66 | Self-doubt while running meetings? Use this mindset reset.

Hi friend, 

Do you struggle with self-doubt when you run meetings? 

This episode will give you a set of reflection questions and an exercise to shift from self-criticism to a learning mindset.

Main takeaways:
- Self-doubt when running meetings is common and natural
- Reflection questions can help identify internal conflicts and expectations.
- Giving yourself credit and cutting yourself some slack is important for building confidence.
- The ABC method of goal setting promotes a proactive and learning-oriented approach to running meetings.

Enjoy!
Liz

well, Hey there, I'm Liz St. Jean, and this is the Rise in your Nine to Five podcast. Where I help quietly ambitious leaders who want to have meaningful and fulfilling careers, making an impact in the world. It's where strategy meets intuition to become a better leader with more joy, less stress and endless impact.

So let's break free from perfectionism, imposter thoughts. And that inner rule keeper that keeps you in a career comfort zone. It's time to become unapologetically you. And step into the life you were meant to live. We're going to talk presence, productivity, and having it all. Or as my four-year-old would say, we're going to take over the world. So let's get to it.

Well, hello there. I hope you are doing well. And if you were listening to this right, as it comes out, you know, that we at least here in north America, where I am, we are getting ready to celebrate Halloween. Now how long it has always been one of my favorite. Probably my absolute favorite holiday of the year. I just, I always find it so fun coming up with ideas for costumes, dressing up in costumes, going out, having fun. So hopefully you were gearing up to also have a wonderful time, whatever your plans are.

And Halloween really is such a good segue into this topic for the episode, because we're going to be talking about self doubt and running meetings. Yes. I hear about this so often this is so common. So if this is you, if you're someone who does experience that self doubt, that imposter syndrome really strikes when it comes to running a meeting. Please know that you are not alone in this. This is really, really common, especially for folks in my community who are those quietly ambitious folks. You've heard me talk about, you know, um, making an impact really matters, being genuine and authentic and really not seeking the spotlight for the sake of the spotlight sake. That means that you really care. And so when you're running a meeting, You know, you want it to be good. You want to make impact and all eyes are on you. So of course, it's really natural to have feelings of self doubt come up. So I had a coaching session over the weekend talking about this topic, and I just wanted to share some of the key themes that came out of it. Some of the coaching questions that came out of it, because I thought it might help you as well. If this is something running into. Now here's some of the things that it wasn't even just this coaching session. This is what I hear quite commonly with people. So, you know, not along. with me, if this sounds like you.

If you've ever run a meeting and going into it, you're not feeling totally sure about it. And then it happens. And afterwards you really don't. Feel like you had a good sense of how it went. And then maybe you beat yourself up for, because of it. Right. We can't help it. We beat ourselves up over things, even though we know we shouldn't. Sometimes you might end up questioning decisions. Uh, comments you made or decisions you made during the meeting itself? Sometimes even to the point where you're questioning, whether you even should have had the meeting. A lot of times for those who are doing those virtual meetings, you're leading virtual meetings. That's going to be really hard, right. Especially if you're used to reading body language. Reading those non-verbals. That is really hard, even though it's been several years now that we've all been on virtual meetings is still quite difficult. So that can kind of get in our heads. All of that can feed into the self-doubt that we have. So I only say that because I really want to normalize it, you know, so often. If you're anything like the clients that I work with, you probably don't tell very many people about the self debts or having, right. Because like, why would we, those sorts of things. It feels kind of embarrassing to tell people. And so I just want to normalize it and let you know that you are not alone. These are actually really quite common feelings. So let's talk about though, what do we do, right. How do we approach these sorts of situations? How do we become more productive? How do we shift ourselves out of that. Self-doubt. And get into that a bit more of a confidence place.

