GIRL – Imposter Syndrome is REAL and it’s about time we call it out and kick it to the curb. Are you with me?! In today’s episode we deep dive into why we feel imposter syndrome, some ways we can overcome it (BYE FRUMPY FIONA!), and we also talk about the 5 different types of imposter syndrome!
- The Expert
- The Perfectionist
- The Natural Genius
- The Soloist
- The Superhero
Listen in and let me know which one you identify with most! (You can find me here on IG — let’s be friends!!)
I am so dang proud of you for all of the hard work that you’re doing. I can’t wait to see where these steps are going to lead you! Click here to listen to the podcast and let’s dive even deeper on this topic!
XO,
Krista
View the Full Transcript:
Hey girl, and welcome to the She Calls Her Shots podcast, where we’re all about making a bigger impact while learning how to live bolder, brighter, and happier lives. My name is Krista, and I’m a photographer, coach, and an entrepreneur, and I am so excited to dig in, do the work, and tackle our biggest goals together in this community, we are committed to taking mass.
Of action in our lives and in our business, while also learning to celebrate progress over perfection. And in this podcast, we focus on the real talk. In every episode we’ll deep dive into honest and open conversations about life, business, relationships, and inner growth. And we’ll share insight and tips on how to play a bigger game and ultimately live a life that we truly love.
So girlfriend, let’s make some moves and start calling our own shots. Hey girl. I am so freaking pumped for this episode today, and I just wanna take a second to just truly thank you so much for listening in. You might be in your car or shopping at Whole Foods. You might be in the shower or maybe you’re doing laundry, but wherever you are, I just, I wish that I could give you a big hug.
I am just so grateful and I love that you and I get to connect on here every week, and we get to just talk about the things that are on our heart, and I love that I get to meet you right where you are, no matter where that might be. So truly, thank you so much for spending some time with me today. And I wanna dive right in.
And if you’re not familiar with the term imposter syndrome, I am confident that you are going to be familiar with the feeling of it and that this topic is going to really hit home for you. Essentially, imposter syndrome is this psychological pattern where you and I will doubt our skills and our talents and our accomplishments, and we carry with us this internalized fear of being exposed as a fraud.
And I wanna tell you a story really quick about kind of how this topic came up. I was talking to one of my good friends and she was telling me about how she was going for this promotion at work and she spent years growing her skills. She’s taken courses to grow her skills. Like in her corporate job, she is constantly going to conferences and like reading up on things to make sure that she’s always in the know.
And she clearly knows what she’s doing. She has been promoted multiple times, but the promotion that she’s going for now is one that feels really scary. It’s like a big jump from where she currently sits in her, um, in her role at her job. And despite all of her education, her knowledge, her experience, her years working in this field, and the fact that clearly she knows what she’s doing and the fact that she’s even.
Being considered for this promotion means that everyone else sees that she knows what she’s doing. She still had this constant feeling like she wasn’t qualified enough to be considered for the promotion. She’s afraid that even once she takes on this new role, that people are gonna realize that she wasn’t ready for it or that, you know, she wasn’t qualified enough in order to move up.
And maybe you’ve had these moments in your life. I know for me, sometimes it’s really easy to forget that we are all experts on certain topics, right? Like we all have our own unique life experiences. We’ve been through so many different things. We all kind of view life through these different lenses than someone else.
And so even something as simple as our perspective, although it might seem normal or boring, or like, you know, just kind of like as is. To us, our perspective might be incredibly insightful to someone else. And obviously having knowledge around something doesn’t immediately make us an expert, right? Like just because I, you know, read a book on positive psychology doesn’t mean I’m now a positive psychology expert.
And I know that. But I think far too often we dismiss the things that we. Do know, and we downplay our own beliefs and our perspectives and our own insights. And here’s the thing about imposter syndrome, is that it happens despite any external evidence of our own competence. So meaning that even when things happen in our life that were directly caused by our own efforts, our actions, our success.
We continue to remain convinced that we are a fraud and that somehow we don’t deserve the things that we’ve achieved. And I know that this is exactly what my friend, I don’t wanna use her real name cuz I don’t wanna like put her out on this podcast, but we’ll just call her Laura. So my friend Laura, I know that this is exactly what she’s going through because we have this belief that somehow we don’t deserve the things that we’ve achieved in life.
