3 Mindset Shifts for Coaches and Entrepreneurs with Imposter Syndrome

I was urged to create this podcast episode after a new coach sent me an email saying that she had ‘imposter syndrome’ after reading my blog posts.

I had to stop her negative train of thought and quickly wrote an email reply to her.

I’ve always felt a strong drive to remind my audience of the unique value and the one-of-a-kind contributions they can make to their world.

Also, comparing our beginning to someone else’s middle is harsh on ourselves. The successful entrepreneurs we admire have failed, flopped and embarrassed themselves countless times before getting to where they are.

If you need a confidence boost and wish to feel good in your own skin, you will find this episode helpful.

If you prefer reading, you will find the episode’s transcript below for your convenience.

Take care,

Shikah

Full Transcript

Hi, I'm Shikah. Thank you for being here with me today. Today we're going to talk about Imposter Syndrome. And this is motivated by an email I received from one of my subscribers recently. So she was a new coach that time.

And what she did or what she emailed me was that she said, “I feel Imposter Syndrome whenever I compare my work with yours” She was telling me that she felt Imposter Syndrome when she compared her work with mine. So that was quite unfair on her because, well, at that time, I've had close to five years of counseling experience. I've been working with companies in public relations for a long time. I've been doing copywriting for a long time as well.

So she was comparing the beginning of her coaching journey with me - who has been counseling and doing copywriting and all those things for years. So that was quite, I would say, that was a little bit unkind on her. So I had to stop her and tell her that comparing her beginning to someone else's middle, is not going to be very helpful on her at all. It's going to just make her feel even less confident and make her feel even worse about herself. So that's what motivated me to create this podcast episode today.

The wonderful thing, or rather the tricky thing about Imposter Syndrome is that it can strike anyone. Whether you're a beginner or even though you've been doing business or doing something for ten years, Imposter Syndrome can still strike us, especially if you are offering something for the first time. So let's say you are rather experienced in your business and you're offering something for the first time. Let's say you're offering a mastermind for the first time, or you're creating a signature course for the first time, or offering a group coaching call for the first time. Sometimes you will face imposter syndrome.

You'll be wondering, Can I offer them the results that they want? Is my work valuable? Will they see the value in my work? And all those questions will start flooding our minds because we are doing something for the first time. And that's understandable.

So I'll give you about three tips for us to reduce our Imposter Syndrome and focus on our business. Okay? So the first tip I'm going to share is to be aware of our unique worth. So every one of us has a little spot in this world. So you are born with your own set of circumstances, your own viewpoints, your own way of seeing things, your own perspective, your own brand of authenticity and all that.

And nobody else in the world has the same energy or the same circumstances, or the same unique blend of circumstances and talents that you have. So it's good for us to focus on our unique strengths and our unique worth. So there is no one else like you or me in this world, right? So that's why many people or many coaches out there encourage us to be authentic. But I know that being authentic is not always easy.

Being vulnerable is not something that is very comfortable to do. So if you want to start being authentic, what we can do is - maybe - do it one step at a time. Start showing a bit of vulnerability to your audience, just a little bit at a time. And then once you get comfortable with yourself, who knows, maybe you'll be able to be 100% authentic with your audience. That will be quite nice, although they will require a lot of coverage, I would say.

And yes, I digress a little bit. So yes, point number one is to be focusing on your unique world and to realize that you have your own unique spot in this world and you have your own unique sets of talents and all that which you can offer and contribute to this world. And it's good for us to focus on serving our audience and serving our community instead of putting all our focus on ourselves.

So whenever you create a piece of content, maybe a blog post or a podcast episode or a video or anything like that, focus on serving your audience first and foremost. Think about how you can make this helpful for them.

Think about how you can change their lives with the little information that you're going to share. And always have your audience in your mind firsthand when you're creating content. So that will help you to reduce imposter syndrome a little bit because you're taking the spotlight away from you and you're focusing on your audience. That is one way I create content, and I think that allows me to be a bit more vulnerable in my email sometimes, in my blog post sometimes. All right, so if you have not subscribed to my email list yet, and if you want to get motivational emails from me, you can go to the show notes and subscribe if you want to.

So tip number two is to have a growth mindset. So having a growth mindset means being aware that if we are offering something for the first time, chances are we are going to flop, right? Our first video is going to suck. Our first podcast episode is not going to be perfect.

What else? Our first blog post is probably not going to be very structured, not going to be very SEO-friendly either. So it's not going to be perfect. The first piece of what we are putting out there is not going to be perfect. So we are going to have a growth mindset about this and realize that every mistake is an opportunity for us to learn.

So when you try something new and it flops, well, okay, that's all right. That means you can approach it in a different way or maybe you offer something else. And I know seven-figure coaches actually, who revealed that sometimes when they launched something for the first time - nobody bought it. And I know someone else who is also a digital marketing coach who told us that when he was holding in-person seminars for the first time before Covid, only seven people came and they were all his family members.

But he's a seven-figure coach right now. So you can see that everybody starts from zero. And having a growth mindset is really important. So it's not about giving up immediately when you don't see results, when you don't see the results that you want.

That means our business needs some tweaking. Maybe we need to have a different approach, a different way of doing things. And one way to get ideas about this is to focus, or rather to study the people that you admire in your industry. So if you are a coach I'm talking mostly to coaches, I believe. So if you are a coach or an entrepreneur, study the work of those other coaches or entrepreneurs that you admire.

Look at how they write their emails, look at how they structure their podcast episodes and things like that. So those will give you some ideas about how you can do your work and minimize imposter syndrome. Tip number three is to stop comparing yourself with other people. I know this is incredibly hard with Instagram and TikTok and all those social media platforms, but yes, we have to stop comparing ourselves with other people. As I mentioned earlier, we all have our own unique talents and unique perspectives and unique gifts that we can offer to the world.

So it's not fair to compare ourselves with other people. Sometimes when we purchase a course or when we follow a coach’s blueprint, you might realize that what works for her may not work for you. Right? Even though you may have paid, I don't know, $3,000 for a course or something like that, you might realize that after implementing some of the strategies, what works for her or him may not work for you. So that's the thing about staying true to your own voice.

Okay, in short, stop comparing yourself with other people. So, yes, there is no one perfect way to create a business or to run a business. People are running in many different combinations, if you realize.

For me, personally, I love writing emails, I love writing blog posts. And I'm just starting to get consistent - ‘starting’ is the keyword here - on my podcast. So this works for me. But not everybody loves writing. There are some people, some of you out there who hate writing, who hate doing emails, who hate writing blog posts, and who hate speaking into a mic.

Then you might have to approach your content differently. You might have to market your content differently. So that's why I say that sometimes what works for another person may not work for you. So you have to do a bit of trial and error sometimes. And yes, stop comparing yourself with other people out there.

Comparing your beginning with someone else's middle or comparing your middle with someone else's even further middle is not very fair on you.

Okay, so I think that's all I'm going to share today. I'm heading out right now and I hope that this show’s episode has been helpful to you in some way and I will see you in my next episode.

Bye!