Great Escape Podcast episode 42 - Self doubt and imposter syndrome

You can grab your copy of "Ditching Imposter Syndrome" here: https://amzn.to/2NzhW3v

Couple of weeks ago, I discovered that a good friend of mine for many years had died unexpectedly. And I was on my way to an airport to head out to another country for a business trip, and so I'm sitting in a taxi trying to process his death. How did I feel about that? What did that mean for, various projects that we had on together? All of those things and my own personal grief with that. And you would get on an airplane, fly for a couple of hours, land somewhere else, deal with all of the things that needed dealing with there. And hey, it was a great business trip. Got a lot done, built some new relationships which should turn into profitable and enjoyable business. And all the time, I'm kinda struggling with this idea that we are mortal, that life ends. And that was kinda there in the back of my head and a bit of an irritation, really, in the great scheme of things. Is it that, that triggered, or just life in general? I don't know, but I've really been struggling with imposter syndrome, with self-confidence, with all sorts of doubt. Even though business is going well, both businesses going well. An event we ran last week, everybody who was at it gave really positive feedback. Said they'd had a really good time. And it did, it was successful on every level. It was a very positive event and yet, after it I was left thinking, "Oh, was it good enough?" And the empirical evidence is, yes, it was good enough. But for some reason, I'm really battling with this imposter syndrome, with this self-doubt at the moment, and that's been really frustrating for me and irritating and it's just something that I wish I could just, you know, snap out of, but hey! Life's not like that. And I referenced in last week's episode a book, and one of the things that it says is that trying to just push through imposter syndrome is something that just creates stress, that you're actually just building up more and more stress inside your head, inside yourself, and that, that's counter-productive, in a way, because what you're doing, is you're driving your brain into more stress. And so, we just need to take these demons out and shoot them. It's kind of, reached a level where I'm irritated by it, where I'm tired of it, where I'm, where I've had enough of what's going on inside my own head, of this little narrative that what I do isn't good enough. It is good enough. It's way good enough. I've got all these years of experience, all of these years of things that have gone well to look back and say, "You know what? "The empirical evidence is, I can do this. "The empirical evidence is that I am good enough. "The empirical evidence is "that when I run a course, people love it. "When I run a member's day, people love it." So why am I doubting myself? Why is what's going on in here, why is the opinion I have of myself not match the opinion other people have of me? Why am I the biggest critic of myself? And I figure we all have moments like this. We all have these times when we doubt that we can do it. When we doubt that we're the right person to do it. And the reality is that there are very few people who don't have doubts and they tend to be the narcissists. There was a news article yesterday saying that narcissists tend to be happy. They don't feel stressed particularly, because they believe that they are right all the time. The rest of us suffer. But they're okay inside their own little world where they believe that they are, in some way perfect. And we can all identify one or two characters in public life who behave like that. For the rest of us, for kinda the normal people, having moments of self-doubt is normal. Having moments of imposter syndrome is normal. What we need to do in order to break through that wall, that challenge, that thing that is stopping us, which is us, it's in here. There's nothing out there stopping me doing what I'm trying to achieve. I've got all the skills, I've got all the experience, I've got the right resources, I know how to do it. And yet, what's stopping all of us, most of us, is this crisis of confidence that's going on inside our heads. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Great Escape Podcast. You can find other episodes at all the usual places on iTunes, Stitcher and Spotify, or at the website, greatescapepodcast.com/episodes. And if you'd like to contact me to talk about any element of this episode or others I've covered, please go to greatescapepodcast.com/contact and you can find all the ways of getting hold of me there. And if you're stuck in a situation and you can't find the way out, please go there, send me a message and let's see how we can work together to get you unstuck and moving forward with your life again. Please do share this podcast with your friends and family, other people you think might appreciate it, and comment on episodes or send me a message. I'd love to keep the conversation going.