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Seven out of 10 people experience imposter syndrome at some point. Additionally, 25% to 35% of high achievers also struggle with it.
You are not alone in your journey to rid yourself of imposter syndrome.Â
At its core, imposter syndrome is only a way of thinking. But it is very important way of thinking that can affect our well-being, and our success.
To defeat imposter syndrome we must form a new mindset. Instead of a mindset that focuses on what we view as our weaknesses or shortcomings, we can focus on the strengths.
Most people have at least one area they are confident in. In this podcast Michel guides you on how to drown out the other areas where the imposter has taken hold. Please go to UpSkillCommunity.com to review show notes and join a community of leaders investing in better understanding themselves so they can address the imposter syndrome in their work and lives.Do you ever feel the need to be perfect? To show up in an extra special way. Does low self-assessment haunt you. Do you feel. Guilty. When you’re successful, guilty. Of your accomplishments. Do you ever find yourself putting yourself down? Do you beat up on yourself for making simple mistakes? mistakes that everybody else makes and ignores. Do you find self-doubt. And low self esteem seeping into your life. Do you give credit to others or to luck? When you achieve something. Or do you give away your ideas? Or give others credit for your own contributions. Do you find yourself sensitive to feedback? Very uncomfortable receiving constructive feedback. Do you ever find yourself feeling all comfortable with your own title, your position or your introduction? Not really wanting anyone to call out what you do or call out your position or say who you are. You may be suffering from imposter syndrome. If any of those apply to you? And imposter syndrome interferes with our psychological wellbeing. With our sense of belonging. With our health. With our happiness, with our joy, the literature talks about this. And so we want to make sure we have a good understanding of what imposter syndrome is. How we identify it. How we perpetuate it and now more than ever, how we can remove it from our lives in a meaningful way. Because it creates self-doubt anxiety. It affects our ability to go after reasonable opportunities. And the more than anything, it just affects our ability to be our best self. And so. And this episode rigor to look at the strategies that you may need to think about. Habits that you may need to develop in order to keep this imposture at bay.
Michel Shah:Â
Welcome to UpSkill Talks brought to you by McGraw Hill. I’m your host, Michel Shah lead UpSkiller at UpSkill Community. UpSkill Talks is a podcast for leaders, leaders who are actively seeking innovative and creative ways to interact lead themselves and others. In every episode, through real life stories and enlightening conversations, we will explore the challenge. And opportunities real leaders face in today’s everchanging workplace. We will present you with real strategies for you to leverage your soft skills and produce transformative results. Thank you for joining me on this journey. Let us begin.
First things first. You are not alone. Seven in 10 people experience this. At some point in their lives. 25 to 35% of high achievers experienced this more persistently. And so you are definitely not alone and that alone should help you to feel less of an imposture start by knowing the feelings that you’re experiencing I not just inside of your head are not just inside of you because you think you’re an imposter, that there is a society of people who feel that way. At some point or another. We’re going to dive into some strategists to help you First let’s explore. The mindset. It’s important for you to enter this space with the mindset, knowing that you are not perfect. That was even hard for me to say. You are not perfect. You can’t know everything. You can’t do everything. You can’t be everything and you will not be all things to all people. So give yourself wiggle room, give yourself space to make mistakes space, to mess some things up space. To start over. Give yourself. Room. In your plants room. And scope to make mistakes. You’re going to make mistakes. And that actually is a good thing because it makes you not an imposter. That makes you fit in with everybody else. Who makes mistakes? When you give yourself wiggle room. Room and scope to make mistakes within your daily life, within your work in your family, in your relationships. When you give yourself that space and that scope to make mistakes. You are making it clear that you know that you’re not perfect and that is okay. You’re owning your imperfection and that makes you. Perfectly imperfect. In episode 41, I touched on the mindset of deficiency that we take into our work and into our lives in general. That mindset of deficiency, forces us to focus on all the things we do not have. All the things we cannot do. All the things that we are, not all the things that we cannot achieve. And we rarely in that mindset, switch over to the mindset that focuses on the strengths. We have the things we have in place like health. Like the ability to speak, like the ability to listen, like the ability to process this information and make it mean something to you. Those are some things that we have. The ability to take this information and do something with it. If you like that, freedom, the things we have, the ability to go to work, the ability to be a part of a family, the ability to serve, to be a part of something bigger than ourselves. We are not measuring what we’re able to. Not measuring our unique contributions to the conversations. To the projects, to the organizations, to our communities, to our world. We have to be able to shift from that deficiency mindset to our strengths mindset, because we rarely stop to think about what are we really good at? And that’s what the imposture wants. It wants you to focus on what you’re not good at