Listen to this episode on the From Imposter to Empowered podcast:
Today I wanted to dive into the topic of debunking the myths about imposter syndrome, and you may not even know that these myths exist. You may believe that it’s just something in your life that affects the way you show up and you know that you have it, but you don't really know what to do about it. The main thing with imposture syndrome is that there are beliefs that are ingrained in you that are enforcing your imposter syndrome. That’s where the trouble comes, because they are so deep rooted.
That’s everything I do in terms of the work with my clients - working past these beliefs, creating new neural pathways and really focusing on overcoming your inner imposter. Which, if you haven't given a name yet to your inner imposture make sure you do, because the first step here is you are not your inner imposter, it is a voice that is outside of you, that is the worst representation of you and it's not you.
You are beautiful being and you are supposed to be in this business. You are supposed to be doing everything you're doing, and this is just your brain trying to keep you safe. So give her a name... mine is Rhonda. These are three myths about imposter syndrome that are commonly believed by people who are really affected by it.
This is complete and utter bull shit. It is great if you are constantly raising the bar for yourself. But people who suffer with imposter syndrome usually do not celebrate their accomplishments and are usually never satisfied with any of the things that they accomplish. They also make excuses for their accomplishments, and they believe it's because they just have high standards in quotations for themselves, when in reality they feel like nothing they do is good enough. So they have to keep reaching a new level of success to think they are worthy of celebration. But remember our thoughts influence our emotions and our thoughts actually create our feelings. No amount of money and no amount of external validation is going to make you feel anything because it's your thoughts that influence your feelings. If you’re not practicing celebration, if you are not really focusing in on your accomplishments, you will never be satisfied internally. However, if you are constantly setting the bar higher and higher and higher and not taking note of the things that you're achieving, it's going to be very difficult for you to believe that you are worthy of the success that you're receiving.
Even though everybody's telling you "OMG you're doing so great". Internally, you don't feel that way. So that is myth number one: that imposter syndrome helps you aim for high standards because it really just means that you always need to know and do and you're never satisfied with your accomplishments, meaning that you don't always feel worthy of what you're achieving.
Most of us, especially as women are taught that modesty is best, and this means that we have also learned to discount our accomplishments or stay quiet so you don't seem like a know it all. But really, this way of thinking is just keeping you small in the event that you fail, so the impact doesn't have to be as hard (mic drop) Basically, people believe that they are always waiting for the other shoe to drop.
If you're somebody who suffers with imposter syndrome, you're always waiting for that other shoe to drop in terms of, "are people are going to find me out". Do you think it's better to not amplify your accomplishments? Do you think it's better to stay small because then you won't have as much attention on you? Because if something happens, or if you fuck up, the impact of that won't be as hard as well. This is related to attention being on you. If you start to get a big head and start to be overconfident and then the attention is all on you, this also means that you will then have more of a responsibility, and you will be unable to deliver if you have that responsibility.
Example, you might be a coach who was just starting to break into the game and you might be getting more of a consistent audience and people are starting to come to you in terms of you being an expert, which is amazing. But then you start worrying and start keeping yourself small and not reaching out when, because you're afraid that now that people are coming to you, you don't want to disappoint them. And that comes with feeling like you need to be humble and keep yourself smaller, because if you don't you'll be ignorant to the mistakes that you could make.
You may have a belief that has taught you that when things are good, something is going to happen. I would encourage you to look back in terms of your memories. I do this really cool technique in neural linguistic programming, which is called t.i.m.e techniques. It’s going back to a point in your life when you developed a belief, and you actually begin to rewrite that belief. You work to overcome that limiting belief so it cannot hinder you in the future. Its super impactful.
So this is a huge fucking lie. If you suffer from imposter syndrome, you are motivated by fear. This will put havoc on your mind, body and your soul. A person motivated by fear is bound to burn out. You won't find success and then find your worth. You'll just be stressed out and constantly rooted in fear that you're going to be found out. So you avoid admitting that you don't know something or that you made a mistake because you don't want to be seen as incompetent. It very much mimics the stress of being an entrepreneur. You keep taking all the certifications and hiring so many strategy coaches and consuming and consuming because you're so worried that if you don't have all the information and that people are going to find you out. You think that it motivates you when really it's fuelled by fear. A business fuelled by fear is going to be very different than a business fuelled by confidence.
Being fuelled by fear creates burnout. It creates you never being able to take a break. It creates small habits, like always having to check your Instagram and look a DM's constantly, and always trying to sell because you're stressed out about money that month.
That is all in our brain, and that can lead to burnout. Whereas when you're motivated by confidence and you have worthiness that you are good enough, that energy will present itself in a way different way than fear will. Those are your three myths about imposture syndrome. The first is that it helps you aim for standards. The second is that it's better to be humble instead of overconfident. And the third is it motivates you.
As always, tag me in Instagram on how anything you’ve learnt and that resonated with you from this blog post.
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