And I know I, I understand this feeling because, you know, I’ve experienced it before, like, and maybe you have too. Have you ever had something really incredible happen to you in your life and you just blame it on luck? I actually have a quick story that I’ve kind of talked about on my Instagram, and I think I might have talked about it in my first episode of this podcast, but, I originally had this dream of moving to California.
I’d never been in California. I didn’t know, I, I don’t know why. I just, I had this feeling in my gut that this was where I was supposed to be. And for a short period of time after college, I had the, um, the ability to move out here. And I moved out here for six months and then just due to some life circumstances and things that happened, I had to move back home to Florida from that day when I moved back.
I mean, it was a countdown in my head like, I didn’t know how I was gonna do it, but I was going to come back. And so I made a plan. I made a really messy plan. I mean, when I say I made a plan, I didn’t really make a plan. I had no idea what I was doing, but I, I had this belief in myself that I was going to make it happen.
Long story short, I didn’t enjoy my job that I was in. Um, when I was in Florida, I, I like, would come home crying. I drank a lot of wine. I like. That sounds bad, but I did, if I’m being honest, and I came home and I worked on my resume. I was very purposeful about if I’m gonna get a job, if I’m gonna move to the west coast again, I need to have a plan of action.
And so I did. I came home every night. I worked on my resume. I applied to like a bunch of jobs in California. And as at the time, the way that I thought of it, as luck would have it, you know, one of the companies I really connected with, I connected with the hiring manager and they ended up hiring me and moving me out.
And it was incredible. And in that moment, and even looking back on it, and even when I tell this story, To some people, I think there’s this feeling that like I got lucky. And listen, I’m gonna be real honest for a second. I am white and I do not doubt that the color of my skin has not granted me certain opportunities in life.
I am not blind to that fact. I am very aware that there are likely things that have happened in my life that I have maybe taken for granted because of the color of my skin. So first and foremost, I just, I want to be very clear that I, I do not dismiss that fact. But the point that I wanna make is that it would also be really easy for me to look at that situation and blame everything that happened or credit everything that happened to luck when in reality, I know I can think back to those days where I didn’t like my job.
I was so upset, I was crying. But you know what I did? I went home every single night. I worked on my resume. I sent out. You know my resume to any job that looked interesting, I made new cover letters and I walked around and when people would ask me what I do, I’m not even joking, I would tell them, oh, I’m a wedding photographer and I’m moving to California.
Like, no lie, if you had met me when I was like, like a month or two before I ended up getting the job moving out to California, like if you had met me in that like kind of timeframe in between. What I would’ve told you if you would’ve asked me what I do is I’m a wedding photographer and I’m moving to California, and in my head I had no idea how I was gonna do that.
Right? I was like, this is a pipe dream that I have. Like I don’t even know if this is gonna come into fruition, but I talked about it as if it were coming into fruition because I knew that if it was going to happen, I had to believe that it was going to happen. And so I think it’s so important, you know, when we’re talking about this idea of, of imposter syndrome, really looking back onto the things that have happened to you in your life.
And really seeing when, you know, this success happened or whenever I had this thing happen for me, was it luck or was it because I put in hard work? And you know, kind of back to my story before I, sorry, I got on a little bit of a tangent with that, which I think it was relevant, so I’m glad I talked about it.
But back to where I was going before with my friend who, Laura, who’s having this promotion, we sometimes get this feeling that, you know, one. The things that have happened to us be credited on luck, but also we get this sinking feeling that when we achieve things in our life, when we get a promotion, you know, when we get high praise for something, you know, if we.
You know, book something, you know, a client that has really high expectations for us and we’re like really nervous cause we don’t think we’re gonna meet them. Like whenever we have these situations that happen in our life, it’s really easy to get this thought in our head that’s like, I can’t believe this person actually thinks that I know what I’m doing, but.
Spoiler alert, no one actually knows what they’re doing. And I, and I say that with complete certainty and like a hundred percent confidence, backing up my words, because even experts in their field, if they’re gonna stay relevant in their topic, you have to continue learning and growing. And guess what? If you’re learning and you’re growing, then chances are you still don’t know what you’re doing, right?
So often I think we, we get caught in this belief that, you know, just because someone has been doing something for an extended period of time, that it must somehow mean that they’re an expert in the field. And to break this down kind of simply, but also there’s a lot of truth behind it. I have been in charge of my own bank account.
