The main challenge that the successful, talented women I work with face is they are amazing at what they do, they are considered an expert by their colleagues, their opinions are sought after, they are experienced, qualified, skilled, capable - but they do not feel it. Inside, they are feeling like a fraud, that it is by some luck, chance or odd twist of fate that they have achieved the success and position they have in their careers. I guess you are reading this because you are a successful, talented woman who is doubting her own awesomeness?

Somewhere along the way you have lost sight that it is your unique abilities, your individual strengths, and your personal attributes that have contributed to you being exactly where you should be in your careers. I believe in living a life with no regrets.  We all make the right decisions at a point in time based on the information or feelings we have - if we didn’t, we would have selected a different choice. This means wherever you are in your career is down to the decisions you have made and these were always the correct decisions at the time they were made. Reconnecting with why you made the decisions in the first place can help you appreciate the journey you are on and what gave you the initial fire in the belly to go for something.

It’s a bit unnerving at times to take full responsibility for your life. To take away the safety blanket of things happening to you, and accepting it is your own actions, choices and decisions that have led you to exactly where you are now - the career, qualifications, experience, thoughts swimming in your head. Accepting your place in the world, your thoughts, your emotions, everything, is totally down to you, can be quite scary, confusing and also hugely liberating. If you got yourself to here (and here is an amazing place to be, by the way!), you can also get yourself to over there, or back to there, or up to there - I think you get the idea! You can be the master of your own destiny.  

The risk is often we are so busy 'being' that we can’t take that step back and really decide what we want. We let the demon voices tell us we are no good, that we are a fraud and will shortly get found out, that we don’t really know what we are talking about. It is exhausting to spend so much energy worrying about things that, by the virtue of you being where you are, can simply not be true, rather than focusing on building on your strengths, or developing new skills to keep growing and developing - yet this is the state we choose to put ourselves in.

We can say it isn’t our fault. We could say we are conditioned to not have as much worth as men. History has belittled women, put us as ‘lesser’ beings. How do you feel reading this?  

I would argue that we can choose to feel differently about ourselves. If you were describing your best friend, what words would you use? How would they describe you? Would you ever consider using these words for yourself? If not, why not?  

Maybe the part that hasn’t been your fault is that you have not known how to change, or not been fully aware of your thoughts and feelings. That is maybe why you are here today, reading this, and realising that you want to spend your energy in taking your career forward, in excelling in what you do, rather than staying in a state of worried anxiety. You have the power to take charge and decide how you are going to feel and show up from now on.