Listen to this episode on the From Imposter to Empowered podcast:
Do you know that feeling you get when you're talking about your business to people who are in your real life and your personal life, so not your online life- where you have all these amazing internet, friends and Instagram friends that are doing the same thing as you. I'm talking about when you're at the lunch table at your full time job with all your coworkers or you're at a family function, and somebody is asking you about your business and you're feeling kind of small and insignificant, and you don't really know how to articulate and how to explain to your 85 year old granddad that what you do is help women with their confidence. You help them push their business forward by overcoming their fears and imposter syndrome. How do you explain that in a way that makes you feel confident and makes you feel good?
We all know that the more that we own these things and that we own a business and the more that we talk about it, it's going to get easier. But in the beginning it can be really hard to feel like your work is legitimate or important and that's where the imposter syndrome comes from, right? It comes from feeling like what you're doing isn't important, isn't legitimate, and that somebody is doing it better than you. Basically it all comes down to the fact that you don't feel good enough and it can be so hard when we have these online lives and we're doing coaching, or we're doing a certain thing that is so new to the world like coaching. You have your own online business and you're living this life where you have more physical freedom and you can make tons of money in a month versus how a lot of people in your life are probably living, working a nine to five.
They have their pension plans, they have their retirement plans, they work in a full time job until they retire. They go on all-inclusive vacations and typically go step by step. So they're buying a house and then they're getting married and then they're having kids. Then there is you. You have this online world and I don't know if you're anything like me, but I have a bunch of my Instagram friends that I relate to so much because we're all doing the same thing, we're all trying to forge the same path. It feels so easy to be so confident on my Instagram and with these people because we JUST GET IT.
This episode is here to tell you that your business is important and people need what you're offering and what you do and how you do it. The service that you are providing is here to solve someone’s personal or business problem. If you're a mindset coach, or if you're a photographer, and if you think that whatever you're doing is fluffy and surface level, or it's not something that's necessary, think about the impact that you're having on these people whose lives you are changing.
So let's say you're a photographer, and you think that you just take pictures of people. But what you're actually doing is freezing a moment in time that this person wants to remember. These people want to remember these times that they have with their kids, with their spouse, with their family... pictures of themselves, to make them feel confident. You are capturing that moment that they won't be able to get back. What if you're a mindset coach? So what if all you do is help people understand their feelings and understand their emotions, ultimately you help people feel better. You might think that that's not important, but when people feel better, they do better and then they're carrying that into their lives. They treat the people in their lives better.
For Example with me, I am a mindset coach for entrepreneurs. So I help people feel better about themselves, overcome their fears, overcome imposter syndrome and implement a little bit of strategy so they can feel good about running their business. Because we all know at this point that our business is 95%, our mindset. If we don't have the motivation, if we can't stay on top of our shit, stay on top of our mood, our attitude and our vibe, our business is going to suffer because we're not giving it our all. So sometimes I have this feeling like my business is not important, but that's just the feeling of not being good enough. That's the feeling of not being important enough or legitimate enough and it all comes down to our worthiness. You have to remember if you're anything like me, that you are in the business of helping people and you are creating a better future for whoever comes into contact with your client. if you even help your client with a little bit of confidence, with a little bit of changing their perspective and helping them get a client or helping them overcome a fear, you are helping them become a better human and they in return will be a better human to whoever they come into contact with.
If they're a service based entrepreneur and they come into contact with other people, they're going to deliver a really great experience and something that isn't work-based. But I really do think that when we work to understand ourselves and we work to overcome our fears and be better people, we will raise our children in a way that will make them really good people that will serve our future world... because our kids are our future. I don't have any kids yet, but I know that all the personal development that I'm doing in my life right now is going to really help me be an amazing parent, because I'm really going to make sure that my kids are good humans and that they put in what they get out of the world.
So again, to reiterate, what you're doing is important. Focus on mindset and strategy because then you are building the tree from the roots up, you have stronger roots when you are strong in who you are, and you can overcome that imposter syndrome overcome that fear, build confidence, and sustainability. Everything you do will STEM from that.
I actually read, the Untethered Soul by Michael Singer. So if you've ever heard of it, or if you've been thinking of reading a new book, I highly recommend you read this book. He talks about how we live our lives in fear. We go around making sure we never feel bad, because if we feel bad, our brain tells us that it's not okay to feel bad. He basically says that your brain and your mind, they're always trying to make you feel good and whenever something feels bad, you spend your life avoiding it. We like to think that there's a certain utopia where we will never feel bad., which makes us look to the next best thing. We do this when we think we're not important enough or ready enough. We think that something in the future will make us feel better about ourselves... like the next 10 K or the next client or whatever. But what the reality is we have to be okay with not feeling okay. We have to have these feelings of 'wow' or 'discomfort'.
Having that very balanced emotion/thought of "this feels really shitty right now, but I know that I will be able to overcome this and its okay to feel shitty, It's not the end of the world". I think that this is important to think about when we are thinking about our business and how if we're even making a difference. Remember, go back to your accomplishment journal and if you don't have one, I highly recommend that you get one. I’m here to tell you are making a difference, whether you think so or not.
With us millennials, therapy's becoming more normalized, but we still have our parents’ generation and some people in our generation that have that stigma attached to it. So this coaching industry, or this service based online business industry, isn't always celebrated, or isn't always seen as the same way as like some stuffy office job, right? So just because it's new, just because it's uncomfortable, just because it's different, doesn't mean it's bad what you're doing is important, legitimate and you are in the business of helping people. That is what you're doing... PERIOD. Even if you got into your business or started your business because your main focus was to make an extra buck, that's fine because you're still helping people along the way.
Even in the Podcast world, you may not really be making any cash flow but you’re still putting stuff out into the world to educate and help people with free content, which helps people understand themselves better, empowers them to be themselves and empowers them to keep moving forward.
So I really hope that this episode specifically helped you move forward in your business and has helped you see yourself in a different light and that what you're doing is so important and is so necessary and so needed. You just may be ahead of the curve and everybody else is behind you so don’t let the opinions of other people who don't really understand this online business world take you down. Stay true to who you are and keep on going.
As always if you go to the link in my show notes, you will see that I have a 30 day journaling prompt workbook that is totally free and available to you.
If you are dealing with feelings of imposter syndrome, if you feel like your business is suffering because of imposter syndrome and you're having a hard time showing up on social media, you can't pitch to any of your ideal clients, you feel kind of lost and that your mindset is really affecting the success of your business. This 30 day journaling prompt workbook is for you.
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