Overcome Imposter Syndrome (4 Tactics to Kick Fraudy Feelings to the Curb)

[00:00] Emily Thompson: Okay. I'm not going to mince words here. Fraudy feelings suck, and it doesn't matter what you call them. Imposter syndrome, imposter complex around here. We call them Friday feelings. They are standing between you and doing something amazing. Now they are essentially here. To take care of you to keep you safe and comfortable in the place where you are, which is why they show up.

[00:00:27] Emily Thompson:  Whenever you are stepping outside of your box to do something new or scary or something that could lead you to greatness. So even though they are here to act as a guard rail or like a safety net to keep you where you are, which isn't an awful thing. As a boss, it is your job to overcome them, to stop them in their tracks, to gain some awareness of when they're happening and to take the actions that you need to take to continuously step outside of your comfort zone.

[00:01:02] Emily Thompson: So overcoming those fraudy feelings is what we're going to be talking about today. Let's dive in.

[00:01:10] Emily Thompson: Welcome back to 10 minutes to Being Boss a bite-size show, offering up tips, tools, and tactics for helping you do business. I'm Emily Thompson host of the Being Boss Podcast and author of the book Being Boss take control of your work and live life on your own terms. And today we're talking fraudy feelings, which are like the worst thing ever, especially if you are a human being who goes out in the world.

[00:01:29] Emily Thompson: And tries to do things because if you are a human being who goes out in the world and does things, you experience fraudy feelings, everyone struggles with this. I have had conversations with thought leaders and movers and shakers and all kinds of industries and every single one of them deals with their own.

[00:01:51] Emily Thompson: fraudy feelings, which is why this is a tactic or this is a set of tactics that everyone needs to learn to move forward. It's an imperative skillset for anyone who wants to show up and do amazing impactful work, or even like kind of amazing and somewhat impactful does no matter how hard you're going, you need to learn to deal with it, your fraudy feelings.

[00:02:14] Emily Thompson: But before we dive in too deep today, I do want to share a bit more about our sponsor Podia. Once you overcome your fraudy feelings, it is likely that you are going to want to sell something that is the boss way. And if you're into online business, then that's selling something probably looks like a course or a membership or a digital download

[00:02:37] Emily Thompson: which is where Podia comes in. It is an all-in-one digital storefront that allows you to sell digital downloads courses and memberships. All in one place, you can sign up for a free 14-day trial with no credit card required and get 15% off for life by going to podia.com/bosses. Now let's dive into these sobriety feelings.

[00:03:02] Emily Thompson: And as I just said, everyone struggles, a fraudy feelings or imposter complex at some time, and it shows up kind of differently for everyone. So really step number one for you. This is like sub-step number one. Pre-step can we call it a pre-step? I don't even know.

[00:03:21] Emily Thomspon: is that you have to learn to identify your own fraudy feelings. You have to hear them. You have to discern them from productive thoughts that you were having. So for you, it might show up as your work doesn't matter, or you're wasting your time, or who were you to think to do this? Maybe some of these things are triggering you or ringing some bells.

[00:03:43] Emily Thompson: You're frauding it, feelings show up for you in a particular way. So learn to identify them so that you can then take all these tactics I'm going to share with you and stop them in their tracks.

[00:03:53] Emily Thompson: So once you get that sort of prerequisite, you're like pre homework. I don't even know what we're going to call it, where you are identifying that you are experiencing some fraudy feelings. I have four tactics that I want to share with you to help you overcome your fraudy feelings.

[00:04:10] Emily Thompson: And tactic number one is for you to improve your environment. I know personally for me, whatever I am feeling, especially fraudy, it's usually because I'm incredibly tired or hungry. So for me, my environment is actually my physical environment where I need to take a nap.

[00:04:30] Emily Thompson: If I am feeling very down on myself in some way or another, I'm tired and I need to take a nap but there are many aspects of your environment that can and should be improved for you to show up and function at your highest self. This can be your relationships. These can be things that are going on in your career. This can have to do with your physical space. There are things that are happening in your life and work that absolutely contribute to your ability to show up and be positive for yourself to be your own best cheerleader.

[00:05:00] Emily Thompson: And this is such an important tactic. That it's actually something that we've created a worksheet for many years ago. It was actually in the being boss book. It's not one that we've shared super openly as of yet, but I would love to share with it here for you.

[00:05:13] Emily Thompson: Now it's a worksheet that's called what's in your orbit and it's a powerful sort of graphic that assists you. And getting really clear on the things that are happening in your life and work. So you can see where things are influencing you either positively or negatively in the arena of your hobbies, of your space, of those relationships.

[00:05:36] Emily Thompson: So you improve your environment to help you take action head down into the description or in the show notes for this episode. And you will find a link to download that worksheet.

[00:05:48] Emily Thompson: Once you identify the areas of your life and work, where you need support, where you need to take some action to foster an environment that allows you to show up to be the most powerful version of yourself. Take the actions that you need to take to turn that environment into one that you need for yourself.

[00:06:08] Emily Thompson: For me, this really does always look like taking a nap. I just need to sleep, guys. I need to sleep a lot.

