Unmasking the Imposter: Confronting Internal Critic and Building Confidence
May 08, 2024
Jennifer Lander
Through real-life anecdotes, Jen explores the illusion of perfectionism, the importance of reframing negative thoughts, and the significance of celebrating small wins. She emphasizes the value of surrounding oneself with supportive people and being intentional about who and what we allow to influence our self-perception.
Whether you're a longtime listener or new to the podcast, this episode will provide insightful perspectives on overcoming self-doubt and embracing the journey of personal and professional growth. So tune in, as Jen offers not just her story, but practical advice on handling the imposter within.
00:00 Overcoming imposter syndrome in starting a podcast.
05:35 Overcoming self-doubt and challenges in podcasting.
09:21 Replace negative thoughts with neutral or positive.
11:33 Celebrate small wins, find supportive connections.
Through real-life anecdotes, Jen explores the illusion of perfectionism, the importance of reframing negative thoughts, and the significance of celebrating small wins. She emphasizes the value of surrounding oneself with supportive people and being intentional about who and what we allow to influence our self-perception.
Whether you're a longtime listener or new to the podcast, this episode will provide insightful perspectives on overcoming self-doubt and embracing the journey of personal and professional growth. So tune in, as Jen offers not just her story, but practical advice on handling the imposter within.
00:00 Overcoming imposter syndrome in starting a podcast.
05:35 Overcoming self-doubt and challenges in podcasting.
09:21 Replace negative thoughts with neutral or positive.
11:33 Celebrate small wins, find supportive connections.
Because anything that's less than perfect. Feels like a failure, but if you're really dwelling on that mistake and you're not focusing on what you can learn from that, then that's going to just throw you off by far. So it's trying to really. Be intentional and focus on what can I learn from this mistake and celebrating your progress Hey guys, welcome back to another episode. So today I want to talk about imposter syndrome because it's something that has been personal in my life. Things that I've dealt with. And if you're anyone, whether you're going through this right now, feeling like an imposter or you have in the past, or maybe it's coming, you might have your moment where you're feeling a little imposter. Okay. So I just want you to take a listen to this because. I know exactly where you're coming from. So I think I'm going to start with telling you a little story about one of my experiences, feeling like an imposter. So here I am. This is a five years ago. No, actually six years now. Oh my gosh. Time flies. So this is six years ago. I'm stepping onto my very first day as a psychiatric nurse practitioner. I'm nervous as hell. Getting ready. Cause I'm like, what am I in for? I have some awareness obviously, but it's like, huh, now I'm in charge. I'm the one right in the orders. I'm not taking the orders. So I'm just like, okay, I wonder what this is going to be like. So I'm sitting down after I saw my first patient, who was someone in a nursing home. That was my first job. Like Gero psychiatry. And I'm writing. And an order for an antidepressant. And I'm like, who am I like, who is this person I'm looking over my shoulder? Like, where's the doctor. Um, hello? Like someone's writing an order here. Like I need you to look this over. No, like I'm fully responsible for this patient's mental health. Um, educating them, prescribing the medicine, helping them through a hard time and it feels great. But in the moment, I'm just kind of like in not full panic mode, but I'm just, it's I'm in disbelief. Like how did I get here? There's no way that I'm smart enough. Like I'm no doctor what's going on. But it's really trying to reframe some of those thoughts and understand that you did put the time in, you did put the work in, but I'm telling you I was like full imposter mode. And I think that it took me. Oh so many months, but probably even up to a year, a year and a half, where I finally felt like I was settling into that role. And to be like, okay, no, I put in the work I made the sacrifices. I did the time I took the test. I did all the things. So I deserve to be here. Um, sometimes it just takes a little bit of time and patience and self-compassion to recognize like, okay, I'm not an imposter, I'm just human. And I'm filling a role and I'm doing the job and I'm, I'm here doing what I need to do, taking care of business. Okay. Another time when I felt like an imposter was actually more recently when I started this podcast. So I for years have listened to podcasts. And if you've listened to previous episodes, you know, this, that, it took me a couple of years to even start a podcast of my own, just wrestling with negative thoughts, not feeling good enough, not thinking that I could start something or even that anyone would listen. That's another big thing. So what I would do before I started. And shortly after I did. I would take people who I consistently listen to their podcast and I would take it all the way back to their first episode. And I would be listening to them when they had very few listeners just to see where they started, because everyone is a beginner at some point. And even along their journeys, I've listened to some of their episodes where they've talked about feeling like an imposter. And when they first started doing something new, And how they felt about it. And even in my career now as a psych nurse practitioner with my colleagues, um, even psychiatrists maybe they're fairly new working on the job and they feel like an imposter to when I can connect with people. Who are doing something similar to me and realize that, oh my gosh, I'm just a freaking human, like. Aye. These feelings are normal. There's other people out there who also have self-doubt and they feel like an imposter at times. And it just actually gives some validity to the