Imposter Syndrome Coaching Tool : Free BRANDABLE Imposter Syndrome Test

When we mention ‘imposter syndrome’, our first instinct is to suspect that it only strikes those who are amateurs or beginners in their work. 

I have come across too many experienced and highly intelligent women who have self-doubt. It affects even the most successful women because it’s a mindset issue.

That was the reason I created my done-for-you Release Imposter Syndrome masterclass. If you are a busy coach, you can still launch your own masterclass because I have included a ready-to-read script and workbook together with 80 done-for-you slides.

All you have to do is record yourself presenting the masterclass and sell the replay for years to come.

It gives me, as a creator, great satisfaction to see my audience making money over and over again from a one-time effort. And raising self-awareness all over the globe.

Slides, script and workbook included for your convenience!

Want a free, brandable Imposter Syndrome Test to use as a lead magnet and grow your mailing list?

If you want to share a simple imposter syndrome test with your audience as a lead magnet to grow your email list, feel free to use (and BRAND with your own logo!) my simplified imposter syndrome test.

Be sure to check your spam folder or Promotions folder if you do not receive this Imposter Syndrome Test in your Inbox.

With this 5-minute imposter syndrome test, your audience can roughly gauge if they have mild or possibly severe imposter syndrome.

With this test, you can then cross sell your coaching program, your imposter syndrome course or even an imposter syndrome masterclass.

And it all can start with a solid lead magnet such as this free, brandable imposter syndrome test. You can key in your name and email address for me to email it to you.

If you are still on the fence about it, you can see the full details of this free imposter syndrome test in the video below.

I hope this is helpful for your business.

Sincerely and blessings always,

Shikah

---

How to boost your coaching clients' energy, mood and motivation

Today, we will talk about boosting your clients’ mental energy and helping them feel more motivated.

This is an issue because if they are juggling many hats and have many roles in their lives, their energy levels can drop very quickly everyday. If they are not careful, they will feel unmotivated even before the week has started.

For context, I’ll make it clear that we are exploring boosting mental and emotional energy in this blog post!

Why is this even important?

In general, it’s good to know what activities give us energy. So that we don’t mooch around and let the day pass by, without doing anything useful when we have deadlines or goals to meet.

This is ok if your clients plan for the day to be a day of relaxation. But if your clients plan for today to be a productive one, it is helpful to keep their mental energy up.

When they are energised mentally, they get many creative ideas, work gets done very fast, productivity goes through the roof, and they will feel accomplished, amongst other things.

What happens if we are not aware what gives us energy? Well, we will be working twice as hard to produce minimal output.

Bulldozing our low energy state, or forcing ourselves to work when our energy is very low, rarely gives us any good outcome. It’s better to boost our energy first before doing work because you will enjoy a bigger output within a short time frame.

Let’s dive in to 3 practical ways your clients can boost their energy and motivation.

Tip #1 : Create a personal list of ‘energising activities’ and refer to it on low-motivation days

The first thing your clients can do, is to make a list of activities which energise him or her. They can store this list in their phones, on a piece of paper, in a planner or in any form which is convenient for them.

How do we make a list of energising activities? Well, this is the time for them to be self-aware. Have them write a list of activities which make them feel ‘alive’.

Obviously, my list is going to be different from your list and everyone’s list is going to be a unique combination of tasks which fuel our personal energy.

What is draining your energy may be energising to your clients. And on different days, different activities fuel us. For example, I will feel energised if I meet my former colleagues for lunch today. But tomorrow, I may feel drained at the idea of meeting them. The trick is to have a list on hand to refer to, whenever we feel our frequencies or energy levels drop. 

I will give examples of activities which usually boost people’s energy and frequency.

Common examples are: exercising, being in nature, exploring a new place or a new cafe, journaling their feelings, meditating and relaxing the mind, cooking, creating something with your hands, having a clear work-life boundary, being around positive friends - you get the idea.

The tip is to be honest with themselves. If watching 5 episodes of The Kadarshians relaxes their mind and body, write that down!

When they feel their energy levels or frequency start to drop, they can whip out their phones and scroll to find this list of energising activities, choose one of them and slowly raise their mental energy.

If your client has trouble connecting with themselves…

Then you’ll want to give them a copy of my free Self Exploration Tool. This coaching tool will help them rediscover their life values, and what gives them joy. If that’s something you need right now, then make sure you download this Self Exploration Tool while it’s still free!

