Do you ever feel you have lost confidence in your own abilities? Why does this happen?

Isabel Evans spends a lot of time painting. Someone once commented, “Why are you doing this, when you are not very good at it?” And gradually she stopped drawing and painting, after being intimidated by a conventional vision of what good art should look like. At the same time, she experienced a parallel loss of confidence in her professional abilities. Attempting creative pursuits like drawing and painting is essential to cognitive, emotional, creative abilities and she began to understand the correlation between her creative activities and her confidence.

Making errors, being wrong, failing – that is a generous gift we receive when we practice outside our skill level. By staying in a comfort zone and repeating successes, we stagnate.

As Isabel started to create again she thought “I don’t feel good at it, I do feel good doing it.” The difference was that she was learning, having ideas and the act of re-engaging with failure, together with the comradeship of friends and colleagues, including at Women Who Test, Isabel has regained her confidence in her professional abilities, and been able to reboot her career and joy.

Join Isabel to share a journey from self-perceived failure, to recovery and renewed learning.

Click through Isabel's slide deck below...

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