dealing with the impostor

Dear you,

At an event, the wife of a president called me aside and gave me her personal number. I didn't ask for it. She was just really fascinated by a question I had asked her, and she wanted me to have her number and WhatsApp her. For hours, I felt like an impostor. I asked myself, "What did I do to deserve her number?"

Lol!

I look back now, and the thought was absolutely hilarious. The room I was in made her trust me. It was a room of achievers. I earned the right to be there with all the great things I had done, but my mind was trying to trick me into believing I was not deserving. However, I was able to wake myself up. Whenever I feel impostor syndrome, which is super rare these days, I do one of these five things:

1. I remind myself that if I'm in a room, I deserve to be there. It doesn't matter how I got there. All that matters is that I'm there and need to take advantage of the opportunity. Overthinking whether I deserve to be there [or not] is a waste of time. It's like being hungry and asking yourself or overthinking why you are hungry when there's a buffet in front of you. It doesn't make a lot of sense, does it? It doesn't matter why you're hungry. All that matters is that there's food, and you need to eat. Take your place, use your voice, build relationships and sit confidently at the table. Someone invited you for a reason, don't insult their gift to you. Take your place and shine.
2. I flip through my win journal. I keep a win journal. The brain is unreliable with details when you don't have a photographic memory. So I journal my wins. I don't just journal achievements, but I write down challenges I have surmounted and things that I have survived. It's like having a Bard as a conqueror or praise singers as a king. It reminds me of my small and large track record, and it refuels me to take on the world. It reminds me of my capabilities and why I am deserving. It reminds me, "If I did X, then I can also do Y". I remember the challenges and how I overcame them, and that gives me renewed strength.
3. I speak to my closest friends and inner circle of cheerleaders. When I forget, my friends, family, and bae remind me how awesome I am. They tell me stories from their perspective, and this has a way of recharging me. I also draw strength from communities where I feel safe. I am part of interesting communities, and sometimes seeing what people with like-minds are doing inspires me to dust my shoes and get to work. Find safe spaces where you can truly find inspiration—people who can remind you how awesome you are.
4. I remind myself no one is born an expert, and no one has the manual for life. We are all winging it. No one knows everything. We all need each other. Some people need what I know, and I need what some people know. I once watched a video of an inventor who had sold his invention for millions of dollars but never knew how to operate a microwave because he has always had people do it for him. There are things you can do and situations you can navigate that members of the royal family may not be able to because they have probably never had to. If they were ever in those situations, they would need you. I am super smart, but during the COVID-19 lockdown, I realised I didn't know how to bake bread. But some people didn't know what I knew, but they knew how to bake bread. The world is a shared resource. No one is designed to know everything. We all need each other. So, if you are standing in front of a president or a room full of experts, there is something you can offer. There is something you are good at, don't downplay it. And if there's truly something you don't know and want to learn, there's room to learn. It's all a journey, so there is no need to give in to those crazy voices telling you, you are not good enough. You've learned before. You have done things! You can do them again and blend them with your unique experience and perspective, and that in itself is a superpower.
5. I stop overthinking, and I start doing. A lot of us struggle with something called the spotlight effect. The spotlight effect is the psychological phenomenon by which people tend to believe they are being noticed more than they really are. The spotlight effect describes how people tend to believe that others are paying more attention to them than they actually are—in other words, our tendency to always feel like we are "in the spotlight. The truth is, everyone else is too occupied with themselves to care that much. You must step outside yourself and focus on the people you serve and how your skills would help them. Stop underestimating what you know and overestimating what everyone else knows. Stop being too hard on yourself. Step outside yourself and focus on adding value to the people you want to serve. Stop overthinking. Get out of your head, and take action. As you take action, your mind would recalibrate to show you that you are doing it. Your mind will switch from "you are not capable of doing x or being x" to "you are doing x and being x". Doing takes you from overthinking and forces you back to reality. You'd be too busy doing to be internalising impostor syndrome.

My ultimate thought is this - if a stranger walks into a house you own, would you leave the stranger/squatter to feel so at home that they chase you out of the house? Would you be willing to relinquish your home ownership to a stranger you barely know for no good reason? My answer is NO! Not after everything I have invested.

Take the same approach with the impostor. You are not the impostor. The whisper in your head is. When you have impostor syndrome, think of it as an impostor occupying your mind and telling you things that are not true in a way that makes you forget yourself and almost pushes you to believe it. Don't give the impostor room to thrive. Take charge of your home [your mind and body], and be in control. You have the power over your mind. You control your mind. Your mind doesn't control you.

Don't let the impostor win. Take control of your life and your reality.

With Love,

Blessing Abeng