I remember when I first started out as a coach, some days I would feel so pumped and thrilled to work with my clients. But somedays I would feel doubtful and ask “Who am I to do this?” or “What if they don’t like what I have to say?”. 

I love it when I could see the expression of my clients' faces started to shift, or their voices lifted and I knew they were feeling inspired and confident with their next move.

The strange thing is, how I felt beforehand didn’t really affect the result. Once I started the session, I forgot about the self-doubt or my self-judgment. Simply put, once I hit the ground, I start running, and it’s all good from there.

It is all in my head. 

The imposter syndrome is a psychological pattern in which we doubt our accomplishments and have a persistent internalized fear of being exposed as a “fraud”. 

Over the years, I got better at this, especially when I heard from a very well established best-selling author saying she has this fear with every book launch. She felt she would be “caught” and people would find out her books actually aren’t any good. I heard that in a book fair and there were a few well-known authors in the same panel, and unsurprisingly, they all agreed and said the same thing. 

So here are the 3 facts I found that have helped me to overcome this 

Know that everyone experiences imposter syndrome from time to time. 

There are days when things don’t turn out the way we expected, or we haven’t got our morning coffee or breakfast, or we missed our morning meditation. We are human and our negative emotions can get the best of us. So remember it’s not just you, EVERYONE feels like that sometimes, but it is just a feeling, and it can come and go. 

It’s not about you

There is a saying, “When you are nervous, focus on service.” When we start to compare ourselves with others, who may appear to be more successful or better at getting what we want, we stop focusing on doing real work and what really matters. We suffer from comparison paralysis, we can’t move forward when we are constantly beating ourselves up for not good enough. It often happens when we are thinking or judging about ourselves. If we shift our focus onto the impact and contribution we are meant to make for others or the world, it stops the comparison paralysis, as we know, every effort count. 

It’s about progress, not perfection 

Standard and quality in what we do certainly matters, but don’t let perfection to stop you from actually get moving. If we wait for the perfect time and perfect place, that perfect situation may never come. Your product or service or unique contribution to the world may never see the light of the day. Also, through learned experiences, you will get closer to perfection. You can only get better at what you do when you practice what you do. 

What is your experience with imposter syndrome or comparison paralysis, and how did you get out of it?

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