Since I was in high school, and for those of you listening that may not know me well, that’s at least like 15 years. So I’ve had, you know, my own debit and credit cards for about the same amount of time, and I can confidently tell you that I am by means no expert in how to manage my finances, right? Like I’ve been managing my finances for 15 years and I still have no idea what I’m doing.
I’ve read some books about finance stuff. I’ve, you know, kind of dabbled in it here and there, but like, just because I’ve spent a prolonged period of time in it does not mean that I’m an expert. And I think so often we forget that. So what I’m really trying to say is if you feel like you have no idea what you’re doing, if you sometimes feel like you’re an imposter, if you ever feel like that, just know that you are in good company with literally every other human being on this earth.
And so with this new year, I think this is such a relevant topic to talk about now, because you might have some really big goals and dreams that you’re working towards, and you might feel in some of these ways, whether it’s a promotion that you’re going for, whether it’s stepping up in your business, maybe you have finally taken your business full-time and you are now your own boss and c e o, which if that is the case, girl, like, let’s celebrate you for a second.
But whatever it is that you might be doing, you might have the sinking feeling. And this fear that you’re afraid that the people that you are trying to book, or the people that you are working for, or whoever it might be, you have this sinking feeling that they’re gonna find out that you somehow have no idea what you’re doing.
So maybe it’s, you know, you wanna share your ideas with the world. You know, maybe you wanna speak up in that next meeting and you wanna talk about the ideas that you have for this upcoming project. Or maybe you are starting a business and you just have this like, Little seeded thought in your head that is like, what if I decided to pursue this full-time?
Whatever it might be. Those thoughts and those feelings and those dreams that you have are on purpose, and so I hope today that we, I can just inspire you to have that courage to really just. Go for it. I think so often with these, with these feelings that we have, like we get this, these thoughts that fill our head, that, you know, we’re not enough of an expert in order for our voice to make a difference, right?
Like if you’re in a meeting, and I, I worked in a corporate job for over eight years, so, um, I can very confidently talk about this because I’ve experienced this so many times where. You have an idea or this thought around a project or something that’s, you know, coming up or something, you know, that they might even be looking for someone to own a project.
And in the back of your head you’re like, oh man, like this would be so great for me. I have so many ideas for this. But you don’t raise your hand because you’re so afraid of what people might think and you’re so afraid of. Taking on that project because what if you start it and, and you fail and you have no idea what you’re doing, right?
Like you’re not ready for it. And like it just ends up being a complete fail. But on the other hand, what if you take on that project and it just freaking blows everybody’s socks off? Like, what if you do it and it just ends up being a complete success, right? Like the equal of that, like, Either one of those is equally bound to happen.
And sometimes we think that, you know, someone is more successful because they have everything together, right? Like so and so would be so much better to take on this project because they have this experience that they’ve done and they have this background and they’ve worked on this before, and we somehow think that like just because.
Someone has had certain experiences that it makes them more qualified for the job, and sometimes that’s the case, right? Like, I mean, you can’t go into any job or any promotion or any project with no experience and be like, I’m gonna totally rock this because let’s be real. That’s, that’s not always how it happens.
But I think what happens more often than not, especially for women and for women that I’ve connected with, is that we have all of these experiences to back up our credibility, but we still don’t think that it’s enough. One of my favorite quotes, it’s um, by author Glennon Doyle. She says, the only thing that was ever wrong with me was my belief that there was something wrong with me.
And I think that that’s. That’s so true, right? Like the only thing that’s wrong with us are the things that we tell ourself like because we are really mean in our heads. We have these inner critics that say these really terrible things. And one of my favorite ways, you know, to get really cognizant of this and to kind of stay on top of that inner critic in my head is when.
When you have these thoughts, when you have that voice that pops up and you know it, like this voice probably even has like a tone. Like you know exactly how they sound, you know the words that they use. I like to name that person in my head and I’ve never shared this with anybody, but you know, it’s podcast and so it’s you and I talking over coffee.
And so I’m gonna share this with you because you’re my best friend. My inner critic voice, I call her frumpy Fiona. And I dunno where that came from. I was reading a book that. Told me to name my inner critic. And when I thought of who my inner critic was, I just, the, the person that I actually based it off of was the girl in Willy Wonka with the red dress and like the curly, you know, wavy brown hair.
