How to Overcome Imposter Syndrome as an Entrepreneur
[Types in Google]……How to overcome imposter syndrome as an entrepreneur.
I feel like every aspiring and new business owner has wanted Google or ChatGPT to magically make their imposter syndrome go away.
Am I right?!
If you were like me and grew up watching Bert and Ernie on Sesame Street, you might have found yourself chanting “one of these things is not like the other” when you are embarking on your new business venture.
(I’m sorry if that little jingle is now stuck in your head!)
When you are stepping into a new arena, an area you’ve not hung out in before, doing things you’ve never done before, plus you see others doing those things confidently, it can trigger you to feel like you are missing something, that you don’t know enough, are enough, or have enough to be in that space.
You could feel like you are not like the others – like you are a fraud or a fake or don’t belong.
You can feel like an imposter – someone trying to be something they are not.
Here is something you should know: this affects almost every single entrepreneur, especially women, when starting out. Even the most high-achieving women struggle with imposter feelings.
You are NOT alone!
This initial feeling like you don’t know enough or don’t belong in this entrepreneurial space, triggers other fears and doubts, and can ultimately impact your confidence, decision-making, progress and productivity, and your business growth.
You may feel like you don’t know enough to get started – that you need to take another course, get a degree, learn more in order to be ready and qualified to get started.
Or, you may feel like you don’t have enough years of experience to be qualified.
It also impacts how you see your current skills. By focusing on what you DON’T have, you are not leaning on and leading with ALL the qualifications, skills, knowledge, and experience that you do have to get started.
This leads to focusing more on lack and lead with a scarcity mindset, instead of focusing on the why you ARE qualified and leading with an abundance mindset.
The thoughts you lead with directly impact the decisions you make and the actions you take.
Your business success and growth relies on your confidence and mindset to fearlessly take action and put yourself, your ideas, and your product and service out into the world.
In this article, I’m going to offer tips on overcoming imposter syndrome, but here are two other resources that will be invaluable to feeling unstoppable and qualified in your business:
Article: 6 Ways to shift from scarcity to abundance mindset
Podcast Episode: Overcoming Imposter Syndrome
For now, let’s jump deeper into imposter syndrome.
What is Imposter Syndrome?
According to the Merriam Webster Dictionary, Imposter syndrome is defined as: “a psychological condition that is characterized by persistent doubt concerning one’s abilities or accomplishments accompanied by the fear of being exposed as a fraud despite evidence of one’s ongoing success.”
You probably experience imposter syndrome with a series of thoughts.
Here are some signs of imposter syndrome:
- What if they think I’m a fraud?
- What if I don’t know enough?
- Others are more qualified than I am
- I need to learn more – take this course, go back to school.
- I need to be thinner, prettier, more articulate, more coiffed, good at public speaking, etc. in order to start my business or taken serious or to succeed.
- Raise your hand if you’ve ever felt these thoughts?
I’m raising my hand HIGH!
In fact, I still feel this way 9 years after becoming a coach and starting my business!
The fear that even ONE full year of coaching certification school, a SECOND career certification program, and 9 years of coaching, that I still don’t know enough or as much as everyone else.
I still sometimes feel I’m faking it and others have some secret knowledge I don’t know about.
Even the most highly qualified and capable people struggle with feelings of imposter syndrome. Jennifer Lopez, Emma Watson, Michelle Obama, Maya Angelou, Tom Hanks and Tina Fey have all admitted to struggling with Imposter syndrome.
You might wonder how such highly successful people like entrepreneurs and talented celebrities can struggle with imposter syndrome. Let me explain…
Why Imposter Syndrome is Common for Entrepreneurs
There are two things that trigger imposter syndrome:
- Doing something new that you’ve never done before or even getting to the next level of achievement
- Doing something that brings you in front of people where you are sharing your knowledge, talents, gifts, and experiences.
Let’s take the first one.
Our bodies, subconscious, and nervous system are always trying to protect us. The KNOWN is comfort and safe to our bodies. Our bodies use our experiences and the stories we tell ourselves as evidence of what is safe and known.
They rely on the beliefs we’ve embodied over time to determine what we are capable of and what is safe.
So, when we decide “hey I want to do something different,” then our body/mind/nervous system does an analysis on the safety of this new venture. It tries to match what we currently do, who we currently are, what we’ve experienced in the past with what we want to now create and do.
