Dr Claire Handby is an executive coach, Non-Executive Director, Visiting Professor at the University of Salford, and bestselling international author of Uptick: Clarity, Courage and Confidence for Your Next Chapter, published by Practical Inspiration Publishing which is out now, available in all formats from wherever you buy your books/audiobooks!
Over the years I’ve sat around the table with many capable women, often high performing and senior, where the same voice turns up, at different moments within every one of them.
It says you got lucky, that someone’s going to work out that you don’t really know what you’re doing, that you should sit back down before anyone notices. Imposter syndrome doesn’t care how qualified you are or how long you’ve been doing your career. It just gets louder the moment you try something new.
I know this because I’ve heard it myself. When I left a twenty-five year career which had been anchored in both construction and management consulting to build a portfolio career, that voice had plenty to say. It told me I wasn’t qualified, that people would see right through me, that whatever success came my way had really just been down to luck and good timing. It wasn’t right, but it was loud, and for a while I let it do the talking.
That’s the first thing worth understanding about the inner critic. It isn’t giving you accurate information. It’s a reaction to uncertainty, and it dresses that reaction up as fact, which is why so many talented women end up believing it.
Spot the voice for what it is
Start by separating what’s actually true from what’s just noise. When the critical voice pipes up, ask yourself a straightforward question: is this a fact, or a feeling wearing a fact’s clothes? “I haven’t done this exact role before” is a fact. “I’m not capable of doing this” is a feeling, and an unreliable one. It usually arrives right before something important, a big meeting, a new job starting, a pitch you’ve been asked to lead, because it’s reacting to stakes, not to your competence. Pulling those two things apart takes a lot of the power out of what the voice is saying.
Apply some logic to it
I’m a great believer in noticing and then interrogating the inner critic the way you’d interrogate a piece of evidence at work. If a colleague made the claims it makes about you, would you accept them without question, or ask for proof? Nine times out of ten, when women properly challenge the voice, they find it’s working from an old script. Something a teacher said years ago, repeated so often it started to sound like the truth.
A useful exercise is to write down what the voice is telling you, then write down the actual evidence for and against it. Not how you feel, the evidence. Most of the time the case falls apart under its own weight.
Another trick worth trying is giving the voice a name. Call it something a bit daft, Doubtful Deborah, Imposter Ian, whatever makes you smile rather than shrink. It sounds silly, but it puts a bit of distance between you and the thought. You don’t need to argue with it or talk yourself out of it. You just notice it, thank it for its concern, and keep going anyway.
Reframe what it’s telling you
Once you’ve separated fact from fiction, start reframing the story. When the voice says “I don’t know enough to start something new,” the reframe is that you’ve learned before and you can learn again, and you bring a wealth of experience that counts whether or not it comes with the right label. When it says “I’m not really qualified,” the reframe is that you don’t need to start at expert level, you just need to start, and keep going until you crack it. That shift, from feeling not good enough to thinking like a strategist, is where the confidence grows.
A five minute habit worth building
Something I share with the women I coach, and write about in my book Uptick, is a simple five minute journaling habit. At the end of the day, write down one thing you did well, one thing you learned, and one thing you want more of. Done consistently, it builds a running record of evidence against the inner critic. When the voice tells you that you’re not capable, you’ve got proof, in your own handwriting, that says otherwise.
Imposter syndrome doesn’t disappear because you’ve had a promotion or landed the new role. It fades because you get better at recognising it, questioning it, and refusing to hand it the final word. The women who make successful career changes aren’t the ones who never hear that voice. They’re the ones who’ve learned not to believe everything it says.