Tip #2: Pinpoint specific activities which drain your clients’ energy

The second tip for your clients is to know what takes up their energy. Once we find out exactly what those activities are, we avoid them as much as we can.

To keep our energy levels high, we need a sweet combination of doing energising activities and avoiding activities which suck our energy.

Common examples of energy-draining activities are: spending time with negative people, doing meaningless tasks, reading negative news, gossiping about other people, being rigid with ourselves, having unrealistic expectations, doing things you don’t enjoy, or spending too much time online.

Again, everybody’s list is going to be different. But the point is, to know what activities drain our energy and avoid them as much as possible.

Tip #3: Taking care of their physical bodies for a positive mental state

The third thing your clients can do, is to take care of their physical body. This means, listening to what the body needs and honouring them.

If the body needs sleep desperately, honour it and go to sleep. If your body craves for introspective activity, take your journal out and journal your emotions. If the body wants to go out for a walk in the sun, do it. I think you get the idea.

When we recharge our bodies, we have the mental energy to make good decisions throughout the day. Many of us know that the mind and body are related. When your body is well-rested and nourished, it’s easier to get creative and we handle problems very well.

If you are someone who wants to teach self-care to your clients…

You can check out my 14-Day Self Care Challenge Workbook which you can sell to your clients or give away as a lead magnet.

There are 34 pages chockful of self-care challenges for your audience to kickstart their self-care journey.

That’s all for today.

I’ll see you in my next blog post!

Sincerely,

Shikah

Pin this!

Childhood causes of negative self-talk in your clients (Where does negative self-talk come from?)

Listen to the podcast version here:

Today we will explore where negative self talk in your coaching clients comes from.

We can define negative self talk as thoughts which stop your clients from taking action towards what they want.

As a result, they do not achieve their goals, they do not blossom to their fullest potential and they fail to create the life that they want. They may end up feeling unfulfilled and unhappy with life.

It is good to know where our self talk comes from. So that when we catch our minds having a negative dialogue, we know that it comes from something our parents said to us when we were growing up, for example.

When your clients can filter out thoughts which originate from other people, they may not be so affected by these negative thoughts. They will still have the drive to move towards their goals.

On the other hand, if we do not care where our self talk comes from, our thoughts will control us. We will be ‘slaves’ to our thoughts essentially. And this is harmful because our thoughts are not 100% correct. Negative self talk can be harmful because it brings up feelings like fear, shame, anxiety, doubt.

If we let these negative thoughts and feelings run our lives, we will not grow as a person. So it’s helpful to filter out which of our negative thoughts are planted in our minds by other people.

There are many things which cause negative self talk. But today we will focus on how our upbringing can produce negative self talk in us.

When your clients have parents or caregivers who expect perfection or who only show love when they achieve success, this can really ‘screw’ them up as adults.

Let’s explore the 3 childhood causes of negative self talk.

Childhood cause of negative self-talk #1: “You (or your work) are never good enough. There is ALWAYS room for improvement.”

The first childhood cause of negative self-talk is hearing this message often: “You are never good enough, there is always room for improvement.” This message can be said indirectly by parents, family members, teachers or even friends.

If your coaching client heard this message too many times when they were young, they may grow up to be perfectionists. They may not take action towards their big goals because they never think that they are good enough. Or, they may overwork to be as close to excellence as possible. 

This trend is common amongst clients who come from families who value high achievements or if they were enrolled in top, high-performing schools when they were young.

Now, if you are a coach who wants to help your clients overcome negative self-talk, then you can check out my done-for-you Overcome Negative Self-Talk workshop.

The workshop is already done for you, so you can conduct your own workshop by tomorrow and sell it to your audience. Now with that out of the way, let’s move on to the second cause of negative self-talk.

Childhood cause of negative self-talk #2: Only receiving love and attention when they did something ‘good’.

The second cause of negative self-talk is experiencing conditional love when we were young. Some parents only give love and attention to their kids when their kids did something ‘good’.

These parents may even reject or punish their kids when they do not meet the parents’ expectations. But when these children obey their parents, get straight As in exams or achieve some kind of success, their parents will shower them with praises and affection.

These kids may grow up into adults who think that they have to be successful or achieve big things in order to get love and approval. It’s actually quite sad when you think about it. 

Childhood cause of negative self-talk #3: Endless comparison

The third childhood cause of negative self-talk is constant comparison. If your clients’ parents compared them endlessly to their siblings when they were young, they will feel that they are not worthy as individuals.

