Hello and welcome back to the awfully quiet podcast. I'm really excited you're tuning in today. I love that you're on this journey with me, whether you have listened to the first 30 something episodes or whether this is your very first time. I'm so glad you found us. And we have a lot to do as an awfully quiet community as introverts.

We are still not really where we want to be in the corporate environment. We're still not really seen for what we truly are, what we have to offer. And we want to change that here. So welcome to this episode. I did a little bit of a story time. In episode 35, if you're not listening to this episode yet, you want to go back, listen to this one first.

It's a story about how I doubled my salary and made my biggest career jump to date. And today what I want to talk about is what happens after you get the big promotion. What happens after you get the job and suddenly you feel imposter syndrome, creep up, and like. Oh my God, can I really do this? Am I in over my head?

Did they hire me? Not knowing that I have all these blind spots and weak spots, and I'm not sure I can really do this. That's where I want to start today. So, like I said, the episode that I did on. Um, that pivotal moment in my career where I got a huge opportunity to start a position as an HR business partner in a big FMCG company.

And at the time I didn't really have the experience, certainly not the on paper experience. I had a couple of, I would say transferable soft skills that I brought and I'd say the right attitude. I'd always say that that was probably part of what they saw. I think they saw a potential for me to, I think I brought the right attitude, the right work ethic.

And like I said, some of the soft skills, some of the transferable skills that they were looking for. And then. A lot of the other things they probably knew I could pick up or learn on the fly, which yeah, I want to talk about today because suddenly you're in this position and there's all these expectations on you and you must imagine this was my first test.

position in a big corporation. So there's a lot of new things. Obviously at that time I had done internships. I had worked at an agency. I knew how to do Outlook. I knew how to, you know, send emails, reply to emails, all that kind of jazz, do calendar invites and so on. So I did not start from zero zero, but.

A lot of the things, like even the corporate lingo, like, I remember that it was like, what do people mean when they do like the one to one, like where the, where they put like one to one in a kind of like, what does this mean? Oh, this is like a one on one conversation between us. Oh, got it. You know, like the weekly sure fix.

They didn't really use that term. It was the one to one. But some of the other things in like the corporate environment that you first really have to get used to. So I felt like a fish out of water at first in terms of like, Oh my God, I'm going to have to learn all these things. And what do you do when imposter syndrome comes knocking?

I think. If we, if we just kind of think about the first couple of weeks in a new role and on a new job, quite frankly, I'm already exhausted from just meeting all of these new people, like, even if I didn't have anything to do or to learn from a functional perspective, from onboarding perspective. I'm pretty sure I would be exhausted at the end of the day, just meeting all these new people.

And we have to appreciate that as introverts, that's absolutely normal. Like, can you imagine you walk into your first day at a new job, you know, nobody, or you, you more often than not, you know, very little people in the organization. And it always feels like. It's all eyes on you, which if we're being honest, it kind of is, isn't it?

Everybody else knows each other and it's always like, you know, who's the new girl, who's the new guy and are they going to do well and you know, all these things. And it's amplified for me because I always feel like I have that spotlight. Um, and so yeah, I'm mindful of that and that alone takes up energy.

So meeting all the people, meeting the team, the people that you're going to spend most of your time with. And then if you start a position in HR, you really got to get to know the whole organization. It was about a hundred people at the time. And then it was not just that location that I worked from, but it was a cluster organization across Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.

And I remember starting this position and obviously I didn't bring any experience, but from day one, really from day one, I had people come to me with questions. You can imagine as an HR business partner, you have managers in the organization who come to you with questions and they can be functional.

They can be along the lines of, you know what, I need to recruit somebody in my team. We need to start this recruitment. Fine. I've done this before. I know how to do it. Let's go. But then there's also questions like. You know, I have this person on my team who is not performing, how am I going to deal with them?

What am I going to say? What am I going to do? What's legal for me to do? How am I going to approach this? Sometimes you have managers who come to you who just want to kind of air their feelings and you know, everything that's sort of going wrong. People that become very emotional. You wouldn't. Believe, but day one really is when people started to come to me for advice and for help and support.

And they didn't know that I had no experience. And obviously I didn't go out and introduce myself like, you know what, I'm new here. I was just recruited into this position. I have no experience in this field whatsoever, but I'm going to do my best. I didn't do that. I, from day one, I jumped in and just kind of answered their questions with common sense.