because that’s the fertilizer on which it grows. So you have to switch over to focusing on your strengths. When you start focusing on your strengths, it’s almost like you’re a weed killer. You’re getting rid of the imposter because it does not survive when we’re focused on our strengths. So this is very, very important. You can go back to episode 41 and have a look at that. I already covered the importance off. Changing our mindset from one of deficiency to want focusing on our strengths. These are important habits of the mind that we need to cultivate. We need to focus on what we want more off. So I’m encouraging you focus on what you want more off. And that means starting by thinking about the goal. What’s the goal. When, you know what the goal is and you put in the effort to achieve the goal. It’s easy to measure that you have achieved the goal. And then, because it’s our mind that we’re using to help us to get to this place. We have to convince ourselves from beforehand that the goal is a reasonable goal. And that achieving this goal is a reasonable accomplishment. And so that when we achieve the goal, Then we can. Write that down in our accomplishment log, as an accomplishment because we have already vetted this, that if it is a reasonable goal, And we put in the reasonable effort to achieve it. Then it’s a reasonable accomplishment worthy of our time. Worthy for us to feel gratitude for us to, to recognize for us to reward ourselves. And if nothing else, for us to pause. And experienced the positive feelings. That come from that accomplishment. When we’re enjoying positive feelings that come from our accomplishment. There is no room for the imposture to come in. And so practicing gratitude for achieving our goals is a strategy that can help to squeeze the imposture out. But not just the very big goals like buying that house, buying that car landing, the new job, but the smaller goals too, like setting an alarm and saying, this is when I’m going to wake up every day and I’m going to dedicate 15 minutes to my accomplishment log, achieving that and making a note. I have done my accomplishment log for 30 days in a row. That’s worth celebrating. That’s worth feeling positive about. When we take time to experience these positive feelings. Based on our effort. There is no room for the negative feelings. That the imposture brings into our lives. And so we have to make sure we are expressing gratitude, spend in time to acknowledge efforts and respect in our accomplishments because we’re focused on specific goals. And we’re focusing on where we want to go. It’s important for you to remember. The imposture. Syndrome is about feelings. It’s not about facts. And so you can produce an opposite feeling. That’s what it’s about is. Uh, feeling that our mind allows us to feel to experience. It’s a perception. And it’s run through a negative lens. And so we can change the lens and shine it over the other side on some positive attributes that we have some positive behaviors, some positive habits of the mind that we’re developing. And embrace the positive feelings. That will help imposter stay away. And now the strategy. Is to develop positive stories to offset to the negative stories that this imposture tells us. When it says you don’t even belong in that conversation, how did you get invited to that call? You have to say, I have earned in my space, in the meeting. I have worked really hard. I would not be invited into this meeting if I had not earned at the spot in the meeting. If I did not have some value to bring or some contribution to make, or if I had not earned my spot in earnest. You have to create that positive story. To knock out the negative stories that this imposture has been telling you for a very long time. Some of the stories that the imposter is telling us. They came from even family members and friends who started telling us this in childhood and we adopted their stories. And then we internalize these stories and we’ve been. Repeating and rewinding and replaying these negative stories store ourselves, and they continue to harm us. In our relationships. In our work and our ability to serve the community and certainly in our own wellbeing and in our Choi. And so we need to pause. I identify some of those stories start with one, start with one that you play all the time. You know, that negative go-to story. Start with that one. And trace its beginnings. Where did this story come from? Is this one that you made up or was this one projected on you? Either way. Remember those stories, affect our feelings. What story can I create today that can help me to offset the negativity that’s coming from that story. So I can begin to feel different, feel the opposite of what the imposture wants me to feel. I can take control of that. And. Ward off, squeeze out slowly, ease out the imposture out of this aspect of my life. And this is something we’re going to have to do one area at a time, one characteristic at a time, one story at a time. But as long as we’re committed to removing this negative imposture out of our world, One step at a time is all we need. And it starts with one habit of the mind to offset the negative deficiency model that we’ve been socialized to use.
Michel Shah:Â
Thank you for listening to this episode of UpSkill Talks brought to you by McGraw Hill. We bring you new episodes every Monday. Please take a moment to subscribe, leave a five star rating and a written review at apple podcast. Or follow us on. By Google podcast or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts, don’t forget to share UpSkill talks with other leaders like yourself. So they too may gain the skills and insights to produce amazing results. Please go to UpSkillCommunity.com to review show notes and learn how you can join a community of leaders from across the globe. Collaborating to lead in a more meaningful and impactful way. I’m your host, Michel Shah. And again, thank you for joining me on this episode of UpSkill Talks.
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