EP 204 The Secret to Crushing Imposter Syndrome and Finding Your Confidence

Are you ready to dive deep into the strategies and mindset to help you optimize your business, prioritize your family, and stay true to your vision? Get ready to transform your life and business one episode at a time. This is the Align youe True north podcast and I'm your host, Brooke Elder.

Have you ever felt like an imposter in your own business? Have you ever felt that sometimes you just have all of these things that you want to do, but you have that little voice inside that says, I can't do this. I'm not good enough. So and so is better at this than me. If you are feeling that way, you are not alone. This is something that everyone goes through, and if they say they don't, it means that their goals are way too small and they're not pushing themselves out of their comfort zone.

Today I want to talk a little bit about imposter syndrome and what it means for you and your business and give you some tips and tricks and tools that you can be using to help push past this and you can start doing that thing that maybe you're a little too scared to do. I am so excited to dive into this topic because this is something that even I am not immune to. It's something that every single person.

If you are trying to step out of your comfort zone, if you're trying to reach big goals, you have big dreams, you're going to hit this. And the reason is because any time that you are up leveling your life, it doesn't matter if it's in business, it's in your personal life. It doesn't matter what it is. If you are up leveling your life, you're going to hit imposter syndrome. That actually is the very first thing that you hit, and it shows that you are on the right track.

So anytime you hit that, just know, okay, this is the beginning of an up level. I see what it is, and it's okay to take a second and think through all those thoughts that are coming as you are thinking about all this, like, imposterness that's coming through, but it's more important, what do you do right after that?

The first thing is to acknowledge what this is. Our brains are wired to keep us safe. They don't want us to step out of our comfort zone. They don't want us to step into that unknown because that's scary. And our brains doesn't want us to do scary. Our brain wants to keep us safe. And so when we're feeling this imposter syndrome, we know that. Okay, this is just to keep us safe. This is the beginning of an up level. So this means I'm on the right track.

So put that meaning towards your imposter syndrome versus believing all of those thoughts that you're having in your head. So that's the first tip is to acknowledge what it is that it means that you are on the right track, that you are stepping out of your comfort zone. You're doing something that you know is something that you can do deep, deep down inside, you know. But you're going to be having all of these thoughts come in that is going to try to tell us that we can't do this.

The next thing is I want you to start noticing what those thoughts are that are coming to you. Because I don't know about you. I don't know if you've ever like tried to talk to your husband or girlfriend and you're having some issues and you want to tell them all about the story because you want them to validate the feelings that you're having, right? You want buy in.

And so most of the time when we are going to be like airing our dirty laundry, we are going to be complaining about something that's happening. The reason that we're doing that, if we think about what is the payoff in our brain. The payoff in our brain is that someone else is going to validate the thing that we are saying.

That is exactly what your brain is going to be doing when you start having these thoughts of imposter syndrome, that you can't do this, that you're not good enough, that so and so is better than you. All of those things, your brain is going to start looking for proof is this true? And so I want you to really look at what are those things that you're thinking right after that.

Because if we are saying like I'm not good enough, I'm just use that as kind of the overall imposter syndrome word that we use is I'm not good enough. And we look at what is that very next thing that we, we think about is it that we are like, you're right, I'm not good enough. Because look at this time that I failed and look at that time that I failed and look at this time that I totally screwed this up.

Our brains are now starting to believe that thought because we are talking about all of these things that is proving that idea correct. So when we have that thought, I want you to start thinking about how that actually is not true. So I'm not good enough. Well, even though I messed up or even though I quote unquote, didn't do this the right way, look at all the things I learned from that. I grew from that situation. Because we all are going to fail. We all are not going to do things right.

But are we learning from those experiences? Are we learning from those things? If we are learning from those things, then that actually is a win. And so when we start thinking through I'm not good enough, I want you to start proving to your brain why that is not true. Think of situations where you learn from something, where maybe you did do something amazing.

So one of the things that helps with this, this is a little trick that I have is I create a brag book. So what this is, you could do it in an actual book if you want and write things down. I have some things written down, but I have all mine in like a Google folder. So when you have people that are telling you awesome things about yourself, you can screenshot that and then put it into your brag folder or your brag book and all of these things are going to start adding up.

Just nice things that people say about you. Those are the ones that, like, you want to write down, right? If there are things that are that people put about you online, then talk about how awesome you are, how much you've helped them, how much you've changed their business, anything like that. What you want to do is you want to screenshot that and then put it in a folder, or you can write it down and put it into a book.

So when you start having these thoughts of I'm not good enough, I don't really help people, so and so is better at this than me. All of those things that we start thinking, a way to get out of that negative thoughts is to look at proof, right? We want to find proof. So when we find proof, we are going to then go to our brag book or a brag folder and we're going to start reading all the things that people have said about us.

And that is going to help us show our brains that no, that actually is not true. Look at what I've done in the past. Look at the people that I've helped in the past. Look how I was able to shine my light in the past, and so I actually am good enough, I can do this. So that's another tool for you that you can use to help get yourself out of that imposter syndrome is by doing that. And then your third tip as we are going through this imposter syndrome.

I want you to know that like, once you go through this once, it doesn't mean that you are immune to this and it's not going to ever happen again. Because every time you uplevel, you're going to be hitting this. Any time that you're doing something new, you launch a new service or a new offer, you decide that you are going to pivot your niche and start working with other people, you're going to hit that imposter syndrome.

And so by noticing what is your thoughts right after, how can we prove to our brains like this actually is true? Look at the things that we have done in the past that have really helped us. Those are the things that are going to help us to move forward. And then the very next thing that you can do is what is one thing that you can do to move forward, forward in spite of feeling like maybe you can't do it.

And that's the thing that you do. So you need to identify what is that next thing. And maybe it's changing your profile picture on social media. Maybe it's changing your little description of your bio of what it is that you do. Maybe it's reaching out to a friend or reaching out to a past client and letting them know of a new service that you're offering. It could be something small, it could be something big. It doesn't really matter what it is. You just have to create momentum.

And to create momentum, it means you have to take that first step. So first we're going to identify what it is that imposter syndrome is. It's just letting us know that we're about to up level, which is awesome because that's what we want to do. We don't want to stay stagnant. We want to keep getting better and better. And we do that by up leveling. So we do that by overcoming imposter syndrome. Then the second thing that we're going to do is we are going to notice our thoughts.

How are we proving to ourselves that that thought is not true? And the easiest way to do it is look at what people have said about you. Because we can say the things about ourselves. We could say, no, I'm awesome, I'm amazing. We can say all that, but it doesn't hold as much weight as if someone else had said that. And if you don't have anything, you're like, I've never done this before. I don't know what people think about me. One thing you can do is you can ask them.

You can post on social media and say, I'm creating something to help me when I'm feeling imposter syndrome. I would love to know if I have ever helped you in any way. I would love to know how it was that I was able to help you. Just post that on social media and you will have tons of people coming in and posting about how you were able to help them in their lives. And then that is going to be the start of your brag book or your brag folder, however you want to do it.

And then the third thing is take that next step. What is that one thing you can do? It could be big, it could be small. We just need to create momentum because the thing that's going to keep us in imposter syndrome is staying there and staying stagnant. And so if we're staying there and we're thinking about all these things and it's coming over and over and over, the only way out of that is to move forward. So you need to take that step forward, even if it's scary.

You can rely on all of the belief that other people have in you until you can borrow that belief. And then you could believe in yourself. You got this. You can do it. I'm so excited for you.

I would love to hear in the comments, let me know how this has helped you. If you've tried some of these things, come back and let us know how it is helping you. And we'll see you guys all on our next episode.