11. The good antifragile imposter: insights on our deepest fears
The Rewired for Good podcast | Episode 11 | 12 December 2024
Notes
This episode dives into four key insights drawn from the unique challenges and triumphs of humanitarian work. From balancing personal well-being with professional impact, harnessing your inner superpowers to thrive in chaos, navigating workplace conflict with grace, and battling imposter syndrome—this episode offers actionable thoughts and reframes for aid workers striving to excel in their careers and not lose themselves in the process.
Join us as we explore strategies to reclaim your rest, apply your crisis-handling skills to everyday life, and redefine self-doubt as a stepping stone. Perfect for those ready to realign their values and take 2025 by storm.
Transcript
Alright, alright, alright, here we go! Just a few days until the end of the year. I hope everyone is coping okay. I know these weeks tend to be intense for everyone. Whether you're wrapping up your budgets or planning for the next calendar year, monitoring, evaluating all around, planning your vacation or your R&R, with all this family time coming up, maybe you're excited, maybe you're dreading, maybe a mix of both.
At any rate, it's crazy times all over. I know that. I have no doubt about that.
And I feel all the more gratitude for all of you listening to this. I know you value your time. I'm so happy you choose to invest some of it into listening to something that can help you realign your values, shift your perspectives, seek, you know, different ways to take care both of your work and of yourself at the same time.
The podcast, ladies and gentlemen, is being listened to in 82 locations as of today. I find that to be such a trip. Hello everyone in Colombia, in Mali, in Palestine, in Lebanon, in the democratic Republic of the Congo, South Sudan, Jordan, Senegal, Germany, Switzerland, the US, I see you all. It's an honor to serve you as we all try to navigate the complexities of the humanitarian sector, trying to handle the hurdles of career, love life, family life, office life…
I started working in this sector nearly 12 years ago and I gotta tell you, I am in love, absolutely in love with the exceptional human beings that make up this little world of ours. There's a willingness to be brave, to be selfless, to carry on no matter what that I find to be unmatched. So much to admire, so much to honor. And at the same time, there's a little bit of healing to do, a little bit of tweaking to make sure that we don't get lost in the rubble of the multiple chaoses that we face and that we don't end up deprioritizing our lives for our jobs.
The aid workers I meet come to me with all their vulnerability and their internal conflicts. And we try to sort through a lot of entangled chains of thoughts and feelings, wanted and unwanted results. And I really felt the need to do an episode that sort of pays tribute to this difficult work of self-reflection and self-improvement to summarize some key insights and trends that I've picked up over the years and offer some reflections that I hope you will find valuable in your own way.
I chose four, I could have chosen four million. I kid you not, it took a whole lot of discipline to narrow it down. You know my commitment to keeping these episodes short and sweet. And so without further ado, here goes number one.
Putting our personal life on the back burner doesn't make anyone a better aid worker on the contrary. I know this sounds like such a cliche, but this continues to be a prevailing view among many, many of us. And many of us are not conscious of the fact that we kind of think that we need to sacrifice, that we need to overwork, that we need to put ourselves on the side so the work can get done.
And so we end up not making time to call the people we love and we put off making that doctor's appointment. And we can't be bothered to put our finances in order. And we don't sleep enough so we can finish that report. And we skip the workout to answer a few more emails.
This is me sounding the alarm for you. Take care, friend. It is good for you. It is good for your mission. It is good all around. I see it every day with the aid workers that I coach and my close friends, those who make conscious decisions to take care of their mental, physical, spiritual well-being are people that I've seen thrive a lot professionally. They're particularly fulfilled by their jobs, they have overall better working relationships, which facilitates their work, of course, they meet their goals more easily with less pain less burnout. They tend to be more focused. They have a ton of impact through their work as a result. They're respected in their specialty, precisely because they develop life-work boundaries, not in spite of it. They take the time to gain clarity before making moves. They plan appropriately. They listen to themselves and they give just the right amount of importance to other people's opinions.
So that's the first insight from my front row seat. Not only is there no contradiction between your personal wellbeing and your ability to deliver at work, one actually facilitates the other. And if you neglect your personal life, your work will naturally more often than not suffer sooner or later. Period.
