Self-doubt.
We all know what it feels like.
That feeling of not knowing.
Not being sure.
Questioning yourself.
Wondering if you’re good enough.
Wondering if you can do the thing you’re trying to do.
Sometimes it’s about one thing.
Sometimes it feels like it’s everything.
And sometimes it shows up as imposter syndrome.
That feeling that maybe you don’t belong where you are.
Maybe everyone else knows what they’re doing, and you’re just pretending.
Self-doubt and imposter syndrome are kind of cousins.
And there are lots of different ways we can work through them.
But today I want to talk about one method:
A self-skills assessment.
What is a self-skills assessment?
It’s pretty much exactly what it sounds like.
You’re assessing your own skills.
But instead of sitting there thinking:
“Am I good enough?”
We make it practical.
What can I do?
What should I be able to do at my current level?
What am I still learning?
And what do I want to learn next?
Because self-doubt can be very vague.
It can sound like:
“I don’t know if I can do this.”
“I don’t think I’m good enough.”
“I don’t think I’m fast enough.”
“Am I where I’m supposed to be?”
“Should I know more by now?”
And when we don’t have anything concrete to compare those thoughts against, our brain can just run with them.
So, we get specific.
Write down what you know
Let’s say you’re an apprentice.
At the end of your first year, there might be certain things you’re expected to be able to do.
Maybe you’re supposed to be able to service an engine.
Maybe there are maintenance tasks you’re expected to complete.
Maybe there are certain pieces of equipment you’ve been learning to work on.
Whatever it is for your trade, write it down.
Then look at the list.
There might be things you can do confidently.
Great.
Write them down.
There might be things you can do but still need a little support with.
Write those down too.
And there might be things you’ve never done.
That’s okay.
Write those down.
Because now we’re dealing with actual information instead of that horrible feeling of:
“I’m not good enough.”
You might not be behind
Sometimes you can feel like you’re behind when you’re not.
You might be sitting there thinking:
“By now I should know how to do all of this.”
But when you write everything down, you realise:
Actually…
I can do quite a lot.
I’ve learnt this.
I’ve done that.
I’ve completed these jobs.
I’m still learning these other things.
And maybe I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be.
And if there are gaps?
That’s okay too.
Because now you know what the gaps are.
Get someone you respect involved
You can absolutely do this on your own.
But sometimes it’s helpful to talk to someone else.
Someone who knows what they’re talking about.
Someone you respect.
Someone who pays you, has an influence on your pay, or someone whose opinion you genuinely value.
It could be your manager.
Your supervisor.
Another tradesperson.
Someone who’s further along in their career.
You can ask them what they think you should be able to do at your level.
And this can be really helpful because sometimes we have no idea what is actually expected of us.
You might think you’re behind.
They might say:
“No. You’re doing exactly what I would expect at this stage.”
Or they might point out something you haven’t learnt yet.
And that’s okay too.
Because now you know.
Don’t use the list to bully yourself
This is really important.
If you do your self-skills assessment and find that there are things you can’t do…
Don’t use that information against yourself.
We’re not doing:
“Oh my god, I can’t do this. I’m terrible at my job.”
No.
We’re saying:
“I can’t do this yet.”
And then:
“What do I need to do to learn it?”
That’s the difference.
You’re not a failure because you don’t know something.
You just haven’t learnt it yet.
Turn the gap into a plan
Let’s say you’re working with five different pieces of equipment.
You know that eventually you’re expected to be able to do certain maintenance work on all five.
But you’ve only had experience with two.
That doesn’t automatically mean you’re behind.
Maybe you’ve simply never been given the opportunity.
So you can talk to your manager.
You can say:
“I’ve had experience with these two, but I haven’t really had the opportunity to work on these other ones. Is there a chance I can get some experience with them?”
Now you’ve got a plan.
You’re doing something about it.
Maybe you need to ask for more varied work.
Maybe you need additional training.
Maybe you need to work alongside someone who knows how to do it.