feelings that I'm feeling. And I'm like, okay, this is reassuring. Like I am where I'm supposed to be. I have this mentor who hates the word, I shouldn't say hate, but really does not like the word imposter and tries to keep it out of their vocabulary. For me. I'm like words are words, even though they can be damaging. But if you can learn to reframe them in a way I'm like, okay, I can use this word. This is in my vocabulary. I'm just trying to describe something on how I feel. In a certain moment. So I'll use the word even though. My mentor would prefer me to not. But back to this podcast, when I first started it. There was so much self doubt and I still wrestle with it a little bit, but I'm able to reframe. And it doesn't knock me down for like a long period of time when I'm wrestling with some of these negative thoughts. But some of the things that I would tell myself is instill kind of do is, Oh, my gosh, no, one's going to listen to this. I'm an introvert for one and I'm more of the listener. So I really stretch myself to do these solo episodes and oftentimes I'll really put a lot of work into them where I'm doing almost a full script for them. And one of my goals is to be able to either do bullet points or just kind of freestyle talk, which is what I'm actually doing right now is more of a freestyle talk. So this is a huge episode for me. So give me a shout out. Okay. but. That's not always easy for someone who's more introverted. And I also have ADHD. So my mind is kind of all over the place. There's a million different thoughts that are running through my mind. So organizing things and being able to process and deliver them. In a freestyle kind of way is a little bit challenging, but I'm also trying to be more compassionate with myself and making sure that I am using skills to help my ADHD. And practicing those on a regular basis so that I can really dive into my creativity because people who have ADHD are very creative people. And I was reading this one book it's called ADHD explained. And one of the things was when he was talking about creativity and he was saying that he would get questions about, well, what if I'm not creative? And his thing was my question back to that is. Are you a worrier? And likely the answer is yes, because people who have ADHD are natural worriers. Like they are. Oh my gosh, if you can hear my cat. Okay, go ahead. They're worriers. So he's like explaining. Okay. So let's look into this worrying because if you're a worrier, you have to be pretty creative in the. Extreme scenarios that you have imagined in your mind that are going to happen, which 99% of the time they don't happen that way. But it's, it's, you have to be creative to even come up with those scenarios in your mind. So I thought that was actually pretty incredible the way that you said that I really resonated with that. I'm like, okay, so I am more creative than I'm thinking. So if you have ADHD and you're listening to this, you are a very creative person. Okay. Especially if you're a worrier. Um, oh my gosh. So I totally sidetracked. See, this is why I can't just go off the rails here. And freestyle. Thanks. I forgot what I was even talking about. Um, Okay. So I think I was talking about the podcast. Oh my negative thoughts about that and my abilities to, to really seek this out. So I do enjoy. The podcast and being a host, but it has made me feel like an imposter, like I was saying. So it's just through repetition and just gaining the experience and continuously putting myself in the situation and reframing these negative thoughts. It really has been. Helpful to me. That's a really big one when it comes to challenging those negative thoughts that you're having. So, no matter what it is, if you're like, oh my gosh, I'm not smart enough. I'm a freaking idiot. It's little by little trying to reframe that. To something more neutral and some people will want to teach you and tell you to go from negative to positive. And that can be very challenging to do, to make such a big jump. So what I'm suggesting is for you to go from, if you're having a really negative thought about your ability to do something, going to something more neutral. So instead of being like, I'm such a freaking idiot, there's no way I can do this too. I am doing this actually. Like you're looking at objective. data. Even writing this down on paper, you're saying the facts, like, what are the facts, not the feelings, not what you think or what you believe, like what is the actual fact and writing that down and it can be very neutral. So I would love for you to be able to go from I'm a freaking idiot. I'm not smart enough to. I am so damn smart. Like I got it going on over here, that's the goal, but you might not be there and that's okay, too. So just trying to take it step by step and just finding something that's more neutral and stick to the facts, not the feeling behind the negative thought or the negative emotion that you're having. With your ability to do something. And then focus on the growth Instead of dwelling on past mistakes, because they're going to happen. If you're a human, I'm not talking to any aliens here, I don't believe so. At least. You're human. So you're going to make mistakes and that's very hard for someone who has perfectionism to accept. Because anything that's less than perfect. Feels like a failure, but if you're really dwelling on that mistake and you're not focusing on what you can learn from that, then that's going to just throw you off by far. So it's trying to really. Be intentional and focus on what can I learn from this mistake and celebrating your progress too. So no matter how big or small I'm a big advocate for celebrating small and big wins and even the small ones. So back in November, I w I was very intentional about starting to celebrate small wins on a weekly basis. Every Monday. I will celebrate small wins. I'll write them down. And I'll think about what happened over the last week. It's not like I'm throwing myself a big party or anything. I'm just saying yes, like I did this, I accomplished this. Like I'm giving