One of the very first topics we ended up talking about in the coaching session and the question I want to pose for you, for you to do as a self-reflection is to think about. Where are you having a tug of war? An internal tug of war. Around all the self doubt and everything that's coming up. Because usually that's what's happening somewhere. We're feeling attention or a tug of war. Hey, so I want you to think about that. Really identify it for yourself. Hey, now this might not be for you. You know, if this question doesn't really bring up much for reflection, that's totally fine. You can move on to the next question, but for a lot of you, you're probably having some kind of internal tug of war. You're feeling pulled back and forth. And a lot of times it has to do with expectations. The expectations are placing on yourself. Versus the expectations you think others have versus how you want to show up. Could be something like that. It could be something else as well. Like for some people could be. You know, you want to stay where you are in this position, but you also want to leave. So you're having this bit of a tug of war around what you actually want. And for others, especially if you're in a new position and especially if you're in a new mid level position. You might feel real tug of war. Internally about, do you really belong there? Do you have the skills to do it? The tugging against your desire to do it, your desire to grow your desire, to be a leader. And, you know, I'm posing you one of the most difficult questions to start with, because it's really important to identify what's going on. They're really going internal first to figure out, okay, what is happening here? What can I identify? So that's what I really want you to reflect on for those of you who are journalists. This is a great question to journal on. For those of you who are more reflective internal monologue ERs. I don't know if that's a thing that's me. Um, you may want to go for a walk, go for, if you have a forest that you can go walk in, that can be absolutely wonderful. So calming for us for our nervous system. Even if it's not in the forest, maybe going for a walk or doing some other kind of exercise or meditation on it. Can be very, very helpful. So how about, think about that? You know, where are you having an internal tug of war? So that is going very deep internally, right? The second question, slightly different, going a bit more external. Also a difficult question though. Is that. I want you to ask yourself really genuinely curiously, as best as you can, kind of neutrally is thinking about. You know, how true is it that you don't have good communication skills? In the meetings. And I want you to ask yourself that question really think, you know, do, do you even have any proof that it's not going well? And this is an important question to ask. And it's really important to ask yourself this question neutrally, as I was saying before. Because, you know, if it is true, if you have evidence, if you're being given feedback, That your communication. Needs improvement. You know, we can, you can either work on that as a communication skill. You can question it and perhaps it's not necessarily. Um, The best feedbacks there's often, uh, for various societal reasons, people are given feedback about their communication. When it actually has to do with societal messaging and societal expectations. So that's kind of a separate conversation. The reason I want you to ask yourself this question is because what I find for almost all of my clients, this is almost always the case. Is that. Yes, we can all work on improving our communication skills. Right. We don't need to stop improving ourselves. But most of the time we think it's going badly. But we don't actually have proof of that. No one's ever said anything nothing's ever happened after our meeting, that was actual evidence that it's not going well. And most of the time when I pose this question and when I'm posing it, I'm posing it. Genuinely neutrally, you know, it's not meant to challenge my client to say, oh, well, I bet you're actually a good communicator. So ha ha gotcha. Kind of question. It's not like that. It is genuinely. Neutral. And in that self-reflection, the clients usually share and I'm like, well, you know, I don't actually have any evidence. And. Ever any evidence I do have suggested I'm a strong speaker. I'm strong at leading meetings. So, this is something that you really want to get clear on, and if you don't have any evidence one way or the other. It might be we're thinking about that about, okay, well what would be the evidence. One way or the other. Right. Am I. Is it appropriate? Do I feel courageous enough to have that really honest conversation to ask for feedback from someone. Is there another way that I can seek out evidence one way or the other. But we do want to get honest about it because without that piece of information, It's it's hard to know where to take action. Right? So if, if it is. True. In some form of fashion or other, that it really is a communication skill. Well, there is so many different ways that we can improve our communication. Right. If it is just that external piece of communicating, right. There's lots of things you can do. That's almost in some ways that's almost good news. Cause that's like, that's just that's practice. That's that's learning.

There's lots of things we can do there.

At the same time, if it's a story or telling ourselves. That we don't have good communication skills that we're not capable enough. And we're just telling ourselves a story without any evidence. That is going to erode our confidence. Right. It's hard to feel confident in ourselves. If we are constantly telling ourselves a story. That we don't have good communication skills or we don't, we're not good at leading meetings or whatever it is around setting up and leading meetings. So when you think about that, how true is it that you don't have strong communication skills? Or that you're not good. At leading meetings. Whatever it is a story that that inner critic is telling us.

And then that gets us into question number three.

And question number three is where can you give yourself more credit. You know, regardless of how you answer that last question. About your skills. Where can you give yourself more credit? Where can you cut yourself some slack? Because I mentioned earlier, we often set very high expectations for ourselves, especially when we're in new roles. And even though we know that we set our expectations too high, considering we're in a new role. We still somehow expect. Ourselves to meet that, even though we would never expect someone else to meet those same expectations. So, where can you cut yourself? Some slack? Where can you recognize that you are actually doing a pretty great job? Where can you recognize that you're in learning mode? And that you're learning as you're going. Where can you give yourself some grace? Some self-compassion. Right. One of the greatest questions out there, and you may have seen this before. This is like, Uh, great question. People often pose it for each other in different communities and Facebook groups. Is to ask yourself a similar question, but another question is what would you tell your best friend in the same situation? Right. We often say things to ourselves that we would never say to anyone else. Right. I'm sure you've probably heard that before. Right. Yeah, we often need that reminder. Yeah, where can you give yourself? More credit.

Speaking of learning mode. That brings me to the end of this podcast, at least towards the end of the podcast. And I want to leave you with an exercise. So, so far we've been doing reflections of a human new questions to consider for you to either journal or to go. And, um, I do that inner monologuing that I was talking about. This is a really specific exercise you can do. And I learned it when I received my coaching certification. So I did my coaching certification through AIPAC coachings. So this is an iPad exercise called the ABC method of goal setting. This is it's most beneficial when you're setting. Goals ahead of time. So we're talking about running meetings and, you know, setting up meetings. So when you're preparing for a meeting and especially when you're the one setting it up, this is especially valuable in part we'll talk within a second, but in part, because it gets your brain thinking more proactively and getting you. B being a little bit more. Uh, proactive than just reactive.