They will feel as though they are living in their siblings’ shadows. They may even think that they have no identity of their own. They may grow up believing that they have no unique talent or nothing valuable to offer the world. They may not even be able to pinpoint what their strengths are. 

They may have low self-esteem, no sense of identity and may blindly follow what other people are doing instead of honouring their own interests and talents.

Now, at this point of the video, you may be looking for tools to help your clients overcome negative self-talk.

That’s why your next step is to check out my done-for-you Overcome Negative Self Talk workshop where you will get the slides, the script and workbook all done for you so you can launch it fast.

That’s all for now - I’ll see you when I see you.

Shikah

PS: If you want to create a negative self-talk workshop but feel overwhelmed with the many things you have to do everyday, I have a done-for-you workshop which has the 1) slides 2) workbook 3) script all done for you.

Four tell-tale signs of imposter syndrome in your coaching clients

Do you have coaching clients who are perfectionists, who struggle accepting help from others or who procrastinate for a long time before starting a project or side hustle?

Well, they are showing some signs of imposter syndrome :) In this short and sweet power-packed video and podcast episode, we will succinctly lay out the 4 signs and symptoms of imposter syndrome.

Transcript

Today, we will be discussing 4 clear cut signs of imposter syndrome. If you are an experienced coach, this can serve as a reminder for you. This is helpful because refreshing our memory is part of learning and gaining knowledge :)

If you are a new coach, this video will help you identify if someone has imposter syndrome. And create strategies  to help them reduce it.

How can we define imposter syndrome?

We can define imposter syndrome as someone who has a belief that they lack skills, knowledge or experience to do something. They have this belief even though they have many pieces of evidence which prove that they are capable.

It’s more of an ‘irrational’ belief because it is based on their emotions, and not facts. If someone also has an unconscious belief that they don’t deserve success, that is also a sign of imposter syndrome.

Why do they - or we - have imposter syndrome? It likely stems from the thought that they have nothing special or valuable to offer the world. It originates from their experiences during their childhood to teen years.

Why do we have to help our clients reduce imposter syndrome?

Reducing imposter syndrome is beneficial. It allows our clients to live with courage, be brave enough to try new things, face failures head-on, and essentially, live a rich and vibrant life.

On the other hand, living with imposter syndrome means they have many unfulfilled dreams.

Our clients don’t start the projects that they want because they are scared of failing. They take too long to execute their plans.

They procrastinate because they want everything to be ‘perfect’ before they launch or start something. I dare say that we will have with many regrets if we let imposter syndrome stick around. 

Let’s dive in to the 4 clear cut signs and symptoms of imposter syndrome

#1 Perfectionism

The first sign is perfectionism. This is a no-brainer. Perfectionists will overwork themselves to burnout or take way too long to start a project. They want everything to be flawless before launching something.

They don’t like mistakes, they view mistakes as shameful, so they will go to all lengths to prevent mistakes and failures. Perfectionists will focus on even the smallest, irrelevant details of their project before making it public.

They overwork because they have such a low opinion of their own skills and talents. So they work themselves to death to feel secure. The flipside can happen too.

Many perfectionists have bucket lists which are unfulfilled because they procrastinate to start something. They place such a high standard on themselves, that they feel overwhelmed just at the thought of starting their project. So what happens? Nothing happens!

They also want things to be perfect from the get-go. When they are starting a blog for the first time for example, they expect everything to go smoothly even at the first try.

They are like this, because they have high standards on themselves. And when things do not go smoothly - which is normal if you are doing something for the first time- they get discouraged and feel down. So perfectionism as you can see, is a sign of imposter syndrome.

By the way, you can download my free perfectionism test which you can use as a lead magnet. This will help your clients gauge how severe or how mild their perfectionism is. The link to download this below so click the link if you want a free perfectionism lead magnet.

With that out of the way, let’s go to the next sign of imposter syndrome.

#2: Collecting knowledge and not implementing them

The next sign of imposter syndrome is someone who likes to ‘collect knowledge’. These are the people who buy courses after courses and do not implement them. They may also chase qualifications after qualifications. Maybe they have multiple certificates : degrees, diplomas and everything in between. They collect knowledge because they don’t feel confident of the knowledge they already have.

Learning and upgrading ourselves is crucial, but if they buy courses because they feel insecure in their own skills, that’s an issue. Sometimes they do this because they believe that they need to have a ‘certain level’ of knowledge before starting a business, for example.

