The Therapy Edit - Confessions - I self sabotage my career

Episode Date: November 15, 2024

Today Anna tackles a new anonymous Confession from the Therapy Room;"I keep self sabotaging my career as I'm so worried I'm going to fail. I play out worst case scenarios all the time and talk myself out of putting myself forward for promotions or new projects. How do I learn to have faith in myself?"Anna replies with some compassionate advice and tips that will help everyone, regardless of whether they can relate to this confession or not.Do you have an Ask Anna question you'd like to submit for future episodes? Or an anonymous confession? Visit the website to learn how Please note - the names and voices of some of the Ask Anna/Confessions contributors may have been changed at their request.

Welcome to The Therapy Edit. I'm your host, psychotherapist and author Anna Martha. I will be bringing you bite-sized episodes twice a week full of tips, wise words from expert guests and insights to support your mental well-being. Hi and welcome back to the Therapy Edit Confessions from the Therapy Room, where I read out one of your anonymous confessions from my therapy chair. This is actually my therapy chair that I'm sitting in right now. And the confession that I am reading out today came anonymously and it's all about self-sabotage and maybe a little bit of imposter syndrome as well in there. So we're going to talk about that and worry about failure because success is so applauded in our society when in truth there are so many failures that go on in the background of the success stories that

we see. And as often the way is, we tend to see those success stories. And actually what it does, it just emphasizes feelings and fear of failure when we think everyone else is just winning around us and we feel like we're winging it. And we can feel fearful of failure. So the confession is this. I keep self-sabotaging my career as I'm so worried I'm going to fail. I play out worst case scenarios all the time and talk myself out of putting myself forward for promotions or new projects. How do I learn to have faith in myself? So we've got confidence, we've got a bit of imposter syndrome here, maybe fear of failure

and self-sabotage, the actual, the act of preventing ourselves from experiencing good things. Actually, the things that we would love to experience, the literal prohibitive. and restricting of ourselves for being able to go for the things that may well bring us joy. So let's find some compassion for this confession. Now, it can feel really painful to fail. And if you have, and if this listener has had an experience of failure, perhaps in which they felt ridiculed, or maybe being bullied, maybe it's been quite public, maybe the emphasis in childhood was placed on success and maybe you felt if you were to fail, you were made to feel perhaps that

you weren't good enough. Maybe you were criticised. So there are so many reasons why failure can carry with it a lot of varying emotions and it can feel really risky because actually if to fail means that you potentially might be rejected. And maybe you've got that inner child inside of you going, I can't get it wrong. I'm going to get told off because sometimes failure and when things go wrong, you know, we can find ourselves feeling really young. You know what I mean? That young partnerness that just wants to go, I should never try anything again. Why did I even bother? You know, I'm, I'm just destined to fail. Maybe you've actually heard those words spoken to you before. So what do you do? You know, I write in my book The Uncomfortable Truth. In fact,

there's a whole chapter and it's called I Will Fail, like we will fail. Actually, the more fully, we want to live. The more authentically we live, the more proactively we allow ourselves and value ourselves enough to reach for the things that make us excited, to reach for the things that might give us more opportunities and adventure. Actually, the more, the more we will fail. You know, the people that have failed most in life don't tend to be the ones that are the failures by the world standards, they tend to be the ones that are actually the most successful because they've tried and they've put themselves out there and they've put sometimes what can feel their egos on the line. Because really isn't that what we're doing? We're putting our

sense of self on the line when we set, when we do something that actually can risk failure. And if our sense of self, it's actually this is what this listener is saying is how do I have faith in myself. If our sense of self is intertwined with feeling like, actually, if I fail, I am a failure. This is the risk, isn't it? If we fail and we feel like we in and all of ourselves are a failure, of course, we're not going to want to try because actually to feel shamed. And the difference is, you know, to fail, that's just subjective. You know, You know, sometimes you fail and other people actually think you've smashed it. Sometimes, factually, you have failed at something.

But neither of those scenarios mean that the entirety of who you are is a failure. So if you are doing something and failing and feeling like you as a person are a failure, you know, a really helpful tip is when you fail, think, how can I actually just make this about a small part of who I am, not the entirety of who I am? And that might look like me saying, oh, oh, that didn't go so well, did it? That didn't go as I intended, kind of fluffed that up. That makes it about the situation. It makes it about the attempt.

It's a failed attempt, perhaps. It takes the onus of me in and of myself being the failure and then inviting self-criticism and shame. So really recognize what does failure mean to you? What does it say about you? What has it meant to you? Maybe in childhood. Maybe there are personal moments in life where you failed. And people responded in a way that hurt you.

Or maybe you responded in a way that hurt you. So what does failure mean to you? And when you recognise that you're self-sabotaging something, you know, not going forward for promotions or new projects, then you're thinking, I'm not going to do that. I don't want to risk failing. You know, you're failing anyway. You know, you're 100% failing if you're not putting yourself forward for a promotion.

