The Work Different, Live Different Podcast - Episode 7
***This is a solo episode with Lacey***
Hello everyone and welcome to the Work Different, live different podcast. We are going on a solo episode journey together on all things mindset today. So specifically I'm going to talk to all of you about self-doubt, that pe, pesky, sticky little experience that I'm sure we have all had at one time or another in our life that either kept us feeling safe.
Stuck, disempowered, unable to move forward, or just doubting ourselves so hard that we're not able to do anything other than be in it. And when we are stuck in that cycle for too long, it can really eat away at our confidence, at our clarity, and at our motivation. So I want to talk to you about self-doubt and the top five reasons that we experience it, and my personal tips for all of you to take with you after today's.
Episode that you can practically apply in your life and start seeing and feeling a difference in those areas that you might be feeling self-doubt or imposter syndrome today. So I am a certified mindset and business coach. I specialize in this topic and I help my clients, my community inside group programs, and everyone inside the side hustle one-on-one course with the Maker's collective knows that.
Um, we specifically focus on mindset as well as all of the business 101, uh, content as well. So I'm gonna be. Plucking some of the gems that we do teach inside our program and sharing, um, them with you today so you can start getting into that work today and seeing a difference. That is really what I'm about and that's what I'm here to do and help people to overcome because I've been there, I've been there, and I continue to be there.
At every level of your growth, you will start to experience a new flavor. Of self-doubt and imposter syndrome. And before we jump into the episode, I want to reframe that for you. I want you to start to see that as a really positive thing because it indicates to me that you are stepping outside of your comfort zone.
You are trying out new things. You are beginning again as you continue to grow and expand. That is such a positive thing. And anytime you do experience that self-doubt. Or that imposter syndrome. I want you to remind yourself that this is a good thing because it indicates that I'm learning and I'm growing and I'm still alive, baby.
So let's jump in. This is a topic I'm super passionate about and I hope that by listening to this today, you will take away some hot tips and tricks to start trying and also that you have been able to create more awareness of maybe how it shows up for you or how it shows up in your life right now. And where you can pour some more love and energy and attention in your life right now to make a big impact.
And if you like what you've learned or heard today, we would always love and appreciate you sharing this with your, your loved ones who you know, could benefit from hearing this. Okay. So let's jump in. Okay. So there are, I would say, my top five reasons that we experience self-doubt go something like this.
One, it's coming from past experiences and mistakes. Two, our upbringing. Three. Comparison. Four, facing new challenges. So being a beginner, again, starting new or fresh with something. And five, a fear of failure and a fear of success. So when we look at these top five reasons that we may be experiencing self-doubt or imposter syndrome, you'll tend to notice that a lot of the underbelly of it and the reasonings that is showing up in our life is due to things that maybe have happened before in our life that we weren't in control of and made us feel a certain way.
So there's such a strong emotion and memory attached to those events in our lives that they. Really imprint themselves into our bodies, our energetic makeup and our beliefs themselves that play out again and again in this present version of ourselves and our lives. So this work is actually quite deep.
And complex and interesting. I take my clients deep into their subconscious mindset and beliefs and behaviors, and we start to rewire and reframe and reprogram. This takes a lot of unlearning. This takes a lot of insightful questioning and reflection, and this work is definitely not. Easy, and it is not something that we can do overnight.
What you will learn as you dig further and further into your own mindset, work on your personal growth journey, you'll learn that it never stops, right? And this is such a good place to begin because it's something that we can start to locate inside of us. When did this take place? Why is it coming up?
What do I do when it tends to come up? Oh, I compare myself and then I doubt myself. So whenever I'm taking on a new challenge or I'm. Stretching to my edges and things I haven't done before or I trip up because I have this overwhelming fear of failing or looking stupid while I'm doing it. Or what would it mean for my life?
This one's often a subconscious one. The fear of success. What would it look like in my life to hold that next level of success? What does success mean to me? How will people feel about me that I love and care about in my life? When I reach that type of success, we can start to do things like self-sabotage.
