Footnotes Not Failures – Transforming Shame Into Confidence
- Sep 26, 2024
- 6 min read
Updated: Sep 27, 2024
Kirsten brings a wealth of leadership experience from both the for-profit and non-profit sectors. With a diverse background, in addition to her corporate roles, she has successfully owned and operated brick-and-mortar establishments and online ventures, demonstrating her adeptness at navigating challenges across various business landscapes throughout her career.
While preparation and practice are essential, the trifecta is only complete when confidence is present and accounted for. The inevitable truth that confidence comes from within makes it elusive.
You are in front of your screen at your post, a remote worker for many years. There are meetings, emails, projects, tasks, the usual suspects. And then, you receive a call that someone is needed for a live radio interview. There is a story in the news about a new standard of health care. It could be considered controversial, and the organization for which you work is the most likely authority to speak on it. You are not a clinician; you are an administrator. Typically, this type of interview would be left to a clinician, but the marketing team tells you that no one is available. It needs to be you. It will occur in less than two hours, is in-person, and requires you to prepare factual information about the topic and prepare yourself from your WFH state to a presentable public image.
You arrive on time after parking some distance away and struggling to find the building in a relatively unfamiliar area of the city. You wait briefly in the lobby, are called back into the studio, and are given quick instructions by the host about how the interview will be conducted. Then, you are on air. You have a lot of practice speaking in public. Given the short notice, you’re not as prepared as you would like, but you’ve prepared as best you could. The sneaky little confidence-killer that lurks is that nagging inner voice that tells you it has to be perfect. The voice that catastrophizes a mistake, marking it as a source of shame and humiliation before it has even occurred.
As you near the end of the interview, relief begins to percolate. It has gone well. Your brief preparation and years of public speaking have carried you through. Then, in the final moment, the host chooses a slightly adjacent topic and asks a question that calls for a specific answer. One you had not researched that morning and that had shifted in the last several years, leaving you unsure of the correct answer. You freeze. The nagging inner critic punches you in the throat and leaves you voiceless. After a pause, you silently tell the host that you ‘don’t know.’ The air is dead. The host recovers it by acknowledging that you’re not sure, and you provide a resource for listeners to find that information if they are interested in it. Once off air, you comment that you didn’t know he was going to ask that, and he states he didn’t know he was going to ask that either. You are glaring at each other, and a cloud of blame and. disappointment swirls like the one that follows Pigpen of Peanuts fame
Your inner critic cannot allow you to feel anything but failure. You burn with shame and embarrassment. How dare you not know something?! You tell no one about the interview and hope it fades into the past. You carry it, though, like a pebble in your shoe. You think of the response you wish you had given. You tell yourself that you would not feel like this if you just said that. But this is unknowable, unhelpful conjecture fueled by the critic. Considering the ferocious nature of your perfectionism, it likely would have haunted you in equal measure.
Some weeks later, you are sitting in a familiar room. You are waiting for your medical oncologist. He has been caring for you post-treatment for Stage IIIB anal cancer and is the only one apart from you that has any idea what you have endured, your resilience, and your dogged pursuit of a healthy body. He enters the room as usual, dressed in a crisp shirt and tie, always calm, never rushed, in good humor, and a scientist. He says, “I heard you on the radio!” You are surprised, and the little demon pops up and starts to stink-talk you, but you quiet it. He is proud of you. He is proud of you in the way your dad would be if your dad were still alive. He is delighted that you have survived and are contributing something worthwhile. You like each other. You chat about the content of the interview. You learn that it was replayed during evening drive time. You resist the urge to wonder if they have edited your failure and erased your shame.
True confidence shows up in the clutch. When you are outside of what you have prepared for and practiced, the belief that it comes from mastery of a specific skill or topic is a common misconception. While preparation and practice are essential, the trifecta is only complete when confidence is present and accounted for. The inevitable truth that confidence comes from within makes it elusive.
A decade later, and free from the demon of perfectionism, you cultivate confidence in the following ways:
You are where you put your attention. If you attend to your anxiety, fear of judgment, or self-consciousness, you will feel anxious, fearful, judged, and self-conscious. Instead, pay attention to what you are doing, choosing an outfit, driving, following your GPS, singing along to the radio, paying for parking, walking to the building, taking in the lobby, enjoying being in the studio, and being interested in a new experience. This keeps your mind and body engaged in what is real. Not in the catastrophic notion of an unknown future outcome.
Refrain from labeling experiences as positive or negative. Due to a lack of confidence and overwhelming perfectionism, there was no chance of having a relaxed, enjoyable experience. It was set up to be fraught and stressful. Instead, report it like a journalist. If you had the confidence then that you do now, not knowing the answer to the last question would be a footnote or perhaps not even worthy of mention. It sounds like this: You gave a last-minute interview. You answered all the questions informatively except the last one, which you weren’t sure about. That’s it.
Don’t carry a pebble of punishment in your shoe. You blamed the host, you blamed yourself, you drew no pleasure from the experience and shared it willingly with no one. Instead, forgive yourself immediately. Confidence will never be gained through resentment, punishment, and self-recrimination. It cannot grow in this love desert. As you forgive yourself for all perceived transgressions in real-time, you will slowly but surely find nothing left to forgive. You will accept yourself and your circumstances and show compassion when you stub your toe.
Avoid reliving an experience and creating challenging personal narratives and undesirable emotions. It will not teach you a future lesson and only fuel fear. Fear, in this context, is the enemy of confidence. Instead, move on. It is a grain of sand on the vast beach of your existence. It blends with all the other grains and becomes one; the ebbing tide eventually washes away your footprints. Making it into Haystack Rock, a monument to your kerfuffle, will cast a shadow of doubt over your future endeavors, and no confidence can grow without the sunlight of self-acceptance.
Visit GTO Coaching for Humans to learn more about Confidence Coaching, Executive Coaching, and Cultivating Unconditional Self-Acceptance.
Read more from Kirsten Johansen
Kirsten Johansen, Executive Coach, Writer and Host
Kirsten brings a wealth of leadership experience from both the for-profit and non-profit sectors. With a diverse background, in addition to her corporate roles, she has successfully owned and operated brick-and-mortar establishments and online ventures, demonstrating her adeptness at navigating challenges across various business landscapes throughout her career. Her international experiences, particularly spending half her time in Malta among a multicultural community, have fueled her passion for languages. Currently studying Turkish, German, and Maltese, Kirsten aims to achieve conversational fluency in all three languages. Her love for travel has led her to explore numerous destinations across the United States, Asia, Canada, Central America, Mexico, South America, Africa, Europe, and Oceania.
