40+FAB Blog

The counterfeit shift

Its hard enough to try and deal with what psychologists have termed the ‘imposter syndrome’ which reflects a belief that you’re an inadequate and incompetent failure despite evidence that indicates you’re skilled and quite successful.

Do you ever find yourself thinking, “Am I really good enough for this role?”, “Will they find out I am no good at this job?”, “Maybe I am a fraud and not well qualified to be doing this”, “All the success I have is down to luck and not any skill I applied”. All these questions are a classic case of self-doubt and the imposter syndrome.

Sometimes we doubt ourselves more than we should, however we become the real imposters when we are not properly instructed on how to do our jobs. This I must stress is not our own making as we see in the story of number 15 the tooth fairy. She was give two bags and a map and expected to find as many children’s teeth as she could during the night shift.

Number 15 obviously was not well instructed on the type of teeth to get because she ended up taking back old peoples false teeth to her boss who also never corrected her mistake but revelled in the great number of false teeth she had brought it. It looked like success, but really it was not.
You may have access to the right tools, but without the right instruction, it does not guarantee the right results.

You are not an imposter, but you must ask yourself, “Have I got the right tools and instruction to do what I am doing?” If the answer is no, then you must do all you can to learn and bring yourself up to speed. Also avoid hanging around those who expect you to perform, not caring how you are able to perform, they will drive you to become a worker on the counterfeit shift.

We will continue the lessons of tooth fairy number 15 in tomorrows blog.