You Don't Have to Be an “Expert” to Do This
A few years ago, I was sitting outside a local coffee shop with a friend who was about to make a big life change. She had just decided to leave her full time job and pursue the business she'd spent the past couple of years building. We were celebrating and talking about her goals, the impact she wanted to make, and all she wanted to do within her business. She was feeling the typical leap-taking emotions as they rose to the surface: excitement, fear, hope, possibility…
A few minutes into the conversation, she told me she'd gotten an inquiry from someone who fit the description of her ideal client to a ‘T’. She’d spent years gaining education, qualifications, and skills to be able to help this type of person, and was elated to receive their inquiry. Right after she finished describing all the ways this potential client was exactly who she wanted to serve she said, “I ended up sending her to someone else I know, who has been doing this way longer and has a lot more experience than me."
I looked at her for a moment and asked, “How are you ever going to gain more experience if you send your ideal clients to your direct competition?”
I've had similar conversations come up quite a bit over the past few months with others who were doubting their capabilities. The theme being that in order to really help someone, you have to be considered an expert. Not only is this simply not true, it can actually hold us back more than it can encourage us to move forward.
Have you ever felt like you didn’t know enough to really do the work you wanted to do? Maybe, despite the fact that you've been trained and are qualified, you still feel like you need to know more in order to really help. Or maybe you’ve been told by someone else that you should consider yourself an “expert”, but rather than give you confidence, it added more pressure to be perfect.
While there are many self-proclaimed experts on the internet these days, if we're being honest, it takes a lot more than knowledge, a degree or certification, and a few years of experience under our belts to become an actual expert. So you may not be an expert… yet. And if that's the case, calling yourself one will only add pressure and make you feel like a fraud.
It takes years of deliberate practice, effort, and intentional growth to become a true expert. Recently, I read this article in the Harvard Business Journal that spoke in great lengths about what it really takes. I particularly enjoyed this paragraph:
“The journey to truly superior performance is neither for the faint of heart nor for the impatient. The development of genuine expertise requires struggle, sacrifice, and honest, often painful self-assessment. There are no shortcuts. It will take you at least a decade to achieve expertise, and you will need to invest that time wisely, by engaging in “deliberate” practice—practice that focuses on tasks beyond your current level of competence and comfort. You will need a well-informed coach not only to guide you through deliberate practice but also to help you learn how to coach yourself. Above all, if you want to achieve top performance as a manager and a leader, you’ve got to forget the folklore about genius that makes many people think they cannot take a scientific approach to developing expertise.”
You might not be an expert right now, but that does not mean you are not highly qualified to do a great job. Thankfully, my friend (who was highly qualified) began accepting the clients she'd dreamed about working with and now has an incredibly successful and impactful business, changing lives in the ways she dreamed about years ago.
You don't need to know everything, because you're going to continue to learn and grow. No one is perfect, not even experts. Feel free to let go of any untrue or unnecessary titles in order to take some pressure off of yourself so you can move forward. Remember, part of the process of mastering what you do is choosing to take on things that are beyond your current level of comfort. So take the step, even if it's scary, so one day, when you've accomplished some pretty amazing things, you'll look back and be so thankful you did.
INTERESTED IN WORKING TOGETHER?
If you're ready to take your life and business to the next level, without stress and burnout, it's time for you to seriously prioritize your mindset. Let's work together on that! Click the link below and apply for a call where you and I can talk through all the details to see if it would be a good fit. I'm so excited to see the growth that's ahead of you!