And again, there are so many layers to this work that you will start to discover as you do it. And my job is to help you kind of peel back the layers here and to create more awareness around these. These challenges that we may face and how you can start to create more awareness. Ask those insightful questions.
Start doing the work and practicing and exercising this muscle of yours so that you can self-regulate. Take care of yourself. Help support yourself when you are feeling s. Stuck and how to keep moving even through the mess, right? So if you have experienced any of these things, know that it is likely a combination of our default programming from when we were quite young, certain experiences that we've had, and.
The invitation is for us to look at it, to feel it, process it, and then start to install new beliefs, new programming, and we do that through ritual work. So before I jump into my top tips for any of you that are experiencing self-doubt, fear, imposter syndrome, I wanna use myself as an example. So my background, my career, my education, everything leading up until the point of a couple of years ago was really surrounded around the skill sets of marketing, of self-promotion, of business development, communications, writing, all of that.
So I had built a career, first, a corporate career on those skills that I had and was trained in. And then I began building both of my businesses around. Uh, freelance marketing, really being the expert, the strategist, the the consultant and the helper. Um, the coach, the mentor in the spaces of how to authentically express yourself online and to start and grow business, right?
So I spent years working on that brand, that recognition, those skillsets, that experience and expertise. This is how I became known. Inside and outside of my own businesses, this is the work that became my livelihood. So you can imagine, as I'm on my own growth journey and starting to peel back the layers on what I'm really am passionate about and who I am evolving into, and what I wanna be spending my time on, I started to shift.
As I began to shift as a person and grow and learn and heal, I realized at a certain point that I didn't want to be the marketer. Anymore that I wanted to help people in a much deeper sense. This is where I started to really turn my ship and my interest toward wanting to specialize and focus on the mindset work.
Um, especially when it came to high functioning, ambitious folks, leaders, organizations, and entrepreneurs. This is the space that I really wanted to step more authentically into, more confidently into. But I had so much self-doubt around that, and the way that self-doubt really shows up for me and imposter syndrome is it can get me stuck in cycles of just procrastination and just really sitting on.
On and with that problem, and then really being hypercritical of myself. So for me, my example was starting to shift my area of focus for my life's work and how I was, you know, moving through the world. What I was. Working on who I was becoming and it took, it was a, I would say like a two year journey of, you know, going back, getting certified in some of these subject areas.
Really talking myself through some of those old beliefs that I had that, oh, well, who's going to wanna hire me as, you know, a mindset and business coach when my specialty is marketing. And again, that was a story that I made up. I had also, as long as I had been a marketer, a freelancer, a strategist, a consultant and business mentor, I had been growing businesses.
I had been interviewing and talking to entrepreneurs all over the world. I began hosting events for entrepreneurs and talking to them about, What was holding them back in terms of mindset, self-doubt. All of these topics I was so naturally adept at talking about naturally in conversation with all of our community members.
In every, every workshop, every talk eving that I did, I was naturally framing it through the lens of mindset because that's where I had seen so much transformation in myself when I started to unveil. The layers of my own mindset work and belief sets, and how to start to grow beyond that and learn and challenge yourself and change the way that you think and the way you see things.
I was naturally doing this for many, many years before I ever got certified in the topics and modalities. I really had to come around to the idea of like, no, why not me? I'm actually the perfect person to help people overcome the mindset challenges that get in their, their way of growing and creating a building.
I am a creative person and have been doing it for over a decade, both personally and professionally. I naturally. Had to face so many challenges and I had to stay curious and adaptable and learn on my feet and surround myself with the right people, hire the right coaches and mentors, um, upskilled in the right areas to be able to hold space for folks who were going through these things.
So, long story short. I went through what felt like an identity crisis at the time when it came to these topics, and I know that I wasted a lot of time just doubting myself now in hindsight because as soon as I took some messy and perfect action to toward my goals, which first looked like. Taking on another job, getting some more money in the bank, then investing into a new coach, new, um, group coaching program.
