but the last 24 months of those 24 years was really an interesting journey. And I alluded to that I had some setbacks in the process, so I want to be able to share that as I was going for my MCC credential, one of the requirements is that you submit 2 audios that will be evaluated by an independent evaluator, and those 2 audios have to pass at very high levels for the Master Certified Coach minimum skills requirements. I knew that the first two videos that— or excuse me, the audios that I sent in— I knew that one was pretty much a done deal that it would pass, and I knew the other one was not necessarily going to pass, but I wanted to get into the queue because it did take some time to— once you got into the queue to have everything set up. And then if you didn't pass one of those audios, that then you could resubmit an audio, but it would take much less time to get it forward because you're now in, in the system. So I wasn't surprised when I heard about 8 months after first submitting that one audio had passed and one had not. So I thought, no problem, I'll just keep recording and keep working at it and keep getting feedback from my mentors, and I'll go ahead and submit another audio. And so lo and behold, I submitted a second audio thinking this would be it because mentors listened to it, I listened to it, I thought that it would be something that would pass. And about 6 weeks later, I got an email saying that it didn't pass. And that was probably the lowest point for me in the whole MCC journey because I thought, oh my gosh, I thought it was going to pass. Other people thought it was going to pass. And yet it didn't. And then I learned that, you know, that's not that unusual. I found a number of other colleagues who had similar experiences. I will say though that at that point I probably got a little bit of imposter syndrome concerns and thought, "Gosh, will I ever do this? Is this going to work?" I really started counting the cost of the time that it was taking to do the extra recordings and evaluate them and get feedback on them. It is no small process, so my hat's off to every one of you who are working on getting good audios for performance evaluations. So dealt with some imposter syndrome, went back to my tribe, my community, the people that really supported me in the process. And if it had not been for those people, it would have been pretty hard to keep going. Finally submitted another audio, and that one came back as a go and, and got the pass. So if you can relate to this story of feeling like there's some setbacks in your ICF credentialing exam journey— well, not just the exam, but your whole ICF credentialing journey. Know that you're not alone. If you want to reach out to me and just be able to get some insight or insights or ideas or commiserate or share stories or whatever it might be, I'm, I'm available for that. You can find me on LinkedIn or at theacademies.com. And just recognizing that it is a journey, so my heart is with you, my mind is with you. If you're looking to get that next level credential, keep going. Surround yourself with the people the people that matter. Remember why you're doing it, and even when you feel like you're stepping back, there's always the next right step that you can take. And sometimes that next right step is just to pause for a bit and let yourself sort of recollect yourself and then figure out what the next right step is. So, with you on the journey.