And sometimes, if your workplace only works with one specific type of equipment and that’s not the direction you want your career to go in, you might even need to think about whether another workplace would give you the experience you need.
That’s not failure.
That’s knowing what you want.
This works outside of work too
Self-doubt isn’t just something that happens at work.
Sometimes I have it in my personal life too.
I can wonder:
“Am I a good enough sister?”
“Am I a good enough daughter?”
“Am I a good enough wife?”
And if I just sit there thinking about those things, my brain can come up with a whole list of reasons why I’m not.
So instead, I can make it practical.
What does being a good sister actually mean to me?
What does being a good wife mean to me?
What does being a good daughter mean to me?
Am I doing those things?
Is there something I want to do more of?
Is there something I need to communicate?
And suddenly I’m not just sitting there feeling guilty or questioning myself.
I’ve got something I can actually work on.
Get it out of your head
This is one of the biggest benefits of doing this.
Because when everything stays in your head, it can spiral.
We have a thought.
Then we think about it again.
Then we add another thought.
Then another.
And suddenly we’ve created this massive story about ourselves.
And half the time…
It’s not even true.
Our brains are very good at making thoughts feel like facts.
But a thought isn’t automatically a fact.
Writing things down can help separate the two.
You can look at what you’ve written.
You can see what you know.
You can see what you don’t know.
You can see what you want to improve.
And you can plan.
Instead of:
“I’m not good enough.”
You might end up with:
“I’m confident doing these five things, and I need more experience with these two.”
That is a much more useful thought.
Choose the right person to learn from
If you do ask someone else for help with your skills assessment, choose the person carefully.
You don’t necessarily want the loudest person in the workplace.
You don’t necessarily want the person who’s been there the longest.
You want someone you respect.
Someone whose work you admire.
Someone who you think is good at what they do.
For me, that might be the quiet person who just gets on with their work.
The person who gets the harder jobs.
The person who doesn’t complain about everything.
The person who seems to know what they’re doing.
That’s the person I’d want to learn from.
Because they can show you what they did to get where they are.
And you can decide whether that’s a path you want to take too.
It’s okay not to know
I think this is one of the biggest things we need to remember.
You are allowed to not know something.
You’re allowed to still be learning.
You’re allowed to need help.
You’re allowed to ask questions.
You’re allowed to need more experience.
Especially when you’re an apprentice or you’re stepping into something new.
Not knowing something doesn’t mean you’re bad at your job.
It means you haven’t learnt it yet.
And if you want to learn it?
Plan.
Ask for the experience.
Do the training.
Find someone who can teach you.
Whatever it is you need.
But don’t sit there bullying yourself and expect that to magically make you better.
Because I’ve tried.
It doesn’t work.
The point isn’t to prove you’re perfect
The point of a self-skills assessment isn’t to prove that you’re amazing at everything.
It’s to give you something real to look at.
You can see what you already know.
You can recognise what you’ve achieved.
You can identify what you’re still learning.
And you can decide where you want to go next.
That’s it.
No shame.
No beating yourself up.
No deciding that you’re a failure because you have things left to learn.
Just information.
And a plan.
Final Thought
Self-doubt loves uncertainty.
It loves the:
“I don’t know.”
“Maybe.”
“What if?”
So sometimes, the best thing you can do is get specific.
Look at what you actually know.
Look at what you’ve already learnt.
Look at what you’re still working on.
And then make a plan for the things you want to improve.
Because you don’t have to know everything to be good at what you do.
You don’t have to be perfect.
You don’t have to be ahead of everyone else.
You just need to know where you are…
And where you want to go next.
So, write it down.
Give yourself credit for what you already know.
And for the things you don’t know yet?
Make a plan.
Because not knowing something doesn’t mean you’re not good enough.
It just means there’s something left to learn.
And that’s okay.
Thank you for reading along, if you are a tradeswoman and would like some help or support with this please book in a time to chat here – https://calendly.com/louise-azzopardi/coaching_consult