And most of the time I had no idea what I was doing, but I have to appreciate that that feels very, very uncomfortable at first. So there is a big element of imposter syndrome. And I can just imagine that you've. Felt that in a position before it's always when you make these kind of bigger jumps at work, when you, when you get to a position that feels like a stretch and that feels like a big step up for you, you have very little experience.

There's so much, you know, to learn and so much of a responsibility to step into. It's just natural for you to feel some element of imposter syndrome. And if you think about

And if you look at what imposter syndrome is, it's a behavioral health phenomenon described as self doubt of intellect, skills, or accomplishments among high achieving individuals. It's described as self doubt of intellect, skills, or accomplishments among high achieving individuals. Um, that perfectly describes to me what it feels like to start a new job, and it's just absolutely natural to be feeling like that because you are surrounded by people who have done this for some time.

If you're new in role, you are likely surrounded by a team who has been there for at least a couple of months. Some of them have been there for years. Somebody have been doing what they're doing now for quite a while. So when you come in. As a new person, as a newcomer to the team, you have not done what you are supposed to learn before.

You do not have this exact experience. You don't know how it's going to work exactly in that team. And it's completely natural. And you're surrounded by people who, who just know, but they only know because they've done it for a while. So if you think about it, imposter syndrome is actually a really good sign because it means that you're in for an adventure.

You're in for personal growth, for career growth. You're going to develop and grow into a person who does not feel imposter syndrome anymore. There is a lot for you to take away from this moment if you'd only appreciate it. And. If you think of imposter syndrome in a way that it cues, Oh, this is exciting.

I'm here to learn something. I'm here to accomplish something. This is, I'm new here. I'm a beginner. I am beginning a new journey. Everything is new. And there may be a lot of things that I don't know yet, but I'm going to learn. It's a really, really important part. This, I'm going to learn. This is how you build confidence.

This is literally how you build confidence. And this is literally how you tackle imposter syndrome is switching the sentence from, I can't, I don't really know what I'm doing here to, I'm going to learn. I got this because chances are you've done it before. Chances are You started jobs before you've been in situations before where you didn't know if you even think about it, your first day at university, you didn't know shit about where rooms were, where you went to classes, who the professors were, who you were going to go with.

If you were going to end up liking anyone, you didn't know shit about this. And it's the same when you start a new job. But what changes over time is how you cope with that and how you deal with that and how you think about it. Because just think back to your last job, you were new at first, you felt imposter syndrome, you felt like a fish out of water, not knowing anything about what you were going to do.

But then about a good one or two months in, you start to come to this point where you suddenly You can answer some of the questions without asking anyone else. You become fully functional. You start to do things on your own and by yourself and you start to, you know, crack some of the things that are being asked from you.

People reach out to you and you can literally give them an answer because you already know. And that's when it starts to feel really, really good. It's not going to feel super, super comfortable until a good six months in. And then once you've done the cycle for a good year, a year and a half, that's when you start to bring in and make a difference.

That's when You start to do things differently when you start to really bring in your unique perspective, when you really make a difference for people and just kind of step it up. But this is not where you are in the first few weeks and when you feel that imposter syndrome, and that's absolutely fine.

But I want you to remember all the times that you went to that two to three month mark and becoming. fully functional, feeling more like yourself. And who's to say that you're not going to do exactly the same thing in the job that you're currently in? Who's to say this is not happening? You already know that you've done it before.

obviously you're going to do it right now. It's just going to take some time. And obviously the time is going to pass either way. So you may just have your imposter syndrome and just deal with it, but you can also just relax, appreciate it, embrace your imposter syndrome, just kind of go with it. And what I would personally say, enjoy the ride.

Because for me personally, Imposter syndrome is one of the best feelings I know. I love a stretch. If I think about the times in my career that I felt most alive, most like myself thriving were the times when I didn't know anything about what I was doing. Like those first few months into that HR business partner job.

When those managers reached out to me, I had no idea what I was doing. They've asked me questions and I went literally from a common sense, but I answered their questions and they seemed happy with their answers. I built some really good relationships with those managers. I re I started recruiting. I ended up, you know, doing loads and loads of recruitment across three countries in marketing and sales.

