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Turning your Imposter Syndrome into a Superpower

I asked everyone on TikTok to tell me their limiting beliefs that are holding them back from starting a business and you all did not disappoint. Today, we’re addressing this comment from Laura (who has given her consent for the comment to be referenced publicly):

LauraLeigh says: my creations aren't that good. I can see the flaws and everyone else will too. Trying to sell my creations will be a waste of my time and energy. It's better to ust gift them to someone who might actually appreciate them.
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As we can see, there are several limiting beliefs in this comment and the first one is what is commonly known as “imposter syndrome”.

For those who maybe are experiencing something similar but haven’t heard that term before, imposter syndrome is “a psychological pattern where individuals doubt their accomplishments and have a persistent fear of being exposed as a fraud, despite evidence of their competence. Those experiencing it often feel like they do not deserve their success, attributing it to luck or external factors rather than their skills or hard work. This internal struggle can lead to anxiety, self-doubt, and a reluctance to pursue new opportunities, as individuals may constantly worry about being “found out” or not living up to expectations.” – Source: Perplexity.

In reality, this is a terribly painful thing to experience. It leaves us feeling like we’re not good enough or that our work isn’t good enough. I personally experienced this syndrome as well throughout the early years of my career, and due to that, I’ve learned how to turn it into a superpower. But first, let’s ground in some objective facts.

Who are the types of people that usually experience Imposter Syndrome?

Perhaps this will be comforting to learn, but Imposter Syndrome mainly happens to people who are objectively really great at something.

People who experience imposter syndrome are often high-achieving individuals who, despite their objective successes, fail to internalize their accomplishments. They tend to have significant skills and expertise in their fields but attribute their successes to external factors such as luck or assistance from others, rather than their own competence. This self-doubt leads to a persistent fear of being exposed as a fraud. In many cases, individuals experiencing imposter syndrome are quite skilled and knowledgeable, often performing at high levels in their academic or professional environments. However, they struggle with self-doubt and perceive their achievements as inadequate, which is contrary to the empirical evidence of their abilities. This phenomenon is prevalent in various fields, including academia and technology, where individuals may feel surrounded by exceptionally talented peers, further exacerbating feelings of inadequacy
Source: Perplexity. Prompt: What skill level do the people who experience imposter syndrome normally have around the topic they’re experiencing imposter syndrome?

The fact that you’re experiencing this at all is a huge green flag. It means you’re very likely really good at the thing you’re experiencing imposter syndrome around. The reason why you feel this way at all is because your taste is very high in that category. You know what “good” looks like, you know where you want to be and are painfully aware that you are just not there right now. That’s incredible. You know how many people are putting out terrible work and have no intention of improving because they don’t care and are just trying to make a buck? You know how many people are feeling absolutely lost right now, knowing that their shit ain’t it but having no idea at all what to improve on to get there?

Your taste is what’s causing that imposter syndrome because your taste needs you to do two things.

It needs you to know where you want to be so you can plot the course to get there, and it needs for you to have the fuel to push yourself to get there. Imposture syndrome is that fuel. By giving you this complex, it’s making you take on the beginner’s mentality. The beginner says “I’m not great at this yet, so I’m going to learn and test and try everything I can. Then one day I’ll be happy with my work”.

But the secret is, you’ll likely never get to feel that way if you continue down this path. You’ll never reach a level where you’re happy with your work if you don’t start appreciating that your work now, an older version of you used to aspire to.

So here’s what to do.

You don’t want to completely shift gears into the mentality of “my work is enough and will always be enough” or something like that right off the bat because you could kill your motivation. You can find all that fuel that you had before disappear while leaving the imposter syndrome behind. So I recommend weaponizing it instead. Lean into the role of the student, not from a place of being “less than”, but from a place of “I want to get better at my work. I want to be on the level of these professionals I admire. I want (insert whatever good things the imposter syndrome is driving you to accomplish here)”. Then focus on the work like you normally would but schedule one day every month where you purposefully take a step back to celebrate how far you’ve come. I recommend creating a photo album of all your past work that allows it to be organized by date; Google Drive or Dropbox are good solutions for this. Then, go into that folder and find all the work you did from that same month last year, and take the time to compare that work to your current work and appreciate the things you’ve improved on. You can also take note of the things you’d still like to improve on for you productivity girlies out there.

Next, after you find your motivation is still going strong with this new mindset shift, start taking small moments throughout your every day to celebrate your wins. Whenever you land a new client, sell a new piece of art, or even get a nice comment on social media, take a moment to celebrate and thank yourself for the work you put in to accomplish that. Thank yourself for caring about yourself enough to take care of you and take care of that future dream you hold so dear. This will begin building confidence in your work and building a positive relationship with yourself. As you invest more time and energy into this relationship with yourself, you’ll find you’ll have more stable ground internally. So when you face the challenges of life, or a task that seems too big to accomplish with grace, you can still hold your head up high and lean into the discomfort because you can weather storms much better than you used to while standing on this newfound stable ground.

Remember, the reason you have imposter syndrome at all is because you want to achieve something great. At least great in your eyes (which is all that matters because this is YOUR life). That desire is at the center of all of this and that desire is incredible. You absolutely deserve to go after your dreams, though right now you’re subconsciously tricking your brain to keep yourself dedicated and motivated to get there. Our goal is to build the strength to not need that trick anymore, and instead build up a more balanced approach so we can enjoy not only when we reach that dream but the journey along the way to it too.

Lessons I’ve learned from my own challenges with imposter syndrome:

  1. The highest acclaim and publicity I’ve received throughout my career came during a time I was deep in imposter syndrome. Looking back I cannot separate if the syndrome was the cause of the wins, or a result of them happening early in my career. Likely it’s a mix of both since the “syndrome’, rooted from my desire to be great and be known in my field, had me seeking those opportunities in the first place.
  2. Since I was newer in my career, I did mishandle some of those opportunities. Especially the ones I felt I had no business landing in the first place. Again, I cannot tell you how much of that was me being inexperienced versus me thinking that I was and psyching myself out about it and that affected my performance day of. But what I can tell you is that it doesn’t matter. Because the practice I got from pushing myself to do things I didn’t feel qualified to do eventually accumulated and I started feeling pretty confident in myself as those actions were more normalized due to repeat exposure.
  3. People often judge us less harshly than we judge ourselves. I remember the first time I made a workbook for an irl workshop, I went in feeling that it wasn’t done and fearing that it wouldn’t have any unique ideas or be useful to anyone. I challenged that thinking by saying to myself “well, even if there’s one person who gets something out of this workshop, at least it will be worth it”. To my surprise, everyone LOVED it. They were so excited after completing the workbook. They were showing off their work to one another, coming up and thanking me, and here I am just “👁️👄👁️”. In complete surprise that anyone liked it at all.
  4. Taking the time to purposefully close that skill gap and get better and better at the things you’re insecure about will only benefit you. But you can’t close that gap unless you lean in and practice at it. Take the opportunity that you feel you have no right being tapped for. Even if you have to tell yourself “they’re only going with me because no one else was available” or some completely ridiculous nonsense to get yourself to go, you still did the hard thing. And each time you do the hard thing that intimidates you, you’ll have to lie to yourself a little less. Eventually, you won’t have to lie to yourself at all because repeat experience builds confidence.
  5. Small steps are better than no steps. Similar to the above, waking up one day and just being a healed version of yourself isn’t realistic. That’s called masking and compartmentalizing. The only way to get through our bs is to go THROUGH it. We have to chip away over time, and take that next step from where we are towards the general direction of where we want to be and learn to accept that that will one day get us closer to our goal than just standing here and not moving.