A few years ago I was working as a PA within a large team of highly qualified, talented and very very confident project management consultants. I was asked by one of my colleagues to come along to a meeting to discuss how the organisation could communicate more successfully with staff. I wasn’t there to take notes or represent my Executive, I was there to offer my own thoughts and opinions, and I totally freaked out. I felt like a complete fraud, despite the fact that I had lots of thoughts on the subject and had worked on similar projects in other organisations. Nevertheless, in that meeting I didn’t say very much, when asked a specific question I said I didn’t know and I generally looked and felt completely redundant. I’m sure we’ve all been there, feeling like a fraud at work and having a major crisis of confidence. I felt so stupid that day that I promised myself, it wouldn’t happen again. I’ve thrown myself into a few situations where I have felt totally out of my depth, questioned my entire career and skill set and basically wanted to crawl back into bed and hide. I started to tell myself that I have to basically ‘fake it till I make it’ and that is what I’ve done ever since! Here are some of my thoughts on why, sometimes, it’s quite good to feel like a fraud at work.