It can also be used in hindsight though. So if you've had a meeting that you realize you're like, oh yeah, I totally was beating myself up over it. And you've reflected so far with some of the questions I gave you. You can actually apply this ABC exercise to that meeting to in hindsight, to as both a reflection, but also as a way to help shift yourself away from that. Uh, inner critic that beating yourself up and shifting more into the learning mindset. So we're gonna talk about that in a moment. Okay. So ABC method of goal-setting and of course you can apply this to any kind of goal setting. We're just thinking about it here through the lens. Of running meetings and getting away from self doubt. Hey. So when you're setting the goal, You generally have an Eagle. So a is your, is your primary goal? What you are actually trying to accomplish? If everything goes according to your plans. So the reason this is helpful in, in, in advance as well is that's going to get you thinking. Proactively about meetings. And hopefully in, you may already be doing this already, but sometimes we end up just planning meetings and going to them that we don't really sit down and actually think, okay, what is the objective of this meeting? What do I want out of this meeting? What do we, as a group want out of this meeting? So a is an angle is what you want to get out of the meeting. Right? Everything goes according to plan. So let's say you're setting up a meeting where you're trying to get a decision out of a group of decision makers. Right. That often happens for mid-level leaders. You're the one, essentially calling a meeting for others to make a decision that can happen. So the angle is going to be, you get the decision. You may even, you may even know what decision you want that sometimes we don't. Sometimes it's more that you just simply need a decision so that you can keep going. But let's say you actually want a specific decision. You're pushing for a decision that you want to do a certain thing. They're calling this meeting. Your angle is that you get that decision. But the reality is we all know the reality is that doesn't always happen. Right. Things are out of your control, right? Maybe there's one stakeholder who doesn't show up, their kid was sick. And so they weren't able to show up to the meeting. Right. Maybe, um, you didn't have a cremate sleep yourself. Maybe your kid was sick and kept you up all night, right? Sorry to blame it all on the kids, but we know that kids have a, can have a bit of an impact on the works on the workplace. Right, whatever it is, we know that not everything goes according to plan and that just, and that does happen. So the beagle. Is what's your backup goal to the Eagle? Like even if the Eagle can happen, what's your backup goal? So you thinking about setting up a meeting, running the meeting, maybe your backup goal is that you stick to the agenda and you're able to raise the decision point for discussion. And maybe you, maybe you don't get the decision, but at least it's being discussed. Right? Sometimes even just that is enough sometimes because sometimes we all know meetings can go kind of, kind of run a muck. So if you're able to really. Harness that meeting show up powerfully and get the decision-makers to a point where they're discussing, even if they can't get to the decision in that place. Maybe the back of goal is at least identifying when the decision will be made or what, what more information is required or identifying. Okay. Where are the sticking points for this decision? Whatever it is, have a backup goal to your Eagle. And that's B. But here's the beautiful thing is the seagull. You also always want to have a seagull. Your seagull is no matter what happens. It can just go sideways. The entire meeting could go sideways. Maybe even the meeting is canceled, whatever it doesn't matter. Your Siegel is what can you learn? From the situation. What can you learn from it? And especially approaching it from a more positive place or a more productive and more, a higher energy place. So rather than. Feeling a bit more like your, we don't want to feel like you are won't want right. That we, you know, oh, I guess I learned not to do that again, that, that kind of, we don't want that kind of feeling to it. Right. Let me think, okay, what can I learn from this? What can I apply going forward? Right. Let's say got canceled. Whoa, what can I learn about why he got canceled? You know, oh, maybe that's not the right timing or, oh, I, you know, Didn't I didn't think to check so-and-so's calendar ahead of time, make sure that they were available. Maybe went sideways during the meeting. What can you learn about that? Either he possibly bought others, but especially powerful as like, what can I learn about myself? What can I learn? What can I use from this to grow? And what's so beautiful about this is it really helps shift. Away from just focusing on performance. To instead be able to focus on learning on growth, right. I think by this point, most people have heard about that concept of growth mindset. Right? And yet. Even if we believe it. And part of us there still is another part of us that also constantly expects performance. And constantly perfects high levels of performance. And it's like, if we can achieve that all the time. Then it's like somehow. It's not an app. But if you take the learning mindset to it and really lean into that really live that learning mindset. That is going to lead to that growth and that's going to achieve more. You're going to be able to achieve more. When you're able to take on that learning mindset, that growth mindset. Right. Instead of just having a performance mindset. So with that, let's do a quick recap. So we're talking about shifting out of self-doubt, especially around running meetings. And using some self-reflection to get there. So the questions I gave you, number one, where might you be having an internal tug of war? Number two. How true is it? That you don't have strong communication skills or, or that you're not strong at running these meetings. Number three. Where can you cut yourself some more slack? And then we shifted over to the exercise, the ABC exercise, where a is your primary goal. What you're aiming for B is your backup goal. You know, maybe not what you're aiming for, but okay. It was okay. As a second prize. And, but then C C is your learning goal. What will you learn from the situation? With that have yourself a wonderful week. And I will see you back at the next episode.

Thank you so much for listening to this episode. Now, before you go, make sure you click to follow the show this way you don't have to go looking for the latest episode. I'll come to you. Just click the plus button or the follow, and you'll get the latest episode fresh off the press. Thanks again. And remember that you are amazing. Now, get out there and RISE.