You have not got the promotion. You've 100% failed at getting that promotion. At least if you put yourself forward for the promotion, you'll likely learn something even if you don't get the promotion, even if you fail to get the promotion in that instance. It doesn't mean that you are a failure. There might be really helpful feedback. you know, there might be really helpful feedback when you say, you know, I'd really like to be

involved in that new project. And they say, you know what? We'd love to have you. But actually, we feel like you need a little bit more experience in this area. How can we, you know, and you're like, okay, well, how can I, what can I do for that? And there is learning to be found in failure. And actually, there have been times in my work over the years where I have failed, like something I've done has really failed. And actually, when I look back, that tends to be when I've learned the most. And it does tend to be from the failures that we learn. And it might be that you never feel comfortable putting yourself forward for promotions or new projects. And I think sometimes what we do is we wait to feel like we have faith in ourselves, to feel confident to do that

when actually we might be waiting around forever because if we wait to feel confident enough to do something, that confidence might never come. It's actually in doing these things. It's in, it's in trying and failing and trying again that we grow in confidence and we start chipping away at that narrative of I'm a failure. I always fail. So you're challenging that narrative in the very, very doing. The more we try and put ourselves out there, the more that we will fail. But the more opportunities to experience growth, success, adventure. You know, I've got a friend that's dating at the minute, online dating. and you know it's hard it's hard for her it's it's not I'm glad I'm not doing that right now

it just it's a whole it's a whole other ballgame to how it was um in 19 you know in 2000 I can't remember what year it was 2004 where you know you'd have a couple of whatever it was back then vk cherries smyrn off ice is and you just go and talk to someone and you know it was it was different anyway if a date doesn't go so well if she used to say oh I shouldn't do this. I'm a failure. I'm risking it not going well. She just would never go on any dates. And I've got so many friends that really like have met amazing people for going on dates and some of them failing. And actually if we again, if we take that as a statement of who we are, then of course we're not going to want to try again. If we bully ourselves, maybe we've

been bullied. But often we internalize that and maybe the bully or the critical teacher or the harsh parent they're no longer kind of in your face anymore but you've internalized it and instead of that coach that goes you know what give it a shot give that promotion a shot it could it could work out for you and if not you'll learn something come on it's okay it's okay if you fail if it fails it's okay you know instead of that often internal dialogue of like i've got to get this right i've got to get this right if i don't then what does that say about me what does that say about me So coach yourself through the trying in that more nurturing, cheerleading kind of coach rather than that critical teacher or whoever comes to mind.

And the other thing I want to touch on just before I love you and leave you is imposter syndrome because often there can be that element of, you know, do I deserve to be here? I'm constantly having to try and prove that I deserve to be here. And that sense that you are an imposter in your job or friendship or any other position in your life. An imposter syndrome can really stop us from pushing forward. It can really stop us from reaching stuff because we don't actually feel like we really embody the level of success or where we're at in life. We feel like we're about to get caught out. So of course it's going to be harder to kind of push for more, be it a promotion or experiencing kind of new responsibility at work or

whatever that might be when actually we already feel like we're waiting to be caught out where we are. So what I would say to you is recognize that there are so many different parts of you and they can often conflict with each other like for example i can go on a stage in front of hundreds of people and feel so confident in giving a corporate talk but the small talk and the you know the mingling before and after just fills me with anxiety and a sense of awkwardness and i can do it but i feel like a you know, and I can question, am I an imposter standing up there delivering a talk? Am I an imposter? They're just going to find out that I'm actually just slightly socially awkward and then, you know, just think, who are you to be doing that? And I used to think that, but actually,

you know, we are so many different parts. I can be the confident, confident speaker and the girl that feels sometimes awkward and socially, yeah, just finds it hard doing all the mingling with people that I don't know. I can be confident and I can be shy. I can be fun and I can want to seek solitude and all of those things about you are true because you are doing it. You wouldn't have been able to fake it this far. The thing is we just see all those different facets of ourselves and when they're conflicting we feel that actually maybe the one devalues the other or that maybe it negates the other one. Actually in truth you are just a mission. of different roles and responsibilities and capabilities and weaknesses and strengths and

learning and that is just the very nature of feeling human. You are where you are because someone deemed it appropriate for you to be there and you are clearly doing a job and a role that you are able to do. So if you feel like an imposter, it is normally because you are seeing that competent bit of you alongside the messy chaotic secret bits that those people don't see and you're thinking if you knew about that part of me you wouldn't maybe want me to be doing this when in truth we're all like that we're all a little bit fractured and we have different hats and we can be the person curled up on the sofa wanting to retreat whilst also having big responsibilities and being the grown up and that is completely natural and normal so find

confidence in that as well so I hope that's helpful lots of different thoughts and tips there for our kind of, yeah, our anonymous confession about self-sabotage. You know, yeah, you might fail. But if you don't try, you definitely will. But if you do try, yeah, you might fail, but you might learn something. Or you might not fail. And imagine what that might be like. Anyway, I'll speak to your scene.

Bye. Thank you for listening to The Therapy Edit today. If you enjoyed it, please do you take a sec to like and subscribe. so we can share the words further and wider. If you have an Ask Anna question or an anonymous confession for the Confessions from the Therapy Room episodes, head to anamatha.com and click on the podcast tab to submit. Want more? Grab a copy of my most recent book, The Uncomfortable Truth, change your life by taming

10 of your mind's greatest fears or enjoy some of the video and downloadable resources on my website, tackling everything from burnout to driving anxiety. So until the next episode, goodbye. Thank you.