Um, I’m actually blanking on her name. I don’t even remember. But regardless, like that’s who I thought of when I thought of my inner critic. And I just thought of this girl in a frumpy dress with her hair, a little disheveled, and who just likes to sit on my shoulder and just like Mary, Mary, Mary, like tell me all of the things on like when I’m doing something wrong or how I could be doing something better, or just all of the negative things that like I wouldn’t actually tell myself, but it’s like frumpy Fiona on my shoulder just like.
Spreading her negativity to the world. And so I think it’s so important when we have these moments, this imposter syndrome, when that starts to kick in and that little voice turns on and it starts to tell us these things like name that person, like they’re sitting on your shoulder. Like name them, acknowledge who they are, and know that that’s not you telling yourself these things.
That’s your inner critic. And truth be told, they know nothing about what you’re capable of doing. Right? Like they’re over here just like trying to spread their negativity and just like not wanting to get out of their comfort zone and just like wanting you to play small so that way they don’t feel bad about themselves.
Like it’s literally a whole personality. So name them and like literally right now, I want you to like, Pause this podcast, and then I want you to message me on Instagram. My username is at, she calls her shots, and I want you to message me who your person is, like who is your inner critic? What is their name?
What do they look like and like, what type of negativity are they trying to. Bread because I think it’s so important that we acknowledge these things and we make them common things that are talked about. And the really interesting thing to me about imposter syndrome is that there’s no like single answer as to why people experience imposter syndrome.
So for some it might stem from this deep-seated anxiety. Right? I think for me, especially when I was younger, I think that’s where a lot of my imposter syndrome came from. Was, I was just super anxious around like every, every unknown thing in life was just very scary to me. And for others it could stem from, you know, maybe this like childhood belief that you had, that you had ingrained in your mind.
You know, these thoughts of like, I’m not good enough, I’m not smart enough. And depending on, you know, the environment that you were raised in, maybe. Maybe you were told that like maybe you were told that you weren’t gonna be very good in school or you weren’t going to go very far, which if that is girl, like, I hope that you have the confidence to know that like that is someone else’s belief and has no reflection on who you are as a person.
But regardless of where these thoughts stem from, I think we often internalize these ideas and then we think that we have to work really hard. In order to prove them wrong and it just becomes this self-perpetuating cycle. Also, I don’t know if you can hear this, but, uh, they’re actually doing construction next door and I tried to time recording this podcast as to, to like when they weren’t gonna be doing construction, but now I’m like hearing things every once in a while.
So if you hear anything in the background, I apologize. But the truth is for a lot of people, imposter syndrome and the symptoms that it brings along can often last a lifetime. So, you know, regardless of how much success you and I might gain these feelings of imposter syndrome and you know, these, you know, this belief that we have that like we’re gonna be seen as a fraud and people are gonna somehow realize that we have no idea what we’re doing.
Like these deep-seated feelings that we have around imposter syndrome, no matter how much success we might gain, are likely going to continue with us as we continue to up-level our lives and our business. So with that said, it’s obviously so important that we learn how to live with and overcome these feelings, and I thought this was really interesting.
I wanna share this with you because while I was doing some research on imposter syndrome, I found an article written by Dr. Valerie Young, and it talks about the five different types of imposters, and I’m really curious to know which one you might identify with the most. So first is the expert, and so the expert.
Usually doesn’t feel satisfied when they’re finishing a task until they feel that they know everything about the subject. You know, those people like, and this might be you, like, you know, you wanna dive into learning a subject, but you’re not just gonna read like one book about it. You’re gonna read like five, and then you’re gonna also watch like 10 YouTube videos about it, and then you’re gonna like, Read all of their research about it.
Like the people who literally just spend hours and hours and hours searching for information so that they can feel like they are just like completely an expert around the topic. But the downside to that is that we spend this person, the expert, spends so much time in researching things that it’s often hard to actually complete the tasks and the projects that you’re supposed to complete.
So for example, this could be you. If you know, you see this job posting and you’re like, man, this would be amazing, but I don’t mean. Need every single educational requirement, and so I’m not gonna apply. Or maybe you’re constantly seeking out, you know, certifications or training or some other educational system because you think that you need to improve your skills in order to, to succeed or to feel successful.
