“What if I discover I'm not as good as I thought?”

Today I’m analysing the situation of Elliot.

Elliot reached out to me because he feels ready for a new challenge.

He's been with the same company for a long time and knows he's reached the point where staying feels more comfortable than beneficial.

On the surface, it sounds like a fairly straightforward situation.

Update the CV. Start applying. See what's out there.

But the more we spoke, the more I realised that wasn't really the issue.

The thing holding Elliot back wasn't a lack of opportunities.

It was a lack of perspective.

What's the challenge?

For most of his career, Elliot has worked in the same environment and built his skills largely on his own.

Over the years, he's taken on more responsibility, solved problems and developed a broad range of experience. The challenge is that he's never really had a chance to benchmark himself against the wider market.

As we talked, I noticed he was far more focused on what he hadn't done than what he had.

Rather than looking at the experience he'd built over the years, he was questioning whether there were gaps he couldn't see.

That uncertainty has grown to the point where it's affecting how he thinks about his next move.

The longer you stay in one environment, the harder it can be to judge your own value objectively.

How can he move forward?

The challenge for Elliot is that he's trying to answer a question that can't be answered from inside his current company.

He's looking for reassurance that he's good enough before he takes action.

But the only way he'll really understand how his experience is viewed by the market is by engaging with it.

At some point, he has to stop guessing and start gathering evidence.

My advice

1. Stop treating assumptions as facts

One thing that became clear during our conversation was how much weight Elliot was giving to his own doubts.

He'd spent so long wondering whether he was missing something that he'd started treating those concerns as reality.

The truth is, he doesn't know whether those fears are justified. And until he starts testing them, neither does anyone else.

2. Recognise the value of the experience you've built

I think Elliot has become so familiar with his own experience that he's stopped recognising its value.

When you've spent years solving problems and figuring things out, those skills can start to feel ordinary.

But ordinary to you doesn't mean ordinary to an employer. Often the things we take for granted are the very things other people find valuable.

3. Let the market give you feedback

The biggest shift I encouraged Elliot to make was to stop trying to answer every question before taking action. Most confidence comes afterwards.

It comes from having conversations, hearing different perspectives and seeing how people respond to your experience.

The longer Elliot stays in his own head, the harder it becomes to separate fact from assumption.

What stayed with me after this conversation was how easy it is to underestimate yourself when you've spent years in the same environment.

I suspect there are plenty of people reading this who feel exactly the same way.

Sometimes the next step in your career isn't about learning something new.

It's about getting enough perspective to recognise the value that's already there. And then knowing how to sell that value to your next employer.

If you're feeling like Elliot and you're struggling to work out where you fit in the market, the Creative Career Level Up programme might be exactly what you need.