myself credit for that. And I consider that celebrating the small win. That was not easy for me. And it still isn't that easy to do sometimes because I can overlook some of the small wins very often because it doesn't feel big enough. Like I'm. I'm like, if it's not big and it's not extravagant, then what is this? Like, why are we celebrating this? those are some of the thoughts that I would have, but I'm trying to reframe that where it's like, okay, no, the small wins count because those are the little wins that are going to get you to the big wins. So it's very essential and it's important to have those small wins and to acknowledge them. So that it gives you the momentum to keep moving forward towards your big goal. And then finding people who you can surround yourself with, who are supportive and who believe in you, that is so important. And I can't stress that enough to find connections with the people who. Are really going to be your people because that on a really bad day or a day where you're, you're really struggling with imposter syndrome, or you're kind of having these negative thoughts and you're doing everything that you can to try to get out of it, but you're still struggling a little bit. If you can connect with someone and just have a positive conversation that is going to be incredibly helpful. So, build a tribe, build your people, surround yourself with them. There are so many reasons why people do struggle with imposter syndrome. And then, like I said, someone who's a perfectionist often will feel like they're an imposter. Because they're dealing with their own inner critic, which is comparing themselves to these impossible standards. So it's, I fail. If I make a mistake. Anything less than perfect is a failure. And then. That comparison game that we play to that really fuels the imposter syndrome fire. So remembering that people are only going to show you their highlight reels, they're going to show you the very best of themselves. And that goes for social media. That's where we really see a lot of those things. Some people will absolutely post their worst moments, but majority of people are going to show you their very best and it can be really hard. Like you can get sucked into that. And I've talked about on other episodes too, where. When I was in a really low place and I was constantly scrolling on social media and seeing all their perfect lives, quotation marks. I was just kind of beating myself up even more about it. So I had to take a break, like I had to separate myself from that. So be responsible and be very intentional about what you're doing and spending your time doing. If you're noticing that you're feeling worse when you're engaging in a certain activity or you're scrolling on social media, like, I actually feel worse when I'm scrolling through these things, then that's your cue. I need to take a little break here. So what I want you to do, if you're struggling with imposter syndrome. Is to really take a deep look and have that awareness on what's going on in my life right now. Like where am I struggling? Where is this imposter syndrome coming from? And if you're someone who's dealing with negative, self-talk I really want you to check the facts on that. would you talk to your friend that way? would you be like, yeah, you're a freaking piece of crap. Like you're so dumb. would you tell your friend that? No. So why would you talk to yourself like that? I know that's the big question. And we often wonder, like, why are we so hard on ourselves versus we would never talk to her friend that way. Andy. I think it's because we spend all of our time with ourselves. Like we know all of our mistakes, we know all of our secrets. We know everything about ourselves. And we don't know that about every single other person. Like we get no break from ourselves. So having compassion. That we are human. Like this is okay. And really trying to talk to ourselves the way that we would talk to a friend. So it's challenge your inner critic. Focus on the growth. And that's not dwelling on mistakes and it's learning from them, celebrating your progress, celebrate the achievements big and small. That's going to help build some confidence and combat the imposter syndrome narrative that we're focusing on. And then focusing on the journey to, so success is a journey. It's not a destination, and I'm sure many of you have heard that before. So just try to enjoy the process of learning and growing. And I mean, I really can't stress that enough either. It's just, we. We are human. we. deserve some self-compassion and connect with me. I'll put my links in the show notes. So if you have any questions or you want to connect anymore and you want to talk about this, or you have something that you want to share that I could share on this podcast, I could go deeper into any of these topics that you guys want to learn more about. Then don't hesitate to connect with me on Instagram, specifically my website, you can ask questions there too, because I really do. Love to hear from you guys. And if you know someone else, maybe you're not dealing with imposter syndrome, but you have a friend or, you know, someone, a coworker or anyone who might be dealing with imposter syndrome, then share this episode with them. If you found it helpful. And just know that you guys are freaking amazing. And I so appreciate you and I'll see you next week. Thank you so much for joining me on this episode of landing imperfect. I truly appreciate you being a part of this community and sharing this journey with me. If you do want to connect further, then don't hesitate to follow me on Instagram at Jen dot Lander. I would love to hear your thoughts, any questions or any stories that you want to share. So, DME there, I also have a website. It's a landing and perfect website where I share a blog post about my podcast, and then you can join my email list. I have a PDF that provides anxiety and stress management tools that you can. And use as well when you join my email list. So check it out. My website will be linked in my show notes. So don't hesitate to reach