And a lot of times for the experts, even if you’ve been in your role for some time, you can often relate to that feeling like you still don’t know enough. And it’s funny because I think that even though this is called the expert, a lot of times people with this, these kinds of feelings often like shutter or cringe or feel really uncomfortable when someone actually tries to call them an expert, right?
Like they seek out all of the things to make them an expert. But then when someone acknowledges or states that they are an expert, That feeling of imposter syndrome comes up and they’re like, oh no, like I don’t know anything about this subject. Even though they’ve spent hours and hours and hours researching, getting certificates and like continuing their education around it.
And I think a lot of the times, you know, for someone who identifies with this, you know, it’s important to remember that. There’s always gonna be more things to learn, and in certain situations it might be beneficial for you to get a certificate in something or spend a couple of hours researching something.
If you’re tackling a new project, you know nothing about, then yeah, like maybe spend a couple hours researching what it is. But it’s important to recognize that there’s always going to be more to learn, focusing on, you know, growing your skills and your abilities, uh, you know, to help you. In your job or in your career or whatever it is that you, that you might be doing.
But instead of trying to, you know, learn everything about what it is that you might be tackling, practicing the idea of like just in time learning, right? And if you don’t know what that means, it’s basically just acquiring the skill as you need it. So for example, if your responsibilities change, Rather than like trying to, you know, get all of the information and knowledge that you might possibly need to be aware of, instead of trying to do that, just focus on learning one thing at a time that’s gonna help get you to that first step of whatever it is that you’re trying to tackle.
And next is the perfectionist. And I identify with this perfectionist, you know, imposter a lot. I think that I struggled with this a lot when I was first starting my business and when I was, you know, kind of growing into adulthood, if you will. But the perfectionist experience is really high levels of anxiety.
You know, we have lots of doubt, worry, and especially when we set ourselves up for these really extreme goals that when we think about it, They’re un unattainable, right? Like they’re these goals that like, are completely unattainable. Maybe not unattainable in our life, but like we set unrealistic timelines.
Like, you know, I’m gonna get fit and I’m gonna lose 30 pounds in a month, and I’m gonna like completely change who I am and you’re gonna look at me next month and be like, wow, who is this person? You’re, you look so different. Like those kinds of goals, right? Like the perfectionist who really just has these extreme tendencies and a lot of the times for perfectionists, We focus a lot on areas where we could have done better rather than celebrate our achievements and, ooh, I don’t know about you, but that hits me really, really hard at home because I, for so long in my life, and maybe you can relate to this, like that last line, I really focused on where I could have done better instead of celebrating my achievements.
So some of you know the imposter 10. Tendencies of the perfectionist. You know, maybe you have a really hard time delegating work and even when you’re able to delegate it, you know, do you often feel frustrated or disappointed in the results or feeling like you can do it better? And so you don’t wanna, you know, outsource it to somebody else because you know that they’re not gonna be able to do it to the expectations that you have set.
Or, you know, when you miss this really high. Mark, like, you know, you had an exam or like, you know, whatever it might be like that you were striving for. Do you accuse yourself of just not being cut out for your job and then. Like ruminate on it for days, right? So like a lot of the perfectionist tendencies, this is so common for anyone who identifies as a perfectionist, is having these really rigid goals for ourselves.
And when we even fall short just a little bit, we don’t stop to think like, oh, next time I’ll do better. This is how I can improve. I see why maybe I didn’t do really great on like X, Y, or Z. Instead of doing that. What we do instead is like immediately go towards, I’m not cut out for this. I’m not good enough.
Why am I even trying? Like, you know, all of these things that we tell ourselves in our head that are clearly an extreme version of the truth. It’s not even the truth. It’s just like this extreme lie that we tell ourselves. And obviously we feel like our work has to be a hundred percent perfect a hundred percent of the time.
And for perfectionists success is rarely satisfying because we never truly believe. That we’ve officially made it. Even when some, like we succeed, you know, let’s say like you got the job or you got the promotion, or you know, whatever it might be. Even when we meet these goals, we still don’t feel completely satisfied because we focus on the things that we could have done better.
And honestly, owning and celebrating our achievements is so essential. For long-term success, right? Because if we don’t celebrate our achievements, we’re gonna burn out. We’re never gonna be happy, and we’re never gonna really thrive in feeling confident in our skills and our abilities. So if you do identify with the perfectionist type, like learn to take in those mistakes, you know, view them as a natural part of the process.