Being an entrepreneur is new to you, there is no “safety” of a corporate, established company, no evidence or guarantee that you will succeed, no guarantee you will make money, and there are things you still don’t know how to do.
As you start looking around you to “learn” from others, see what others are doing, our mind goes to work comparing – “do we know that? Wait, they know more than us? They know what they are doing? They seem qualified?”
Your mind is looking for the ways you may fail or the gaps in evidence or definite success. It’s a protection mechanism.
But it’s not truth.
It’s to protect against failing, people judging you, or looking weak.
It’s not looking for how you will succeed or how you are qualified, it’s in risk management mode.There is a risk and your mind and body want to prevent risk.
This is where #2 comes in.
You are putting yourself out there and being seen.
As an entrepreneur, you have to be visible. You have to be seen. You are being vulnerable as you share your knowledge, skills, and experiences with the world. That can feel unsafe, once again because of fear of judgment and fear of failure.
Your business success depends on people feeling like you know that you can help them. Your success depends on people believing you are qualified and knowledgeable.
When you start to put yourself out there, your internal warning system starts to show you how you are “unsafe”. It doesn’t exactly know why other than it feels there is not enough proof that you can succeed.
And even when you DO succeed, now it always feels that you have SO much to lose because you are KNOWN. You’ve been visible. You’ve been seen. What if there is some reason for it to all come crashing down?
The more you are SEEN, visible, vulnerable in the world, the more your risk management system is on guard to make sure you are safe.
You might be wondering how you overcome imposter syndrome as an entrepreneur, how you feel qualified and confident.
I’m about to give you 5 tips to get you started, but I wanted to say this:
It takes time to rewire your thoughts, and build your confidence. And, you will always be working on your imposter syndrome and mindset as a entrepreneur (and human) but it will get easier to work through it, to take bold action in spite of it.
It also take CONSCIOUS effort before it gets rewired into your mind and nervous system. It might even feel like brainwashing at first.
Eventually, you WILL lead with how you know and have so much already in order to figure anything out and to succeed.
Eventually, you will lead with all you have and all you’ve done instead of what you are missing!
5 Tips to Overcome Imposter Syndrome:
1.Reframe Negative Self-Talk
Your imposter syndrome thoughts are negative thoughts. They are lack thoughts. Those thoughts may actually feel truthful because you’ve spent a lifetime feeding those thoughts with evidence on why they are truth.
This is where the conscious rewiring needs to happen. This is about reframing your negative thoughts and overcoming self-doubt. Those thoughts aren’t serving you. Feeling like you aren’t enough or don’t know enough are not the thoughts that are going to have you taking action. They are going to hold you back. They are going to trigger feelings of inadequacy, feelings of self-doubt, and feelings of anxiety, ultimately leading to low self-esteem.
You need to notice and change your inner critic. You need to flip the switch to positive self-talk so you start leading with a positive mindset.
Spend time acknowledging those thoughts. Grab your journal and write down all the reasons why you don’t feel qualified to start/grow your business. Brain dump all the reasons. All that comes up for you – the fears, doubts, beliefs.
Then, challenge those thoughts. Write out why they are false. Why they aren’t true.
If you don’t feel qualified, write out why you ARE qualified.
If you think you should, do, look, think, know certain things in order to succeed, write out why who you currently act, look, think are enough and are what you need to succeed.
Thoughts are neutral. The only difference between thoughts and beliefs is how they impact the decisions and actions you take. You want to find the thoughts and beliefs that will trigger you to take the action towards your desires, not keep you from them.
Again, this is going to feel foreign and your brain is going to want to argue with your new thoughts. Just keep writing!
Then take the new thoughts and beliefs you wrote down and create a list of positive affirmations you will say every single day when you wake up, but also when your inner critic brings up those imposter syndrome thoughts.
It’s ok if you have days when you just feel like an imposter or that you aren’t enough or you’re afraid. This isn’t an overnight shift. It’s a process.
I like to tell myself “just for today I choose to believe……”
You just have to believe it today. Then, tomorrow you’ll wake up and you’ll choose to believe it for just that day. Eventually, you’ll wake up and that new belief will feel so natural.
The goal is to lead with how you ARE qualified. And to lead with your own abilities and accomplishments you’ve had throughout your lifetime.
Those thoughts are going to bring you the business success you are striving for.
2. Focus on Your Progress, Not Perfection
Your entrepreneurial journey is all about progress, not perfection.