For myself, I was investing into my own learning, which I hadn't done in many years, especially as a, uh, solopreneur. When I started to invest back into myself, my passion clicked up. I was so interested in the depth of things there were to sink my teeth into and learn and grow and become. You know, a practitioner in, it took a lot of hours, a lot of training and a lot of work.
But I got there and I even after I, you know, went through the certification and training process, I still had so much self-doubt. I then went through a rebrand, rebranded my whole business. Into wild, tiny coaching and was absolutely terrified. And I thought back to the, you know, the previous version of me, the person that was constantly creating and launching and just like the visual is of me just jumping off a cliff really into the unknown and figuring it out.
On my way down, that girl had like that energy that spice had like left me. It felt for way too long because I was just scared because I was beginning again. I was becoming an expert. I was entering a new chapter. I was starting fresh and reframing how and repositioning, how I was sharing my story myself, my skillsets, my interests, and how I wanted to show up and help.
I didn't have 10 years experience. In coaching the way that I did in marketing. So, you know, it was tricky at first, but once I got into it, I found that the fuel for me was just pushing myself. And that's where I really, I think I really thrive is I'm one of those like personal growth junkies. Like I love it.
I love discovering the new depths inside of me and how to heal and grow and evolve as a person. And then everything I learn, I have always naturally alchemized that into my teachings. And so when I look back on, you know, the self-doubt of it all, there was just, there was a lot coming up for me during that process.
There was doubting myself, thinking I wasn't good enough, thinking I wasn't credible enough, thinking I didn't have enough experience, enough CRE accreditations. Um, so I went and invested in some of those things. But, you know, the self-doubt didn't leave after I put in all my training and certifications that that didn't actually fix it for me.
Yes, it gave me more tools. And allowed me to move through the world as like an ethical trained coach. Yes. But I still had so much self-doubt around putting myself out there. I, I feel like sometimes still I do. Um, but I'm so comfortable and so I will toot this horn, but I'm so. So good at what I do, and I'm so passionate about it, and I can connect with people easily to understand what the underlying issue might be.
Not the surface level thing, but the underlying thing. So I am absolutely meant to be a coach and to help people with their mindset into pull on my own personal. Chapters and experiences through every evolution of who I am and what I've done in my career and my business to help someone practically in their life overcome it too, and to reach new levels of growth and to experience new versions of themselves every step of the way.
But you know, whatever that version is for you, like, this is my story, but, and it's kind of meta cuz it is about becoming a mindset coach. And this episode is about mindset. But like, that's what I'm here to do. I wanna keep this real with you and, and lift the curtain, the veil if you will, and show you that like it never goes away.
Um, the new set of imposter syndrome that I'm experiencing right now is I am fully in the throes of writing a book. Right now. Um, and again, that's a story for another day, but like there is a whole new set of imposter syndromes popping up around, um, getting that done and putting out into the world, right?
So these things are not unique. I think we all go through them and there are. Definitely things that helped me along the way that I learned and that I started to practice and integrate that helped me so much and that I now implement in my own coaching practices, um, for others and in my group programs.
So if you are experiencing self-doubt in your world, You might at first not realize what's actually happening. I know I didn't really know what was going on for me until I was deeply in, in it. Um, so the first step is just becoming aware what it pops up for, for you, what it looks like, how it feels. What triggers it and what you tend to do, like what is your default when you are trying to protect yourself?
Essentially, whenever we go into modes of procrastination, perfectionism, and feeling stuck like that, a lot of what we're doing is actually a form of trying to protect ourselves, to stay safe and to control the outcome of what's happening. So instead of. Writing the next few chapters for this book, I am opting to binge Netflix or to play Zelda with my partner at night, which like also brings me so much joy.
But you know, we're, we are favoring when we are in that default mode and that cycle of self-doubt. I know for me, my default is always procrastination. I've never been more productive than when I am in a cycle, like a bout of procrastination. Why are we doing that? We're doing it because it's giving us instantaneous gratification and because somewhere subconsciously we believe that we are protecting ourselves by being in control of the situation and we, so then we take longer to get it done.
