You’re talented, intelligent, ambitious, and hard-working.
Yet, you can’t seem to shake this feeling that you aren’t good enough, successful enough, smart enough, or capable of going after that next level of success, so you get caught in comfort land, spinning your wheels, frustrated, and you’re SO OVER this feeling.
Maybe you’re familiar with the topic I’m about to dig into here. Maybe you’ve Googled it or heard the term thrown around on your favorite podcast, but chances are, if you’re reading this blog, you’ve probably experienced it before- the feeling of being an “imposter,” someone who has accomplished a lot but still doesn’t feel good enough.
Imposter Syndrome is the dark cloud that can smother many ambitious, creative, passionate, intelligent, heart-centered people.
You know that feeling you get when you want to show up in a more significant way? Maybe the “bigger way” for you includes using your voice and speaking up more, becoming more visible in your business or career, or simply going after a massive “holy shit” kind of goal. This is the time when Imposter Syndrome gets loud.
So, what is it, exactly?
In short, you don’t think your success is good enough. Instead of internalizing your success and standing tall and proud, claiming it to be YOURS, you externalize it and give it away to something outside of you, making you feel less capable.
You’ll experience thoughts such as:
- I had help with my accomplishments, so it doesn’t count.
- I only achieved that because I got lucky.
- I had connections.
These thoughts lead to more thoughts like:
- One day, they might discover that I’m not as smart or talented as they think.
- Who am I to ______? (insert the thing you REALLY want to do or say)
- Am I qualified to reach that next big goal?
These thoughts racing through your mind can cause you to play smaller than what you’re capable of or make the journey to your next level REALLY difficult, and we know that success is all about learning to enjoy the journey, so now what?
As a high achiever, you have already done things in your life that triggered the imposter syndrome feeling. You know this is part of the life you signed up for, a life filled with going after big dreams, making an impact, and standing for something. Ultimately, you’re creating a life far from mediocre.
And every time you go to uplevel, imposter syndrome shows up right on time! Annoying.
As a High-Performance Life and Success Coach, having worked with people at all levels of success- CEOs, Doctors, entrepreneurs, and stay-at-home moms- I can assure you that this will never go away. I’m sorry to break that news to you. It’s the truth, and my job as a coach is always to tell you the truth because the truth is what elevate you to higher levels of success and happiness.
So then, what do we do about it?
Moving through Imposter Syndrome quickly and loosening its grip on people requires a holistic approach: mental, emotional, and action based.
First, I work with people to identify the subconscious beliefs that have created the thoughts they are experiencing about their abilities. Some people try to push themselves so hard without doing any of the mindset work, which often leads to burnout and self-sabotage because your brain will do all it can to prevent that from ever happening again. This means you will not level up. You’ll remain stagnant.
After identifying these core subconscious beliefs about your abilities and success, we work to reprogram them through various techniques.
The next layer is emotional. This deeper layer allows us to get to the core emotional programming that causes people to feel unworthy, which often stems from childhood events, and my clients are usually shocked when they realize this. We don’t realize how much our past controls us until we do. This part of the process comes with releasing stored emotions and energies weighing them down.
Finally, and simultaneously, we co-create an action plan with specific steps to move them forward toward their goals.
In High-Performance Coaching, this happens rather quickly. As a high achiever and high performer, you have big things to do, so we take a holistic approach that gets to the root faster, allowing you to get on with your extraordinary goals.
If you’re ready to dive into some mindset work on your own, I’ve created a list of some things you can do to get the ball rolling. Here are some questions/prompts to dig into, but remember, we cannot see our blind spots, so there will be more to uncover in 1:1 coaching!
- Make a list of all your work/career/business/education “accomplishments.”
- Make a list of the accomplishments in your personal life. These are the things you have overcome. (Overcome does not mean perfection. It means you’ve been able to make a significant change in some area(s) of your life.)
- Write down/journal what your next-level goals and dreams are.
- Write down your negative thoughts about going after your next level of success- whether in your career or personal life. This is called a brain dump.
- Now, look through those thoughts and ask yourself if they are 100% fact. You’ll see that they are 99.99% beliefs, and beliefs are NOT facts!
- Write new beliefs. Pick new beliefs, write them out in sentence form and put them on post-it notes, and stick them on your bathroom mirror, in your car, at your computer, or wherever you will see them often.
Ready to go to the ultimate level?
High-Performance Coaching will get you there faster than ever thought possible, and in an all-encompassing way, so you don’t hit burnout and exhaustion.