[00:06:14] Emily Thompson: Tactic number two. Okay. Is to do something just for yourself when fraudy feelings are at me. And maybe a nap doesn't help where I don't have time for an app or the scale of my fraudy feelings is larger than a nap can satisfy. It happens.

[00:06:31] Emily Thompson: What you have to do is sort of flip the switch in your brain that is being overtly negative about all of the things. I always find that by doing something that energizes me, that feels positive and joyous can help me flip that switch can help me break. The process of negative thoughts that I have created and have on autopilot to switch me into a positive mindset so that I can get going again.

[00:06:59] Emily Thompson: And this looks simply like making a list of things that energize you. And go back to that list. Whenever you find yourself needing a pick me up, my things look like taking a hike in the woods. That is always my go-to when I really just need a good pick me up and to flip my own switch. If I don't have access to going to the woods and taking a hike, sitting down and reading a book.

[00:07:26] Emily Thompson: Fiction book that is just for pleasure has always, really helped me sort of getting into my old more positive mindset.

[00:07:35] Emily Thompson: So I have a creative sort of knowing relationship with these things in my life that I know that if I'm stuck in a cycle of fraudy feelings, I need to revert myself back to some of these joyous activities that energize me, that bring energy into my work or my life in a way that helps me. Halt the frauding feeling processes that are happening in my brain and get me back on track one way or the other

[00:08:02] Emily Thompson: and this is where I would love to hear from you. Please head down into the comments and tell me about an exercise, a tactic, a thing that you do that energizes you by sharing in this. Space. You're able to really pinpoint those things for yourself. And then you're also creating a resource amongst yourselves of powerful actions that you can take or try to help yourself overcome your fraudy feelings as well, to snap you out of it one way or the other and assist you in getting back to doing the work and kicking it.

[00:08:38] Emily Thompson: Those at fraudy feelings to the curb. So head down into the comments and share with me, what is something that you do that energizes you and breaks you out of those fraudy feelings cycles,

[00:08:49] Emily Thompson: Tactic number three is one of my favorite go tos. And this one is for you to look for proof. And if you want to be a very proactive boss, actually keep proof. Create a system for yourself where you were actually collecting proof for the purpose of aiding you and future bouts are fraudy feelings because they come back, guys, they come back all the time.

[00:09:13] Emily Thompson: You have to be ready. This can look like something like keeping your portfolio. If you're a designer, simply going back and seeing that you've. Done amazing, beautiful work. This project isn't going to hold you down. It can also look like keeping a doc of testimonials from your clients that you go back to and refer to.

[00:09:35] Emily Thompson: As you find yourself needing to pull yourself out of some fraudy feelings, right. It's also great for marketing, just sort of having those testimonials around. So if you're not already doing that still highly recommend it for marketing purposes. And also as your proof, when you're overcoming fraudy feelings, Looking for proof can also look like having a conversation with your loved ones. People who know that you are great at what you do, who aren't going to sort of make you feel good, give you some compliments, whatever that looks like. You have to look for proof. You have to remind yourself that what you are doing is great so that you can start tuning out their fraudy feelings because you can't deny the proof.

[00:10:16] Emily Thompson: which brings me to number four, my last tactic, and that is for you to go find yourself a little win. Whenever I'm digging myself out of my fraudy feelings. One of the things that I will do is go empty my inbox. That's one that usually takes, uh, it does take a lot of energy. I'm not going to lie, but it's an easy enough one.

[00:10:39] Emily Thompson: I don't need to exert much skill usually to empty my inbox. So I'll head into my inbox, answering yeah. Emails in an inbox. Zero is a win. That feels good.

[00:10:51] Emily Thompson: And that's okay. Sort of the thing that I want you to do here, find something for yourself that is an easy win. Did you make a great bowl of cereal this morning for breakfast? High five, whatever it may be for yourself, find an easy win related to your work or not to again, break the cycle of fraudy feelings that I know can just keep on going inside your head, by crafting for yourself.

[00:11:18] Emily Thompson: The ability to have an easy, when you are grafting for yourself, the ability to break free of that cycle almost immediately. And that's a powerful thing. But there's sort of like a second step to this fourth tactic and it's not just getting the win, but it's also actively celebrating it. Bring yourself even higher outside of those fraudy feelings by allowing yourself to truly celebrate and enjoy even this.

[00:11:45] Emily Thompson: As to win. And once those wins and the celebrations get rolling, you'll find yourself accomplishing anything and everything that you want to be doing, despite any fraudy feelings that you have ever felt.

[00:11:57] Emily Thompson: And with that, that's it. You have the basic tools that you need to fight your fraudy feelings and to show up as your truest bravest, most awesome boss self, whenever you need, which is kind of always, and a little reminder that these Friday feelings literally never go away and every. One fills them. So putting some tactics in your tool belt to pull out, whatever you need is a very important way for you to continue showing up as a boss.

[00:12:30] Emily Thompson: I hope that I really got this under 10 minutes. It was short and sweet, but that was my goal today. 10 minutes to Being Boss. Let's see if I did it, as well as you getting over your fraudy feelings. So hope that helps see you around soon until next time. Do the work, be boss.