We avoid it, and we will avoid and avoid and avoid until it's absolutely. Going to negatively impact us if we don't get it done. And so I think for, for anyone listening here, it's, it's identifying, okay, what is my default programming? Like, what do I start to do when I'm in that cycle? Right? And then pay attention to your self-talk because that's, there's so many clues as to what is going on there and where, where you're operating from when you are in a cycle of self-doubt.
Okay, so my top tips for each of you. So that is my story. So that's my example. Insert your own example as we go through these tips and just, um, thoughtfully question yourself and reflect as you go through this podcast.
So I want you to picture this. You are walking through the threshold of a doorway, right? Maybe you're wearing a loose sweater or a purse or something like that, and it all of a sudden gets snagged on the door and you are literally like almost closed lined, right? Borderline, just like absolutely hung on your feet, like held in place against your will.
That is sort of what it's like to experience self-doubt and some of these underlying subconscious. Limiting beliefs, it will. You'll be minding your own business, going about your way, and all of a sudden this thing will snag you and stop you in your tracks. Similarly to when we are caught on a doorknob, it takes our mind, our brains a minute to catch up with what has just happened.
It's kind of shocking. We know how it feels in our body, and it often brings up frustration. Stress, anxiety, even pain in a lot of situations, and just confusion overall, like why, you know, the, the question we're left with is, why is this happening? And sometimes depending on where we're at with our journey, we might not be fully aware of why it is showing up for us.
Why do we keep getting snagged on these door handles and what can we do to stop that from happening as frequently as it is? So step one is when you are going through those cycles of self-doubt, fear, imposter syndrome, you're going to want to take a look and notice your self-talk. How are you talking to yourself?
What is your. What is the narrative that you have about a certain task goal situation that you are in, that you were trying to, um, follow through on, or accomplish or become? Take a look and observe the self-talk. You know, I. Get your journal out, make sure you're capturing that stream of consciousness.
Like what? Where's your energy? Where's your mood? What's happening for you? And pay attention to the thoughts and the fears that are coming forward. When we're able to put it on a page, we can look at it and say like, okay, interesting. So it seems like I have a fear, so let's take my example. So mine was, I had this overwhelming fear that I would not be able to transition from a marketing expert into a mindset and business coach.
Why? So step one here is to ask yourself the most powerful, potent thing that you can ask yourself. When you are in this cycle of doubting yourself and having these negative thoughts, your first step is to ask yourself, whose voice is that? Where is it coming from? Why, like why do I feel like I can't become this other thing?
Is it from a past experience or event mistake that I made? Did it come from a point in my upbringing when, you know, a parental figure or a teacher or a peer or something said something to me that made me believe that I couldn't be good at? Learning new things, for example, or did it come from a time when I maybe compared myself to someone else unfairly, someone else who might be a mindset and business coach who is so successful and has, you know, gone through their own journey to doing that work, or does it in a certain way.
This is where comparison really comes in. And so the point here is to start asking ourselves better questions. I always, when I sense that a client or someone that I'm working with is coming up against a lot of self-doubt and negative self-talk, and just feeling those feelings of like, I can't do this.
I'm not good at enough, I'm not capable enough. Whatever it is. I say, okay, whose voice is that? And when did you decide that that was true? Because every limiting belief starts with a limiting decision that we have made and that could have been influenced externally. Internally, I. That there, there's so many reasons why we may have decided that along the way, but our job, when we ask better questions and what happens is we're able to start to locate the root cause of that doubt and where it's coming from.
Where did it originate? And so when we get more comfortable asking ourselves these tough questions and reflecting on it and getting more and more clear on where it's coming from, it allows us to create more awareness. To snap out of the negative loop and return to our center quicker. We are able to start reframing these things, these memories, events, occurrences as a neutral event.
From our current awareness and consciousness, we can process what happened back then with more tools that we have learned and we're able to process and feel it and recognize it for what it is like, oh, I, somewhere along the way. Had someone model to me that, you know, it wasn't safe for me to put myself out there before I was an expert or be before I knew how to fully do a thing.
