65. A Reminder of What Imposter Syndrome Is and Isn't
In episode 65 of the Pause on the Play podcast, Erica replays one of the earliest Pause On the Play episodes where she shares her interpretation of impostor syndrome.
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Are you ready to listen in? Here’s what’s happening in this episode:
[01:05] Impostor syndrome is something Erica sees a lot with her clients, and she has a different take than most do on the matter.
[02:52] The conventional approach to impostor syndrome is that it comes up with you’re trying something new, and you doubt your abilities or authority.
[04:31] If you grew up with trauma, and were treated as though your needs and thoughts didn’t matter, you coped by learning to suppress parts of yourself, in order to survive. You changed who you were in order to survive.
[05:12] Erica posits that the impostor is that other person you had to prentend to be in order to survive.
{06:00] When you decide you’re ready to thrive instead of just survive, you begin stepping into your light and your truth, leaving the impostor behind.
[06:45] As an example, Erica discusses working with white women on their allyship, and how stepping out of what they were taught (the impostor) into the them and allyship, and it creates impostor-like feelings because they are going against what they were taught.
[08:59] In allyship, impostor syndrom can occur because it feels true to you to stand up and speak out. But it can also make you fearful of getting it wrong.
[10:00] Decide how uncomfortable you’re willing to be, how willing you are to question and speak out against what you were taught, in order to stop playing small.
[11:02] Erica explains that she’d rather someone come to her with an open and authentic heart, willing to learn and mess up and try again, than someone who preferred to stay quiet.
WHAT’S ONE ACTION YOU CAN TAKE AWAY FROM THE DISCUSSION?
“What if the imposter isn't who you're becoming, but the imposter is who you are no longer choosing to be? What if the imposter is the person that you had to be just to get through, and now there is this dis-ease, or this resistance, or this strange feeling, because this person does feel more aligned with you?”
QUOTES
“Most of the time when fear does come up for us, that fear is based around the fear of ‘what if this goes well, what if this succeeds,’ not ‘oh this is going to go terribly and I'm going to fail.’ That's not typically what happens.”
“So, this idea that you are trying to become someone that is the imposter – I think you are unbecoming something that isn't inherent to you. Something that you felt as though maybe you couldn't truly step into before because you had to protect yourself in some way, shape, or form physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually.”
“What you did before wasn't necessarily good for you, it wasn't the best for you. It was what you had to do. And now you're able to make a choice.”
“The people that you say that you are trying to be an ally for don't need you to be quiet and sure before you are finally willing to step up. Enough time has passed that that ship has sailed. So that is a place where imposter syndrome may be kicking up because it feels inherent, to stand up, and step up and speak out.”
“So these things that keep you playing small in these areas that – you likely don't play small like this and in other parts of your life – this basically is a call for you to question, how important is this to me? How uncomfortable am I willing to be? How willing am I to truly question the thoughts and feelings and beliefs that I have been instilled with up to this point to say, ‘No, I don't abide by it. I don't believe in it, I don't stand by it. And I'm going to start a new and do it differently.’ How willing are you to make that large of a shift and a change?”
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Transcript
Erica Courdae (00:10): Hello, hello and welcome back to Pause On the Play. As always, it is amazing to see you here where you are challenged to examine your beliefs, question your predisposed notions, and consider realities you may have been unfamiliar with in order to understand that they too are real. I am your host and conversation emcee for the day, Erica Courdae, here to get the dialogue going.
This week is going to be simple. I'm actually bringing back an episode from way back closer to the beginning. And it's about imposter syndrome. And the reason I'm bringing it back is, one, I'm taking some time off. So I am taking a break to rest, recoup, and to get some time in with my family and some time just to think and get some space for me. And during that time, I figured that this would be a great episode for you to check in with if you either haven't heard it in a while or if you're newer to the podcast and have not heard it before.
It is my take on imposter syndrome. And I've talked about it a lot lately. And when I mean a lot, I mean a lot. And so hearing my take on it, what I think it is and what it isn't – the entire concept is something that's necessary because well, everything you're doing is putting you in a place of having to think and be very different and it can be scary. And when it is, it's like, well, I'm not quite sure what's going on here. So the way that I approach it is extremely helpful and can give you a different way of framing this. And so to give you an opportunity to consider something different, here it is.
So there's something that's been coming up in conversation a few times recently, and usually, when that happens, that tells me that it needs to be talked about. Apparently it's something that's kind of sticking with people and it's time to kind of dig a little deeper and examine it a little bit more.
So there's this term called imposter syndrome. And I didn't hear about this until I began to actually be an entrepreneur for myself in my secondary business, toward the end the time before I started this business.
So as a backstory, Erica Courdae is my brand where I do coaching and consulting. However, I also own Silver Immersion, which is a beauty brand, which I have had for over 10 years. And I've learned a lot of business things over the years.
But as I began digging deeper into mindset and things like that, that was when interacting with some entrepreneurs that were in different spaces, that imposter syndrome became something that I was aware of.
And the general concept for anyone that may not know is that you are beginning something new, doing something you've always done, or trying to foray into a new area. And you get this feeling of "I can't do this. I'm not capable. I'm not qualified. I'm not good enough, I don't deserve this." All of the things begin to come up. And it's usually just based around fear.
These are things that come up when it is trying to dissuade you. These are things that are coming up when it is trying to throw you off the path. But the reality is that they're pretty much always false. They're not rooted in actual reality.