We are human. You and I are human. We are. Always going to be able to do something better. And that’s the beauty of this life. Imagine if you did everything perfectly a hundred percent of the time. Like that would be so boring, right? Like so learn to take those, those steps in that part of the process and the mishaps and times when you could have done better and learn to celebrate those things.
And the third type are the natural geniuses, which I think is really interesting because anyone who identifies with this, you might feel like you. You can learn any new skill really quickly and really easily. And then when you don’t learn something really quickly or easily, you feel ashamed and you feel really weak and you feel really uncomfortable having to identify with those feelings of feeling like you couldn’t master something quickly.
So these are for my, I think oftentimes, like people think of these as like the overachievers, right? Like, you know, if you have a track record of like, Always getting straight A’s or like always reaching for that gold star. You know, maybe you really dislike the idea of having a mentor because you feel like you can handle things on your own.
You feel like you’re able to do all the research and like become the expert. Oftentimes people who identify with this natural genius imposter syndrome type, you know, they wanna avoid challenges. Because it’s uncomfortable to try something that you don’t think you’re gonna be good at. And so if you can identify with this, I think one of the things that’s important to do is try seeing yourself as a work in progress.
And obviously that’s gonna be easier said than done. I don’t think it’s something that like all of a sudden you’re just gonna like accept the fact that you’re not gonna be great at everything. Like it’s not like an overnight, you just like wake up and all of a sudden. You’re okay with making mistakes, but I think just changing your mindset around viewing these little accomplishments or like viewing that challenge is you gaining new skills over your lifetime.
Even the most confident people, even the people who are experts at what they do, they had to start somewhere. And so realizing that it’s part of the process and just committing to. Always striving to building those lifelong learning skills and just like being okay with it being a process. And so the fourth one I wanna talk about, there’s only two more.
The fourth one I wanna talk about are the soloist or like the individualists. So the people who really prefer to work alone, they’re afraid to ask for help because they’re afraid that it’s gonna make them look like they’re completely incompetent, that they don’t know what they’re doing. And this person might turn down help in attempt to prove their own self-worth.
And so, If you identify with this, you might kind of relate to these feelings of feeling like you need to accomplish things on your own in order to prove your worth, or when someone offers you help, you know, just like you know, no, I don’t need anyone’s help. I can do it. I can do it on my own. And I think sometimes, you know, people that identify with this, when you do ask for help, it’s more so in terms of like, The requirements of the project or the task instead of like what you might need as a person when you do delegate or you ask for help, you frame it in a way that I need help.
Well, they probably wouldn’t even say, I need help, but like, I need you to do X, Y, Z because I’m going to be doing A, B, C, and I’m just like, I can’t do both of them at the same time. Right. Like framing it in a way that’s like, I need you to help with this part of the. Project as opposed to this is too much for me to do by myself, I need help.
And lastly, one of my favorites are the superheroes and superheroes like to excel and oftentimes, It can kind of result in this idea of workaholism. Superheroes are always busy, they’re always working, and a lot of the times that can lead to burnout, which like obviously affects a lot of physical and mental, you know, wellbeing and our relationships with other people and are superheroes tend to get stressed when they’re not working and they don’t like downtime because they feel like it’s a waste of time.
Superheroes or people who identify with that, you know, you might start a hobby, but then your passions and those things fall by the wayside. The wayside because you realize like, this isn’t gonna move me forward in my business or whatever it is that I’m working towards. And so you end up sacrificing a lot of it to the work that you’re doing.
And a lot of times I relate a lot to this one. And you might, you know too, cuz I think this idea stems into a lot of, uh, these personality or these imposter types, imposter workaholics, are. Actually addicted to the validation that comes from working not to the actual work itself. So if we wanna get that validation from other people, that we’re doing the right thing, right?
Because I think this is a common theme, no matter what personality, your imposter syndrome type you might relate to, we’re all seeking validation just in different ways. And so for this type especially, you know, start, you know, Trying to train yourself to veer away from that external validation, you have to become your own biggest cheerleader.
No one should have more power to dictate how you feel about yourself. Than you do. Like even your boss, you know, when they give you a project and you do really well, you know, and, and you’re really kind of seeking that praise. Your boss at the end of the day should not have that power over you of like needing to have that validation in order to validate.