And that imaginary level is of course a very high standard they put on themselves. At this rate, they will never start their project or launch their business. Or they will sit on an idea for years before actually taking action. This is another sign of imposter syndrome. They never feel that they are ready, skills-wise. 

#3: Does not like accepting or asking for help

Another sign of imposter syndrome is not accepting help from other people. These lovely people like to do things themselves. They believe that if someone is ‘competent’, they have to be able to do everything themselves.

To them, accepting help is a sign of weakness. And they think that their success is not counted unless they do it themselves. If they get help, they will credit their success to the people who help them, and not to their own talent. Again, they have such a low opinion of their own abilities that they follow this high, impossible standard so that they can feel ‘worthy’. 

#4: Wants to play ALL roles ‘perfectly’

The next sign of imposter syndrome is wanting to be the perfect wife, the perfect mum, the perfect daughter, the perfect employee - all at one go. It sounds tiring just saying it. They don’t trust their own abilities, so they will work really hard to be ‘perfect’ in all areas. What happens? Burnout happens.

They may find it hard to let go and relax. They don’t like making mistakes in any life area because that is a sign of incompetence in their eyes. In reality, nobody is expecting them to perform at 100% all the time. And people are actually more forgiving than we think.

These lovely people are intent on playing perfect roles so that people do not have the ammunition to ‘attack’ or criticise them. They are sensitive to criticism because they feel that they are such ‘low value’ human beings that every criticism is a blow to their confidence.

If you want to accelerate your coaching results, be sure to check out the Overcome Perfectionism Workbook I have in my online shop. You can use the coaching tools in the workbook to coach clients with perfectionism, which is one of the causes of imposter syndrome.

I’ll see you in my next video. Bye!

---

Procrastinating to start a coaching business? This will motivate you.

If you’ve always thought that you are not ‘ready’ to start your coaching business, I get it. I used to think that I need to know EVERYTHING about business before starting.

I am running my own business now, creating done-for-you courses which coaches can sell to their clients. Coaches like you can then focus on coaching clients whilst I take care of the content creation for you!

Tip #1: A growth mindset is necessary!

The first thing I did was to start my business with a growth mindset. When we are running a business, we have to put our ego aside. Because it’s a constantly learning experience.

I was aware that my blog design was unsophisticated, my blog posts were not perfectly structured and I did not even know what on earth is SEO. I joined some Facebook Groups, watched some free videos and implemented what other entrepreneurs suggested.

There was a lot of trial and error. I created videos which were basic, long-winded and very raw.

But the experience is priceless. So my motivation for you if you want to start a business but you think you are not ‘ready’, is to just start.

Start with a YouTube channel, start with a blog, start with a podcast or anything. And trust me, you will learn a lot more when you do things and experiment as opposed to just watching video tutorials or learning from courses - but not implementing anything.

We learn the fastest from experience. If we don’t make mistakes, we don’t learn.

Tip #2: Look at our business as a lifelong commitment

Another thing I did was to have a mindset shift. I looked at my business as a lifelong commitment.

Maybe you will be running your business for 30, 40 years or more. When we look at our business that way, we will realise that making mistakes and trying new things is an everyday ‘thing’.

Failing, flopping, creating products that no one wants to buy, launching programs that nobody registers for, getting nasty comments or clients are just part of the journey. (Can you relate?)

You can run a business for 10 years, and you will still fail, get bad reviews or get scammed at some point.

So we don’t need to be obsessed with learning everything before starting. Because your business is going to be a lifelong journey.

You learn along the way.

Tip 3: Treat your business as a fun project!

The next tip I’ll share for you to start your coaching business is to treat it as a fun project.

This sounds like fluffy advice, but having fun keeps you committed. If you have fun, your enthusiasm will show in your videos and in your writing.

Your self-worth should not be tied to your business, ideally.

Your business is a separate project in your life where you are allowed to have fun, help your clients, get paid at the same time. It’s a beautiful thing.

If you are starting a coaching business but not making money yet, you can always work a part-time job, do freelance work or even a full time job to pay your bills whilst you get your business running.

Do what it takes to make you feel secure about having fun and experimenting in your business, if security is important to you.

While most people can follow these steps and start a YouTube channel or a blog, I find that people get even faster results when they have a high-value lead magnet to get email subscribers.

If you’re someone who wants to level up, you can sign up for the Self Exploration Tool below which you can use as a lead magnet to get subscribers.

Thanks for reading this and I’ll see you in my next blog post!

Sincerely,

Shikah