I know you may be thinking right now, what is she talking about? Of course I know that, but do you, do you really, are you living that way? Are you prioritizing that way? So for example, one of the concrete little ways to do this, especially if you're on the front lines, is that whenever you do your daily, weekly, or monthly planning, first and foremost block the rest and the fun time on your calendar. Because if you don't, it will get eaten up with meetings and it will get eaten up with going through your inbox and other work related things.
So we're about to start a new year. And my invitation is that you decide consciously ahead of time, what you would like your rest and your fun time to look like in 2025, right? Is it 10 minutes of stretching every morning? Is it closing the laptop at 7 PM as a hard limit? Is it making sure that every Saturday morning you host a cooking extravaganza with friends? Is it that you commit to calling your best friend every Thursday evening? Is it that you take a proper 30-minute or one-hour lunch break every day, instead of eating in front of your screen or skipping lunch altogether?
You get to decide what it looks like for you, but decide and block and make a commitment to yourself to make those slots non-negotiables.
The second thing that I've observed through the years of humanitarian work and coaching aid workers is that aid workers have an extraordinary comparative advantage over other common mortals. It's called anti-fragility. And if we were to apply it to every area of our lives, there's just nothing, nothing that we wouldn't be able to create.
Anti-fragility is the ability to adapt and thrive in the toughest circumstances. Not to be confused with resilience, right? Anti-fragility is a physics, engineering, architecture term that means that not only do we not break in tough environments, a lot of us actually do some of our best work and can be the best versions of ourselves in chaos and disorder and while facing constant variability.
Bring on the overwhelming, unsolvable, unsurmountable crisis. We are there, being brave, steady-handed, strategizing, thinking clearly, ready to go.
Now, the flip side of this is that some of us, when we are not in those tough contexts, are kind of the exact opposite, right? Out of exhaustion, out of the need to not control everything for a minute, to not be strong for a second, we sometimes allow ourselves to get overwhelmed with what could be considered smaller, you know, regular life challenges, like de-cluttering a closet or making a doctor's appointment or handling a tough conversation with someone we love.
So for example, one of my coachees is a total magnificent powerhouse when it comes to look at a very complex issue, like health system strengthening in Africa, which, you know, is not a small thing, but nothing can and nothing will stop her on this. But then when it comes to dating, she's easily overwhelmed asking questions like how am I even supposed to meet guys? How do I know which dating app to choose? Questions that, you know, compared to the level of difficulty she handles on a daily basis at work, are really not that difficult to answer, right, or to overcome.
I have another coachee who is, by all accounts, and I've witnessed it myself because I worked in the same response as her, is one of the best NGO forum coordinators and managers you'll find across the board. But then she's been wanting to invest her savings in a home base, purchase a property, something that a lot of people across the world do quite easily on a daily basis. But she's been putting it off again and again, coming up with a lot of questions and doubts that are not nothing. But compared to the level of complexity that she handles on a daily basis at work, are nowhere near as complex.
So together we've been working on applying every anti-fragility reflex that they have in their toolbox for the work realm, skills that they already have professionally, to their personal lives. It's the same problem-solving, pragmatic, flexible, anti-fragile muscle that humanitarians have widely that just needs to be activated in other areas, and then they get to become unstoppable.
So my invitation here for you is to look at where and how you have this anti-fragility property and how you can translate those skills to the areas of your life where you feel a bit more stuck and overwhelmed.
Insight number three is about conflict at the office. This is what I want to tell you: It may take two people to have an amazing working relationship, but it only takes one to not have a horrible relationship. I'm going to repeat that. It may take two people to have an amazing working relationship. You can't do it alone, but it only takes one to not have a horrible relationship. You can definitely create that on your own.
Here's what I mean: whoever is ruining your life at the office, you don't need them to do anything differently to make them stop ruining your life. It's up to you and you alone to not let them affect you emotionally, to establish boundaries, to teach people how you should be treated. And if you don't know how to do that, reach out, I'll be super happy to help.
And my biggest insight from watching my coachees navigate office conflicts like buddhas through the principles that I share with them is this: Whomever you have a conflict with is convinced they're doing the right thing. If you want to feel better, start there. Start by understanding what this right thing is for them and approach the problem from that angle. No one, not even the biggest monsters on the planet, goes to bed thinking that they're the bad guy.
And in this sector, since we often have to work, live, eat, sleep, relax with the same people whether we like them or not, the best way forward to keep your sanity remains to avoid escalating conflicts as much as possible and look for the reasons why people are behaving the way they do rather than just assume that they're just horrible people.