And most of the time when fear does come up for us, that fear is based around the fear of "what if this goes well, what if this succeeds," not "oh this is going to go terribly and I'm going to fail." That's not typically what happens.
So when these things come up, the concept is, you are getting resistance around being something that you're not, and I want to call bs on it because I'm not too sure I agree with it. If you think about it, particularly for someone that grew up with any type of abuse or trauma, you grew up with any type of mindset or thought processes and ideas given to you, in that you are supposed to shrink yourself, you're supposed to be smaller.
Your feelings, your wants, your needs, your emotions don't matter aren't valid, and you're basically just made to feel as though you are not important, then maybe you had to become something in order to make it. Maybe you had to remake who you were at your core in order to survive. And as you go through that concept, and you finally hit this point of, "I don't want to just exist or just live, I am now ready to thrive." And you're stepping into this next best version of yourself.
Well, what if the imposter isn't who you're becoming? But the imposter is who you are no longer choosing to be? What if the imposter is the person that you had to be just to get through and now, it's just that you're having this dis-ease, or this resistance, or this strange feeling, because this person does feel more aligned with you. It does feel more inherent, it does feel more comfortable, but it's very foreign. It's not what you're used to. It's not what you're accustomed to. And it's not something that you have been used to stepping into. So that feels unsettling, to an extent.
And so, this idea that you are trying to become someone that is the imposter, I think you are unbecoming something that isn't inherent to you. Something that you felt as though maybe you couldn't truly step into before because you had to protect yourself in some way, shape, or form physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually.
You are now stepping into your light. And in doing that, you get this whole, oh, okay, this feels strange. But is it really that it feels strange or something that's unfamiliar? What you did before wasn't necessarily good for you, it wasn't the best for you. It was what you had to do. And now you're able to make a choice.
So, to give an example, when I work with white women around them trying to dismantle their privilege, and they are saying that "I want to work on implicit bias, I want to work on learning how to spot systemic racism. I want to see what privilege looks like in action." And in doing this, they are now trying to step out of what they've already done. Because that's what they were given. That's what they were told was the norm. They were told this was acceptable.
And they're now saying, "I don't necessarily agree with this. I don't really believe in it. So now I have to redo my thought process, I have to recreate what my norm looks like. And in doing that, I have to throw away a lot of what I believed up to this point." And maybe that is triggering to some imposter syndrome type of feelings. Because you've always felt this way, and you didn't feel as though you were wrong, but all of a sudden now it's like okay, I'm trying to be this other person and it can be scary. And you trying to follow the path of allyship, you realize that you may likely be imperfect at it.
So if you've been used to being very sure-footed, very assured, very certain of what you put out and how you lead and how you navigate things, and all of a sudden, now, this feels scary and foreign and you feel unqualified, well, maybe this is your imposter syndrome. Maybe this is you hitting a point of, I have to undo everything that I thought I knew about myself. In order to redo this, to feel as though I am aligned with the values and beliefs that I truly do hold, I have to show them.
Because when you run from allyship because you think that you're going to do it imperfectly – and let's be honest, this is all a journey, it's not a destination – when you run from that, what you are doing is you are now creating this area of, "I am going to quietly accept and be complicit in these things because I'm not going to do anything because I'm afraid to do it wrong. So I'm not going to do anything.”
That's not how that works. Because the people that you say that you are trying to be an ally for don't need you to be quiet and sure before you are finally willing to step up. Enough time has passed that that ship has sailed. So that is a place where imposter syndrome may be kicking up because it feels inherent, to stand up, and step up and speak out. Yet it can also feel like, can I do this? Am I equipped to do this? Am I doing this wrong? Is this the way that I do this in order to really honor the cause?
But if you don't try, guess what? You won't ever know. Babies don't decide, well, I don't want to fall. So I'm just not going to try to walk. They fall. And then they figure it out. And then they get up and eventually, they walk, they run. And that's just a part of the process.
So these things that keep you playing small in these areas that – you likely don't play small like this and in other parts of your life – this basically is a call for you to question, how important is this to me? How uncomfortable am I willing to be? How willing am I to truly question the thoughts and feelings and beliefs that I have been instilled with up to this point to say, "No, I don't abide by it. I don't believe in it, I don't stand by it. And I'm going to start a new and do it differently." How willing are you to make that large of a shift and a change?
Does it resonate that highly for you? Does that really put you in a place of feeling aligned? And so that's a place for you, as Brene Brown will tell you, to have that curiosity around things, and I want you to really think about it. I want you to question it. I want you to dig deeper and go below the surface on that you know, and ask questions with it. Ask friends, ask family, speak to someone that does not look like you.
The people that you say you want to support, talk to them about it. Because while I cannot speak for anyone else, I can speak for myself and say that I would much rather someone come to me with an open and authentic heart willing to do the right thing, and possibly make a misstep, and it's a teachable moment, than to simply be quiet and complicit. That helps no one. I don't want that. That is not what I speak for, that is not what I stand for. That is not what I instill in my children. That is not how I lead.
So I will never tell you that that is something that you should aspire for and how you choose to lead and live your life. So that being said, I am calling you up to show curiosity around the possibility that imposter syndrome is showing up in your journey to allyship. And that's just one example.
If there are other places in your life that you feel as though you are shedding that part of you that was an imposter, to become the authentic version of yourself, let's talk about that. Have that conversation, because I want to know how this truly serves you and how it's showing up so that you can create that change and begin that forward motion.
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Bye.