If you manage communications for your organization, chances are you struggle with anywhere from an occasional to constant sense of inadequacy. It’s a huge job with no proven single method for success. You’re juggling hundreds of communication channels while answering to dozens of internal stakeholders and/or countless consumers. There seems to be no end to your work load.

You know what often doesn’t help when your back is against the wall? Reading articles on Linked In. Sure, there’s lots of business news content, and that’s fine. I’m talking about advice. You could spend days trolling through all the ways you could be better at your job.

Here are all the tools you should be using to improve your presence on social media!

These are the six reasons you’re an ineffective manager!

This business leader is outperforming you in every conceivable way!

You could be so much more effective if you were an introvert/extrovert! (Whichever one you’re not.)

I see the preponderance of articles like this evidence of what Brené Brown calls a “culture of scarcity” in her book Daring Greatly. We are surrounded by messages that we’re not good enough (or smart enough, or knowledgeable enough, or whatever it is that our inner voice deems shameful). There seems to be all kinds of evidence supporting these dark beliefs. Of course I’m not good enough, we think, because there’s someone else who clearly is.

The struggle with shame touches everyone, myself included. Whenever I look around for a more successful, acclaimed, gifted writer, low and behold, I find one! Loads of them. That clearly means I’m a fake and a wannabe, that I should just pack it all in and admit I never should have tried. If you don’t try, you can’t fail, right?

Dr. Brown calls the practice of recognizing such statements for the lies they are “shame resilience”. You can’t stop yourself from having these thoughts, because everyone does. You can also choose not to believe them and seek out people you can trust to help you do just that.

If you’re in the place of believing that you’re not good enough, Linked In is probably not the place to go (although I did share this blog post there … a real conundrum, that). The illusion that others have all the answers will only deepen your belief in your own ignorance. It will be easy to get caught up in how behind you are in all your performance metrics and forget why you even showed up for work.

I suggest the key to getting out of the funk is to remind yourself – probably with help from others you trust on your team – of what you produce as an organization that is good. In what ways are you serving needs in your community, your world? Remember that you, individually, are an integral part of that. Take pride in your role.

Forget about maximizing your performance and keeping up with industry standards for one moment and just remember that, in at least some small way, you do good in the world. When you tell yourself that and believe it’s true, you’re ready to get back to the business of telling others. Only then – once you’ve got your groove back – should you even consider asking yourself whether there might be ways to improve.

If you’re discouraged today, don’t look for critical articles; find a good friend to tell you that you got this. Have an awesome week.