It's that perfectionism shining through, like whatever it might be for you. It's so important for us to ask these questions, recognize them for what? What they are and why that doubt is coming to us. We are making it mean something. We are signing meaning to it because of a narrative or an experience we may have had in the past.
So this is where we start to pull a lot of those, those things that those root causes for ourselves, doubt up to the surface so that we can look at it, process it, and begin releasing it. So remember when, when those things are coming up for you, ask yourself, whose voice is that? Where is it coming from and when did I decide that was true about myself?
That is step one to ask yourself when you are experiencing that sticky self-doubt, step two. So when we are in that cycle of self-doubt, there's a lot of shame that happens. We sh we feel, we judge ourselves truthfully. We judge ourselves and then we feel shame, and then we isolate. And that's. Really not good for us from a mental health standpoint, from just like a wellbeing standpoint.
Step two, my tip for you is to share the shame. Shame researcher, Brene Brown states that the most powerful, potent thing that we can do when experiencing shame is to share it, because like I said, our instinct is to hide and isolate and not share. Because for so many reasons, we might believe it is shameful or perceive it to be shameful, to share those things.
The most powerful thing that we can do, and the antidote here is to share it with someone else that we trust. And when we create that connection, share it with just one person. It could be a mentor, a peer, a friend, a loved one, someone that we trust. When we can share that. We realize that people are so willing to not only listen, but share their own experiences of it.
We quickly realize we're not alone, and that self-doubt starts to hold way less power over us. So share the shame that comes with these experiences and it will release you in so many ways. Step three. My other tip for you is to keep your hype receipts. When going through the experiences of self-doubt, I want you to start a habit of keeping a folder of amazing things that people have said to you.
So for me, I keep a folder of, I will screenshot dms. So direct messages, notes, voice notes, um, feedback, testimonials, anything that people tend to share with me either after sessions, events, workshops, programs, you name it. Just conversations people will share with me, like how it helped them or impacted them or how I've made them feel.
And I cannot tell you the overwhelming joy and gratitude I. Feel when I get that feedback. So when we are in the ebbs and flows, the ebbs and downs of our own journey, when we are in the, the dips and feeling low and doubting ourselves and being not kind to ourselves, it's so important to revisit those, the, the hype receipts.
Like there are literal receipts of people telling you the opposite of what you believe to be true. And if we think. A thing enough times, we start to believe that it is true. So if we think we are a piece of shit enough times and replay that in our minds, we start to make up a story and we believe it to be true, and then we start to act on that and show up as a reflection of that.
So it's so important to interrupt that pattern and to remind ourselves how truly incredible and capable and impactful we are. I know for me, like that's my why. Being able to help people move through these things and getting that feedback is so powerful. So I love to keep track of it. I take screenshots, I save little pictures and folders and reread them when I need it.
Um, because I know as a mindset coach that we tend to internalize our failures. So much more easier than our successes. If we fail or experience what we perceive to be a failure, we then obsess over it. We internalize it deeply into us making our new identity. I am a failure. We proclaim right. Um, where when we hit a milestone or do something great or, you know, we achieve something that we're really proud of, we tend to barely sit in that and celebrate that we are so quick to move on to the next and to reset the goalpost and just to keep going, going, going.
And this is definitely a product of productivity, culture, capitalism, all of it. It's hardwired into us, so it's even more important for us to be aware of when we're doing that. So we tend to internalize our failures much more than we do these successes. So a healthy reminder to all of us is to remember to celebrate the small things, the big things.
Everything in between. And take a moment to internalize our successes and our wins just as much as we do our failures and our lessons. Number four, define it. What does success mean to you? So often we could be chasing, quote unquote, success according to someone else's definition of it. And we can kind of operate on that sort of system on default for a lot of years before we check back in and say, Hey, does this still ring true for me?
Was this someone else's definition of success or maybe even a previous version of myselves? Uh, Jeff and I spoke about this on a previous episode of how our definition of success has. Changed drastically over the years. It's so important to check back in with yourself and to define and redefine this as you go.