I felt on top of the world because I don't know why, but I ended up being really, really good at that. , there was no reason for me to be good at that. It was just, I ended up explaining it like, you know what, what I'm doing is common sense. I don't really need a lot of functional expertise for this. So I made these excuses, but at the end of the day, it was just a really, really aligned job to me.

And it felt really good for me to be doing this. But most of the time I was confronted with situations that I didn't know how to handle at first. And then this process of feeling like, okay, I'm going to have to step up. This is a bit of a stretch for me. How am I going to figure this out? Okay, let's do this.

, something in that is what brings me to life much more so than being in a job for a good couple of years and then optimizing processes here and there, you know, kind of, it's just moving the needle in a very, very small way. So that's just not for me. I love a stretch. I love. feeling imposter syndrome.

And so what I want you to do is just kind of Sit with yourself and think about, you know, what is good right now? What is good in this situation? Do I, to a certain extent, appreciate being in this new environment, not really knowing exactly what I'm doing here. Is there something in this that I can appreciate?

Is there something I'm learning right now that is helpful? Is this particular situation? Going to help me evolve, grow. Is this going to be pivotal in any way for my career? I'm sure it is, but you figure that out for yourself. And at the end of the day, this is exactly how confidence works. Confidence is not the lack of fear.

It's knowing what muscle to pull to move through it. What you're doing right now is you're building that muscle, you're stepping out of your comfort zone. And if you're early on in a new position, you're slightly stepping out of your comfort zone in a big way. Like what I recommend in terms of. Growing that confidence muscle is always just kind of like taking one step out of your comfort zone and then taking another step and another step.

So just sort of like stretch out little by little. And I appreciate that some of the new roles you're starting. And if you really feel like an imposter in that new position, it's going to feel like a lot more than just one step outside of your comfort zone. But if you really feel like, you know what, there's a lot that I'm being asked for, there's a lot that I don't know, I cannot answer any of these questions with common sense.

There's a lot of functional expertise that I need. Just kind of think about your comfort zone and just kind of map it out for you. At this time and place, what do I feel comfortable with? What are the kind of things that I know? Um, and then what are the things that you're going to have to learn in order to thrive in this position?

And what does almost like this letter look like? What does the step by step look like? What are you going to be tackling first, second, and third? You want to make these steps small. Give yourself a good week or two for each of those steps and make sure you approach them with grace and with patience. I don't even think that people expect you to be learning all of this in the first couple of weeks in.

It's mostly yourself being, being tough on you. You obviously want to want to step in. You obviously want to do a great job, but you're going to do a great job. Think about it this way. And I'm sure if you're introverted and if you're anything like me, deep down, you know, you're going to do a great job. It has never been any other way.

So if doing a great job is on the horizon anyway, if four months down the line, you're thriving in this position and you're probably are going to, what are you going to do today to make you feel more at ease? And what are you going to do this week and next week to move closer? to how you're going to feel in four months time.

Think about it that way, like success is inevitable. If you're listening to this podcast, I know that it is. You're going to do great. Imposter syndrome is part of the deal. If we're going out into the world, we want to do things. We want to. Build a career. We want fulfillment. We don't just want the nine to five.

You want excitement. We want to go for things. It's part of the deal. Embrace it and build that muscle, work through it. So that next time you're in this position, you can remember Oh, I've done this before. I felt like this before, but then I moved through it. It got better. Pull from these experiences, nurture yourself, and then slowly, but surely step out of your comfort zone.

Do it one step at a time and build the muscle. Don't forget to fuel yourself. Do not go all out. You want to do tiny steps, even if it's the first couple of weeks, lots of things are going on. Even if the only thing that you do is connect with people and build relationships. That's already great. You know, as an introvert, give yourself credit for that.

It's a hell of a lot of work to be doing that. As I said earlier, it takes a huge amount of energy. So appreciate that. And you're going to do fine. And if you're listening to this today and you're in the midst and in the weeds of those first couple of weeks in, and you're like, Hannah, I just don't believe this is happening for me.

Please reach out to me, send me a DM. Let's have a conversation. And I want to hear from you three to four months down the line when you've made it like you always do. And let's have the same conversation again. I hope that you take something away from this conversation today, that you've learned something about building confidence and tackling imposter syndrome, that you've got a little bit of an unconventional take.

Hopefully that's always what I'm going for. But yeah. Let's embrace it. Let's move through it. And I, again, I would love to hear from you, but for now, see you next time.