Welcome to another Ask Katrina!
Today’s question is:
“Hey Katrina, why do I not feel worthy of this new position in my career? Why do I feel unworthy?”
That’s just like a punch in the gut, isn’t it? The reason you feel that pain, when you hear me state that question, is because, at some point, we have all felt that way.
The most critical emotional point in our lives as humans is that we absolutely want to be worthy.
When we feel like we’re not worthy, then we feel like we’re not capable of successfully performing the job.
Then we worry about our performance.
When we start to worry about our performance, 1,000 things happen.
It’s a snowball effect, resulting from our personal psychology of feeling unworthy.
The Link Between “Unworthy” and “Not Ready”
The unworthiness typically comes from the concept or the idea that we’re not what in our careers?
We’re not ready.
We’re not ready to step into the new executive role we were recently promoted into.
Know this, not only have I seen this play out time and time again in other amazing women’s careers, I felt this way in my first executive promotion!
I can tell you that throughout my 15-year corporate career and between the two companies that I was an executive in, I personally interviewed for three total positions.
I held 9 different positions in my career and I formally interviewed for 3 of them.
You can see that a third of the time I probably thought I was ready because I actually raised my hand and asked to be considered for the role.
The other two-thirds of the time, I didn’t think I was ready.
They came and tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Hey, Katrina, this is yours. Go do it. You’re kicking butt, you got this!”
Was I going to say, “No, thanks?” Absolutely not.
If we don’t step forward and say we’re ready when other people around us see our abilities and our performance (a greatness that we have not yet personally seen or acknowledged), then we can easily feel that we’re unworthy of that promotion.
Because in our minds, unworthy, and not ready are equal.
So to fix the feeling of unworthiness, the first step we must take is breaking that link between unworthy vs. not ready.
Who’s really ever ready?
If you’re 100% ready then know that the position you’re stepping into is already beneath you.
Did you get that?
I know that sounds crazy, but I promise you it’s true.
Every position that you need to step into from this point forward in your career should be designed to intentionally grow you.
I know too many women that I work with, that I’m friends with, and honestly a woman that I personally used to be, that just keep climbing without clear intentions of what they/I wanted to learn or grow into.
For me, I just wanted to land in a certain role in the organization that I associated with personal freedom.
That’s what I was striving for. That’s what a lot of us are striving for. So there’s no other intentionality to our career path other than landing in that final position.
But there has to be more than that.
We must be clear as to how we want to grow and what we want to do, achieve, serve, and accomplish in the roles that we’re stepping into.
That will help us ensure that we’re stepping into the next position that maybe we don’t feel fully ready for but we know that it’s going to give us the tools and the experiences and the development that we’re looking for so that we can serve the next level.
So instead of saying, “I’m not worthy, because I’m not ready,” ask yourself, “Is this role going to serve me?”
Because if you’re fully ready for the role, chances are it’s not going to serve you.
You already know all the things you need to know. You’re just ready to knock it out of the park, you’re ready to hit that home run. While it’s nice to hit the home run and be a huge success with minimal effort, there is no personal reward in that. So don’t play it safe, focus on your growth.
Let’s recap these steps quickly:
- Unlink unworthy from not ready. They are not the same concepts and one doesn’t result in the other.
- Then when you think about the concept of “not being ready,” I want you to realize that you’re never going to fully be ready and that’s okay. Because if you are fully ready, it’s not the job for you. Embrace the fact that you don’t feel 100% ready because that means you’re going to learn. Learning means you’re going to grow. Growth means you’re stepping into the next iteration of yourself.
You’re worthy. You earned it. You’ve worked your butt off to get to where you are today you are beyond worthy of the role.
Take that out of your brain! You are worthy.
You may think you’re not ready, but when you change the concept from “not being ready” to “ready to grow” the world will open up for you!
If you’re ready to learn how to unlink unworthy and “not ready” or train your brain to focus on executive growth instead of feeling like you must already have it all figured out, schedule a call with the Legend Leaders team today and let us help! Schedule HERE.