“Please don’t call my name” I thought to myself, doing everything I could to avoid making eye contact with my coach, desperately hoping that she forgot that I was even there. I was on the top girls’ basketball team but was the weakest link and I knew that everyone knew it. As soon as I hit the court, I screwed up in just about any way possible. Its likely I made one basket the whole season and that was probably in the opposition’s basket. 

  

I had trialled well which is why I was on the team. I could shoot, pass, and dribble and I was tall for my age. I had all the skills a basketball player needed. For some reason though, as soon as it was game time – those skills went out the window and I lost the ability to play.

Fast forward 30 years and there are times that I still feel like that 12-year-old on the basketball court.  I have all the skills I need to do this business. I am ready for this. But when it comes to game time, its easy to doubt myself and whether I even have a right to be playing the game. Does this sound familiar to you? It’s called imposter syndrome and I’ve come to learn that many people struggle with this at some point – in fact up to 82% of people at some point feel like a fraud.

The reality is that it is normal to feel like this when you are doing something new. Let’s face it, we all must start somewhere but a perceived lack of experience and the desire to achieve can leave us feeling inadequate or not good enough.   While it can be a normal feeling, the challenge with imposter syndrome is that if unchecked, it can affect our ability to push past that uncomfortable feeling of self-doubt and fear of failure and move towards growth as an individual both professionally and personally. 

I wish I could tell you that I pushed past those feelings and my basketball career took off at the age of 12. Sadly though, I talked to my coach and asked to be relegated to a lower team and eventually I stopped playing basketball. Now, as those familiar feelings emerge, it can be easy to give up and go back to where I was.  Go back to what was comfortable. I’m not that 12-year-old anymore and I am determined to shut out that internal noise, make a point to focus on the positive, let go of the uncontrollable and get used to that terrible uncomfortable feeling every time I do something new (which seems to be a regular occurrence lately!). 

If you are in a similar stage, don’t give up!  Let go of your need to be perfect and go easy on yourself. Most of all, don’t be afraid to share your feelings with those around you – you may be surprised to find that you are not alone.