Write this down: Progress over Perfection.
You are not going to get it right from the get go.
You are going to be learning and growing as you go. It’s a journey. If you are going to judge every action you make based on if it worked, or if it was perfect, you will always feel like you don’t know enough. You will trigger negative self-talk and beliefs.
If you are judging every action by if it got you the big goal, you’ll always feel like you’re falling short.
No one is perfect. Nothing goes perfectly. It’s only about whether you got closer to where you want to be, if you learned something valuable.
Every action you take, even the little steps, are all wins.
When you start celebrating those little wins and milestones, you start to build momentum and confidence.
You have to celebrate wins in business. Everything you do IS moving you forward. Acknowledging the small steps forward will keep the momentum going. And that is the overall goal. Keep moving forward. It’s all helping you build entrepreneurial confidence.
The more confidence you build, the bolder you’ll get and the more your desired audience will feel that confidence and want to learn more from you.
Before you judge yourself, or when the imposter syndrome thoughts pop up, press pause and focus on what you’ve learned recently, or list the things you’ve done that were out of your comfort zone. List out all the new skills you’ve learned, all the ways you’ve experienced professional growth, personal growth, career growth.
Starting a business is the ultimate journey of professional development. When you can see each step you take as growth, you’ll build your confidence and sense of self-worth.
3, Surround Yourself with Supportive People
If you’ve been in my space long enough, you know I’ve said this before: You need to surround yourself with supportive people, people that understand your goals and what you are creating.
Find professional help like a business coach or a mindset coach (Hello! I’m here to help!), engage in communities of small business owners and high achievers that can support you and help you with your mindset, join mastermind groups for entrepreneurs, or join a facebook group of like minded individuals.
There is so much support for female entrepreneurs. Do some research and find what will work best for you.
You want to have people to share ideas and struggles with so you don’t feel isolated or stay too long in the negative thought patterns. You want to keep moving forward, so you want a place to go when you are in the feelings of imposter syndrome so that others can help you reframe and get you moving forward again.
4. Embrace Your Unique Expertise
Here is something magical to remember: yes, you may not feel like everyone, that you have their knowledge and skills. Well, that is your superpower. That is your strength.
Every single person even if they seem similar and are creating a similar business are completely different. They have different goals, different whys, different visions, different skills, experiences and perspectives.
Your DIFFERENCES are what set you apart from others. It is what will attract the people you are meant to help and impact in this world.
When comparisonitis sets in, shut that down by owning your own story, your own knowledge, how you do life and business.
You are not meant to be like others, to have the same success and business.
This is where you get to embrace your expertise, own your story in your business, be proud of your own unique skill set, and your own success, and lean into authentic entrepreneurship.
Stay in YOUR lane. Put the blinders on. This isn’t about if you know ENOUGH or have ENOUGH.
It’s about WHAT YOU KNOW and WHO YOU ARE. Your stories, your history, your why.
Overcoming imposter syndrome as an entrepreneur is partly about you being ok being uniquely you.
5. Take Action Despite Fear
Yes, you are going to have limiting beliefs and fears. They are inevitable.
The most important thing to do to counter imposter syndrome is to build your confidence and you build your confidence by taking bold action even when you feel uncertain or like a fraud.
You’ll not only gain confidence, but invaluable clarity around what qualifications you want to lead with, what you really want.
You will prove to yourself what you are capable of.
Overcoming fear in business is about action over fear.
Building confidence as an entrepreneur takes place in the action, stepping outside your comfort zone (link article here), and seeing what you are capable of.
It’s about taking action despite the fears and doubts.
This is part of rewiring your thought patterns and beliefs and creating new evidence of what you are capable of doing.
So decide: what action will you take today?
We may not have met yet, but one thing I know for sure is that YOU have everything you need to succeed in your business.
You ARE qualified.
This isn’t about needing to change. It’s about believing in yourself and your lifetime of experience, passion, skills and natural talents to build the momentum to get started and keep going.
The first step to become a successful entrepreneur is to recognize and address imposter syndrome.
Acknowledge the thoughts so that you can start the transformation process. It’s about seeking a fresh perspective, honoring your own skills, and enjoying the journey.
Next Steps
If you are ready to overcome imposter syndrome and step into your power as an entrepreneur, check out BREAKTHOUGH or sign up for a free 30 minute momentum call today.
It’s time to stop sitting on the sidelines and start seeing the results you desire!