Success to me used to mean wealth and accolades and money, and I thought I was meant to like build a massive empire. Over the last few years of experience, I've realized that that's not at all what I deem to be success. Success to me is living a joyful. Well lived life. Success to me is doing things that I am passionate about, being surrounded by love and healing myself, and healing like generational trauma, and literally living in such a way that I wasn't taught was possible or that I should do when I think about success.
If I'm not experiencing like joy and laughter and meaningful work in my days, then I've gotta change something. So I'd encourage each of you to look at your own definitions of success and, and define that for what it means to you in this season. And so when you have defined the different definitions of success for yourself, create it into like a motto or use it as a way to reframe things and ask ourselves better questions.
So for example, the next time that you might be experiencing, like doubting yourself and your ability to do a thing, start asking questions like, well, why not me? Why can't I do that? If someone else has done it in the world, I can too abundance for, all right, joy. Begets joy, desire begets desire, wealth begets wealth, like start playing with your beliefs and your sa, your, your mottos, the things that you repeat to your affirm to yourself and remember to tie back to your values and your definition of success, because that's what's.
Your true north in these sorts of things. If you're experiencing self-doubt and something's not working, come back to your why and your success definition. And if it's not doing anything to get you to that, then maybe it is time to either leave it or change your route and your approach. And I've had to do this, oh my gosh, so many times.
Number five. My last tip for you is to ask for help. There is no shame in saying, I don't know how to do this, or I don't know how to do a thing. Cuz remember, there's a difference between feeling imposter syndrome and being an imposter. Imposters don't typically have the self-awareness to share that they are feeling imposter syndrome and often won't ask for help where people who are feeling imposter syndrome have a level of awareness.
To understand that they're experiencing imposter syndrome and knowing that they need to ask for help. 70% of people experience feelings of imposter syndrome, and they are often high achievers, emotionally intelligent, ambitious people. There's nothing wrong with experiencing imposter syndrome. It's super normal and it's made so much easier when we are able to share it and ask someone for support.
So these are my five top tips for you when working through those feelings of self-doubt. There are lots of things that you can do to stay true to this work and to almost ritualize it. I know for me, I'm a big believer and supporter of journaling, creating a journaling and writing practice. Um, making sure to move and shake your body like I'm, I'm talking like dance it out.
When you are feeling imposter syndrome, self-doubt, any of these things, it's super powerful to somatically move that energy and release that, that stuff from your body cuz our body remembers. When it all took place for the very first time, and that's where we start to see it playing out in our lives. So journaling, move your body, get that somatic embodiment, um, and releasing, going for yourself.
Make sure you have a strong sense of support and community around you, and that doesn't mean it needs to be your family or friends. Our family and friends, they love us, they support us, but they often can tend to subject and project their fear onto us when we decide to do things like live differently and work differently.
So find the people that are super aligned in values, in their definitions of success and of pursuing a life and work lived differently. And finally, I think it's super important to stay real and vulnerable and check back in with ourselves and give ourselves permission to change our minds Sometimes when we are experiencing that, that stickiness.
Of self-doubt, the feeling of not enoughness and just not being able to break through. Sometimes it actually, what we need the most is to be able to give ourselves permission to change our minds and to try something different. That's okay too. I have been through this so many times in so many different, you know, variations.
And I think when I was able to give myself permission to change my mind about what I thought I was capable of or how I needed to do a thing that's with air quotes. Um, when I was able to walk myself through the process of giving myself permission and. Working with the new information that I gained along the way, the new tools, the new systems, I was able to change things rapidly for myself.
So that's it for today on things, all Things Mindset. If any of you have questions that come up when you're going through this work, please DM us at Maker's Collective. You can also find me at Wild Honey Coaching Online. Would love to stay in touch and you know, hear about your growth journey and what has worked for you when overcoming self-doubt and mindset.
Well on. This path to live and work differently. So thanks for listening. Um, reach out if you have any questions. If you wanna do more episodes on Mindset, I am here for it. And in the meantime, make sure you check out all of our programming and offers Under Maker's Collective where I am gonna be your mindset, baddie that gets you through the storms.
Thanks for listening, and until next time, be kind to yourself. You've got this.
