You’re a fraud and everyone knows it.

What if they find out that I’m only me?

What if they find out that some days I feel like I’m totally winging it? That I struggle to remember the date, perhaps work all day in my pyjamas, forget to brush my hair, or that perhaps my super cosy office can sometimes look as though there has been a hurricane going through it.

What if ‘they’ realise that, sometimes I yell at my kids and can be a full on narky cow?

What if they find out I have doubts? What if they find out that despite lots of experience, loads of practice and a shit load of training, that sometimes I’m not sure? That I forget I’m actually bloody good at this coaching malarkey, that I studied and worked damn hard to get here.

What if somebody were to know that?

What if they were to know how I inwardly seethe at the bad coaches, the ones who don’t give a f*ck and have no idea what they’re doing, yet are so much better at the winging and blagging thing than me?

How do they do that? Where is their self doubt? More to the point where is their integrity?

Am I ranting?

Well maybe yes slightly, but the focus of my rant isn’t other people. It’s aimed at me, my frustrations at myself and perhaps you, if you’ve ever felt like this.   If we’re honest, we’ve all suffered periods of self doubt. Angela Merkel, Sheryl Sandberg, Hollywood actresses, British icons, have all owned up to having the dreaded Imposter Syndrome – At least I’m in good company!

Imposter Syndrome is that little voice that pops into your head and says “You don’t deserve to be here…” Or perhaps is the “Who do you think you’re kidding, you’re a fraud and everyone knows it.”   We seem to be full of self doubt, these feelings that we’re not quite good enough and that someday, somebody else will discover this too, and, rather than put a comforting arm about us and lead us off to a quiet corner, they’ll pull faces, point fingers and let everyone else laugh, join in and agree, that actually we’re not ‘all that’ after all! Oh the horror!

OR, perhaps, you, me and all the other women affected by this, can remember to dust off that kick-ass feeling…. The one you get when you know you nailed it. However crappy times have been, we’ve all had that feeling at least once. Find that feeling and tap into it now. Feel all the great things about that time, how powerful it made you feel, how capable, how able.

Store up that feeling and put it away safely, in that place where you keep kick-arse feelings. Then next time you feel like you’re not up to the job, cos of some crappy story you’re telling yourself; choose that feeling and remember how freakin awesome you actually are.