“I’m not sure if I can ever get my confidence back. Do you think I can?”
Simon* was visibly distressed when he asked me this question. He was an experienced mental health professional and was more familiar with encouraging others than talking about himself. He searched for solutions when he started a new job while struggling with debilitating self-doubt.
Simon’s confidence began to falter in his previous role where he worked as a team leader. He noted that he woke up in the morning dreading starting his day and feeling anxious about going to team meetings. He had an awareness that he avoided parts of his job, specifically tasks that involved him “fronting”, not just meetings, but check-ins with team members and providing updates to other team leaders. His recurring thought was “I can’t do this”, followed by an acceleration in this sense of dread.
While Simon was mostly troubled by these worries at work, some of this loss of confidence, irritability, and increased worry also leaked into personal relationships and non-work activities. Simon found himself avoiding social situations and talking to people. “I just can’t face it; it feels like another thing to do that I don’t have the energy or the confidence to do and I don’t know how to explain the fear,” he told me.
Before seeking help, Simon resigned from his job and accepted a role with fewer responsibilities where he could be more “behind the scenes”. At first, he felt relieved to make this change and began to feel more hopeful about regaining his confidence. Unfortunately, the relief was short-lived. As Simon began to take on new projects and tasks, the self-doubt emerged as strong as ever. “It’s like it’s following me around,” he said.
I reassured Simon that many of us seek an external lifestyle change to resolve emotional distress – we might change jobs, relationships or where we live in the hope that we will gain a different perspective on challenges or a respite from what is difficult. And unfortunately, the upsets, whatever they are, often tend to follow us around.
Listening to Simon, it was clear that he interpreted his symptoms and experiences as a personal failure, and this contributed to the fear and avoidance. My suspicion was that workplace factors played a significant role in this loss of confidence. To recover well, Simon probably had to lift his perspective of himself, and give greater weight to contributing factors from his environment. Simon was not keen on any diagnostics, including the label of burnout, mostly because he continued to feel optimistic about his profession and his future ability to contribute, rather than cynical.
Instead of looking for labels, we took advantage of Simon’s professional interest in mental health and wellness and turned to online research on mental health at work. By reading expert opinions on what contributes to burnout and distress in the workplace – things like unmanageable workloads, chronic lack of control, inadequate reward and recognition and a mismatch between values – Simon was able to better reflect on his own experiences at his previous job and how they might have contributed to his self-doubt.
Fortunately, in his new role he has greater control over his workload and how he works, and there is greater alignment between his values and theirs. But because of his self-doubt and lack of self-confidence, Simon tends to “bat” disregard the positive feedback and recognition that comes his way. Being open to it and finding meaningful ways to accept it is going to be a work in progress.
We started with some self-compassion strategies, including how he might treat a friend who received positive feedback. I asked if he would suggest to a friend that positive feedback wasn’t earned and didn’t mean much, as he told himself. Or would he encourage that friend to celebrate and enjoy the praise in recognition of a job well done.
Another challenge we identified was Simon’s inability to maintain solid lines between his work and home life. We took inspiration from a recent study in the Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology showing that restorative experiences outside of work hours are related to calmer moods during the workday. This meant coaching Simon to switch off from work when he wasn’t working. The same study also talked about the power of mastery experiences outside of work – things that give us a sense of accomplishment and achievement.
Simon started reading and watching more travel-related content and delved more into gardening – growing things rather than people, he noted. Developing a few different interests was helpful for a sense of mastery for Simon, to feel more effective and competent. As the study suggested, he began to notice small doses of calm and confidence creeping back into his workdays.
Simon too read from the importance of idleness. He found it challenging at first (like many, he was raised with a firm Protestant work ethic), but also inspiring. Incorporating some free time into each day will definitely be a work in progress for him. For now, it’s a welcome reminder that his value isn’t determined by his productivity.
Finally, we agreed that strategic avoidance is helpful for Simon. While we know that blind avoidance is not helpful in recovery, Simon experiments with a new approach: we oscillate between giving himself a gentle push to tackle things he fears and permission to avoid.
He still feels unable to share his personal struggles with the people in his life, but he hopes to help others understand that self-doubt doesn’t have to be a life sentence by allowing his story to be included. become article.
*Names and details have been changed