You cannot count on others being willing to understand you, so that's why my invitation instead is that you try to understand them. I know it's unfair. But the return on investment is so, so worth it for you, no matter what the other person is doing or saying. I'm talking here, of course, about the more generic, non-HRable offenses here, right, not violence or harassment, you can create for yourself a less painful experience of that relationship without them changing their behavior.
It's about you setting and upholding boundaries for you. And it's about creating in your head, some form of clarity and understanding on why the other person is behaving the way they are. Episode four of this podcast offers some insights on how to handle office jerks. Give it a listen, if this is something that you're struggling with and don't hesitate to reach out if you have questions.
The fourth and final insight I have for you today may be something that you think you know, but you don't fully believe. It's this: No one knows what they're doing and it doesn't have to be a problem. Those who look like they know the most are those who actually know the least and have the biggest amount of insecurities.
Again, for the longest time, I've been the person that people call it 2 a.m. because they're having a mental or emotional freak out. I'm someone people tend to confide in and coaching sessions are of course held to a confidentiality agreement. So let's just say that people talk to me quite uncensored, dropping their pretend masks, and I can assure you I have coached humanitarian veterans and newbies, senior and entry level, HQ and hardcore bush, dudes, dudettes, non binary, all cultures, all socioeconomic backgrounds, sporty people, creative people, hippie, uptight, organized, chaotic, you name it.
No one actually deeply truly thinks they've got it figured out. No one.
So this is my message to you today. If you also feel like a total imposter, insufficient, loser at times, welcome to being 100% normal.
My invitation is for you to stop fighting that feeling, or at least not necessarily start by fighting it. I think given the size of the horrors and challenges that we face in this sector involving governments, armed groups, extreme weather catastrophes, complete destruction and loss, wars without end, huge amounts of suffering, huge amounts of money needed to make any sort of difference, disrupted supply chains, incredibly complex coordination mechanisms, it would be slightly foolish and naive for anyone to approach any of this with complete confidence that we have it figured out and that we know what we're doing.
What I want to offer instead is that you have the ability in you to eventually figure it out. It's a very subtle shift in thinking, but that subtle shift can be the difference between you freezing in complete self-doubt, and rolling up your sleeves to become relentless at finding the answers you need to find. It's the difference between collapsing and overwhelm and panic when the first thing goes wrong and realizing of course that some things are bound to not go well immediately and with unyielding determination, try something else and try something else and try something else because you do have that deep belief in you, not that you know everything already, but that you will figure it out for sure.
So this is for all of you who are struggling with imposter syndrome on the regular, or who have lost your self-confidence because of an office bully, because of a permanently discontent, overly critical supervisor or co-lead, or because you screwed up once or twice, or even because you got fired one time, or because you can't seem to land a good contract. We're all struggling to feel like we know what we're doing. Some of us are just better at hiding it than others.
I'll do a full episode on imposter syndrome because it is so widespread in the humanitarian sector, but for now, that's what I want to leave you with. When you feel a wave of self-doubt or defeat washing over you, the best you can do to get unstuck is acknowledge that there are things you can't control and things you don't know. Because how the hell could you possibly know it all or control it all, right? And then stop focusing on what you don't know and can't control. Stop focusing on your gaps and start giving some serious, intentional airtime in your brain to all the stuff that you do know and that you can control to all the experience that you do have and all the actions that you can take.
And one of my favorite questions here is "what is my next best move"? A lot of times when we get lost in self-doubt, imposter syndrome or overwhelm, it's because we want to see the whole stairwell and the landing. But all you need right now to get moving forward is to realize that you're not the only one operating in semi-darkness and then be willing to take the one single next best step. The worst you can do is let the imposter syndrome or the self-doubt make you freeze in place and stand still because then you don't unlock any new experience, any new visibility. You don't learn, you don't move. And you keep creating evidence for yourself that you don't know what you're doing.
So go, one step at a time, keep calm. And if you screw up, learn and carry on and keep this in mind. We're all struggling to feel like we know what we're doing.
So those are the four insights I want to offer you this week.
I really hope it helps you.
There are three little weeks left in the year. Make them count by giving yourself the time and attention that you need first and foremost.
Thank you so much for listening. I send you a big fat hug wherever you are and I will find you right here next week. Until then, you know what I'm gonna say, take good care of yourself.