The good work that you’ve done, because at the end of the day, remember we’re all people, and the day that you finish your project, you might present it to your boss. You, your boss, might be having a really crappy day. We’re all human, and so you might be so excited to share your results and everything that you’ve been working on, and then you share it and it’s kind of to like crickets or like you don’t get that validation or that person that you’re seeking that validation from is just having an off day and maybe they don’t.
They just don’t meet your expectations of what you’re expecting. So really training yourself to be able to be your biggest cheerleader. Be proud of your work. Be so excited about the efforts and everything that you put in, because as you become more attuned to that internal validation and you’re able to connect with that nurturing inner voice and that confidence that comes from completing these.
Projects and these skills, you’ll be able to kind of ease off the gas from looking for that validation from other people and you’ll be instead looking internally for that self-validation. And honestly, I mean I could talk about this topic all day. I’m gonna try and wrap this up cuz we’ve been talking for a long time.
But I’ve experienced imposter syndrome so many times in my life. I mean, when I went to college and I felt like I wasn’t smart enough to be there. Uh, that was definitely a thing when I decided to start a photography business, knowing. Nothing about how to start a business while also knowing or not knowing how to manage my own personal money, let alone a business income.
Or when I was growing my photography business and having clients book me and feeling like I had no idea what I was doing. And even when I worked in the corporate world, every time I advanced my position, I felt deep down like it was due to luck or that I just like somehow didn’t deserve it. And so honestly, we’re never gonna feel.
Like we’re qualified enough, right? We’re always learning, we’re always growing. And I think it’s so important to keep that in mind. The next time you hear that inner critic voice, name them frumpy Fiona. Know that it’s not you. Acknowledge that voice and then tell them to step aside and know that it’s not actually you or your beliefs.
And if you’re really looking for ways of, you know, kind of growing from imposter syndrome, I think finding a life coach that can help you tackle some of the underlying reasons behind the feelings of imposter syndrome. Is so helpful. I know for me, that’s been something that’s been huge in my personal growth journey.
I’m actually gonna be having my life coach on as a guest because I’m so excited for you to hear from her. But if you’re looking for someone to talk to, I think that’s so crucial in helping you grow in your journey. Also, let’s just commit to stop putting unrealistic expectations on ourselves. This journey of life is not linear.
Our growth to success. We’re going to hit a few bumps. We’re gonna hit a few wrong turns, and let’s reframe our thoughts that the only difference between someone who experiences imposter syndrome and someone who doesn’t is not that the person who doesn’t feel it anymore has like learned to overcome it.
They’ve just learned how to accept these feelings. They’re not more intelligent, they’re not more competent, they’re not more capable than you are. We just have to reframe the way that we think about ourselves and really look at these. You know these thoughts that are caused from imposter syndrome and ask ourselves, are these thoughts helping me grow or are they hindering me?
And lastly, so let’s just surround ourselves with an uplifting and supportive community of women, right? Like oftentimes we feel like we are experiencing these feelings alone in a silo, but. The reality is everyone feels like they don’t know what they’re doing and so many women are going through the exact same thing that you’re going through right now.
And I’m so excited to say, just a quick little plug. I have something coming up launching, um, in the next month that is gonna be a really exciting opportunity where listeners of the podcast, you can join me and other women and get more one-on-one support and accountability and encouragement. And I’m so excited because I think it’s gonna be so beneficial and just so crucial to helping women and just like you and I grow our business.
Because we all deserve to feel happy and we all most certainly deserve to believe in our ability and to do really incredible things. And at the end of the day, it’s not who you are today that’s holding you back. It’s who you think you are not. So let’s take a moment. Let’s envision that future version of us that is already crushing it in life.
And let’s start believing that she already lives inside of us today and she is ready to be released and she is ready to do really big things. I am so dang proud of you, girl, and until next time, I’ll talk to you soon.
Thank you so much for listening in and for committing to yourself along this journey. I’d love to hear your favorite takeaways from this episode today. Tag me on Instagram at she calls her shots, and let’s celebrate the fact that you showed up for yourself today. Or if you know someone that would benefit from listening in, feel free to share this episode with her in a dm.
As always, I am so excited that we get to continue on this journey together. And until next time, I’ll talk to you soon, girl.
