Have you felt like an Impostor?

I was facilitating a workshop a little while ago and we were discussing celebrating big and small wins. One of the participants in my workshop, let’s call her Jan, started talking about how she’d never celebrated any of her successes because she felt guilty doing so. The reason she felt guilty was because she didn’t feel that she had ‘earned’ any of those successes.

When I asked her why she felt that way, she said she’d never really felt worthy of the success anyway because she didn’t think she belonged in the position that she was in. Now, this was a high successful finance director in a relatively large organisation. I asked her to elaborate on why she didn’t think she belonged. She said to me that every time she gave a presentation to the senior leadership team, she heard a little voice telling her things like “Who are you to be here presenting to these people? They’re so much more worthy than you are to be in their positions. Who are you to be here? You don’t belong here! You’re not worthy of this!”

Though she never revealed these feelings to her team or to anyone else, she was constantly plagued by these thoughts of unworthiness and as a result constantly doubted herself when making decisions.?

?That inner voice that was whispering somewhat insidiously in her ear is known as a Saboteur. It's what gives rise to what we call Impostor Syndrome. That’s exactly what Saboteurs are there to do. And it is a part of every one of us. If we let it, that Saboteur can wind up running our brain. Those saboteurs are a set of automatic and habitual mind patterns – each with its own voice, belief and assumptions which work against our best interests. The Saboteur that was whispering in Jan’s mind is known as The Judge. The Judge, as its name suggests, judges ourselves, judges the people around us and judges the circumstances around us. It tells us that we’re not worthy to be in the job we’re in, to win that tournament, to get that award.?How do we get rid of the Judge? Well, we may never be able to totally banish it from our minds but we can silence it by awakening our Sage mind – that part of the brain that produces positive emotions such as empathy, gratitude, self-confidence, happiness.

?The Challenge that all of us have is to weaken the mental muscles that make our Judge powerful and to build the muscles that strengthen our Sage. We do this by building our mental fitness.

?In the E-book Guide, 3 Steps to Becoming Mentally Fit, I show you how to start yourself on the trail to mental fitness. The techniques I write about in the guide are based on research done by best-selling author and professor, Shirzad Chamine.

?Quieting the Judge can go a long way to increasing your confidence in yourself and the trust that your team members, employees and managers have in you. Awakening your Sage creates the conditions for greater happiness, empathy and creativity. So, go ahead and get the guide and start on your path to mental fitness: https://bit.ly/3CgRQuv