Are you an expert?
Now, if I know my audience, I’m willing to bet that a significant proportion of you felt distinctly uncomfortable about saying yes.
Perhaps you thought, ‘Well, I know quite a lot about what I do, but I wouldn’t go so far as to call myself an expert.’
Or maybe you immediately started thinking about all the things you don’t know, or all the people who know more than you.
But here’s the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary definition of an expert:
‘A person with special knowledge, skill, or training in something.’
Doesn’t that describe you?
If you’ve spent years teaching, training, writing materials, coaching or developing your professional expertise, there’s a pretty good chance that it does.
So why the resistance?
But what about all those fake experts?
Part of the problem may be that you don’t want to join the ranks of people who decide they’re experts because they’re a few steps ahead of their clients.
And I can understand that.
I do think there needs to be some genuine depth to your knowledge and experience before you describe yourself as an expert.
You need to be able to deal with the odd unexpected question, adapt what you’re doing to the person in front of you, and draw on more than a handful of things you’ve learned from a course or a book.
You can’t simply trot out the same old stuff to everyone, regardless of their particular needs or circumstances, and assume that makes you an expert.
But there’s a BIG difference between having genuine expertise and feeling that you can’t possibly claim to be an expert until you know EVERYTHING and have experienced EVERYTHING.
Because if that’s your definition, you’re probably going to be waiting rather a long time.
In fact, forever.
Imposter syndrome and the endless qualifications trap
If you believe that being an expert means knowing everything, it’s hardly surprising that you sometimes feel like an imposter.
And that belief can lead to a familiar pattern.
You decide you need another qualification before you’re ready to offer a particular service. So you sign up for a course, work hard, learn lots and eventually get your certificate.
Wonderful!
Except that instead of feeling ready, you start noticing all the other things you still don’t know.
And so you decide that perhaps you need another qualification.
And another.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m a massive fan of lifelong learning. I’ve spent a good proportion of my own life studying and developing new skills, and I certainly wouldn’t suggest that professional qualifications aren’t valuable.
But I do think it’s important to be honest with ourselves about why we’re pursuing them.
Is it because there’s something specific we need to learn to improve the work we do?
Or is it because we don’t quite feel ready to put ourselves out there, and another qualification seems like a perfectly respectable way of putting that moment off?
Because sometimes that’s actually an Inner Troll game.
Your Inner Troll knows that if you keep telling yourself you need to learn just a bit more before you’re ready, you’ll never have to take the risk of being visible, promoting your services or having someone question your expertise.
Very clever, that Troll.
But not particularly helpful.
You develop expertise by actually doing the work
The thing is, putting yourself out there and working with real people is, to quite a large degree, how you become an expert.
You develop your knowledge by using it. You learn to deal with situations you haven’t encountered before. You start recognising patterns, understanding why certain approaches work and adapting what you do to different people’s needs.
And, of course, you make mistakes.
That’s part of the learning process too.
In fact, I’d argue that one of the signs of genuine expertise is being comfortable with the fact that you don’t know everything.
You can say, ‘That’s a really interesting question, and I’m not completely sure of the answer. Let me look into it.’
Or, ‘That’s not actually my area of expertise, but I can suggest someone who might be able to help.’
You don’t need to pretend that you have the answer to every possible question.
What matters is being genuine and transparent about what you can help people with, what you can’t, and what you’re still learning.
It’s about having enough knowledge and experience to provide a genuinely valuable service, while recognising that there’s always more to learn.
And that means not overselling yourself.
But equally, not underselling yourself either.
Are you underselling yourself?
You may feel that you’re being modest, and that you don’t want to seem as though you’re showing off.
But if you don’t own the expertise you genuinely have, it’s going to make it pretty difficult to market yourself effectively.
Think about it from the client’s perspective.
Would you choose to hire someone who was effectively saying, ‘Well, I’m OK, I suppose, but there are plenty of other people out there who are better than me’?
Or would you prefer someone who could explain, clearly and confidently, exactly what they could help you with and why they might be a good choice?
I’m not talking about lots of hot air about how amazing they are.
I’m talking about someone who understands their strengths, can explain the value of what they offer, and gives you enough information to make an informed decision about whether they’re the right person to work with.
There’s nothing arrogant about that.
In fact, I’d say it’s part of being professional.
If you’ve spent years developing your skills and experience, why shouldn’t you be able to talk about them?
And if you know you can genuinely help a particular group of people, isn’t it important that those people can actually find you and understand what you offer?
Stop hiding your light under a bushel
How is it actually helping anyone, you OR your potential clients, for you to be hiding your light under a bushel?
(Apparently a bushel is a container used for measuring things, so that’s pretty well hidden!)
It isn’t.
But still we hide, because we’re worried that we might be:
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Found out as a fraud.
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Seen as ‘full of ourselves’.
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Criticised or attacked for not being good enough.
And those fears are understandable.
Our brains are naturally sensitive to potential threats, particularly when there’s a risk of being judged or rejected by other people.
Putting yourself out there can feel uncomfortable, especially when you’re talking about something that’s closely connected to your professional identity.
But discomfort doesn’t necessarily mean you’re doing something wrong.
And the fact that someone else might know more than you, or disagree with you, doesn’t make your own expertise worthless.
There’s always going to be someone with more experience, more qualifications or a different perspective.
That doesn’t mean there aren’t people you can help enormously with what you already know.
What difference could it make to see yourself differently?
Just imagine for a moment that you weren’t continually worrying about whether you were expert enough.
What might you do differently?
Perhaps you’d finally start talking more confidently about your services on LinkedIn.
Maybe you’d put yourself forward to speak at an event, approach an organisation you’d love to work with, or develop that new offer you’ve been thinking about for months.
Perhaps you’d even put your prices up.
And what difference might that make to your business?
More importantly, what difference could it make to the people you could help?
Because if you’re hiding away, waiting for the magical moment when you finally feel completely qualified and confident, those people may never even discover that you exist.
Now, I’m not suggesting that you can simply decide to stop feeling self-doubt and it’ll disappear.
If only it were that easy!
But you can start noticing when your Inner Troll is trying to persuade you that you’re not ready, and question whether what it’s telling you is actually true.
You can recognise the knowledge and experience you already have, while continuing to learn and develop.
And you can choose to take action, even when that little voice is going, ‘Oo-er, what will people think?’
Because you don’t have to wait until you feel completely confident before you start behaving like the experienced professional you already are.
So, what’s the first step you could take today to start owning your expertise?
Want to feel more confident running your business?
If you’re struggling to recognise your own expertise, worrying about what other people think or finding it difficult to put yourself out there, I’ve brought together some practical resources to help.
In my Feel more confident running my business Resource Centre, you’ll find articles and videos about self-doubt, imposter feelings, confidence and the unhelpful beliefs that can get in the way of building a successful freelance language business.
Explore the Mindset and Confidence resources