This blog is part two of three, about impostor syndrome. Together these three blogs contain all the information I touch upon in my presentation, which I’ve given on various conferences as a track talk or as keynote.
What is a limiting belief?
It’s a judgement about yourself that you think to be true and that restricts you in some way. If you think you’re going to be bad at public speaking, you’re likely to pass at a change to give a big presentation or speak at a conference. You might even withhold your opinion in a meeting. Limiting beliefs can keep you in a negative state of mind. Everyone experiences limiting thoughts at some point in their life. This includes thoughts like: I’m not good enough, I’m too old (or young), I don’t have enough time, I’m not smart enough. And many more. This has many repercussions.
Let me take you into your brain
Your brain is a complex organ that controls many process needed that regulate your body. It doesn’t always do these things logically, why is that? The brain goal is not much more than keep us alive. That’s a bit of a depressing thought, nevertheless, it’s true. The main function of your brain is to tell you if what is hiding in that bush over there is going to kill you. So when it identifies actual danger, that will result in you feeling fear, that will result in you making the decision: will it kill me or can I kill it? In our normal life, we don’t see as much danger that could quickly kill us. Our brain still functions in the same way, rendering it quite ineffective. In a way, evolution is not going quick enough.
You can quite easily influence your brain into making you feel something else. When you’re having an off day or if you’re just feeling a bit ‘meh’, it helps to smile. By smiling you’re signalling to your brain: I am happy. Your brain assumes this is correct and makes you feel happy.
When you identify something with your senses, your brain then looks into this huge library of possible responses. It chooses the correct response (or so it thinks), and then starts exhibiting this behaviour. Smiling when you’re unhappy is like saying: ‘look at a different book please, brain.’ This way we can trick our brain!
Something things you cannot resolve by ‘smiling’, I need to highlight mental illness, neurodiverse brains and hormones.
Being depressed is a mental illness that many people suffer from. This illness cannot be resolved or changed by smiling. No mental illness can be resolved by fooling your brain by smiling. When you’re suffering from a mental illness, please seek professional medical help. Don’t randomly smile and expect to feel better.
Neurodiverse brains are ‘wired differently’ than neurotypical brains. It also means that they are much more susceptible for impostor syndrome. Neurodiverse people are often seen masking. They try to exhibit the behaviour they think is right in that place and time, to achieve their goals or task. This is not ‘good’ or ‘bad’. It’s their way of desperately trying to fit into a world that does not match them.
And everyone that deals with a menstrual cycle, and the logistics that you have to deal with when you have a uterus. On a (somewhat) monthly basis a host of difficulties that limits being able to function happens. In the book ‘Period Power’ by Maisie Hill, she recognises four seasons in a cycle. Spring, summer, autumn and winter. Every season means a rise or dip in various hormones. Imagine those seasons take one week. Everytime you’re used to something, it changes. And this is only the interior. On your exterior people might also be responding to your behaviour (or changes in it). By the end of the month, you’ve gone through such a huge host of feelings that you might feel like an impostor just trying to get through life and making sense of things.
So, does that make our brain the impostor?
Are we lost? No. In each of my blogs I will highlight different tips that have helped me greatly.
Pippi Longstocking
Everyone knows Pippi Longstocking. The girl who lives with her horse, two red braids standing out on each side of her head. The girl who’s famous for the phrase: ‘I’ve never done it so I think I can do it’. So the phrase is from Pippi (or her author, Astrid Lindgren), right? Well, wrong. Pippi never actually said those words. There was a scene where she is going to buy a piano. Tommy then asks her: ‘Do you know how to play the piano?’, where she honestly answers: ‘I don’t know because I’ve never done it.’. Somehow, somewhere, someone put the wrong quote to Pippi, and it stuck. The quote is a very good one though. Often we let ourselves be controlled by fear. Fear of the unknown, fear of what might or could be. But if you don’t yet know, why are you experiencing fear from it? You don’t yet know how it’ll go so there is no need to be afraid. Dissect your fear, find out what’s behind it. Maybe you’re afraid of that when you write the blog you make a typo. What happens when you do? Exactly, not much.
Dress for the job you want
This tip is quite old, and it used to have a different meaning. Back when it was still very important to wear a suit to work, you could actually advance in your career if you started wearing a suit preemptively to show that you were made of ‘good stuff’, to stand out. Today, if you always go to work in a suit you might get laughed at a little. You certainly will not be looked at as if you are made of ‘sterner stuff’. So why am I giving this tip? How you look and feel can influence your impostor syndrome.
Positively and negatively. When I have to do a meeting that I’m apprehensive about, I tend to wear red colours. Somehow for me, I find that it gives me strength. It makes me feel more self assured, and that helps battle my impostor syndrome (like: who the hell do I think I am pretending to be in this meeting). You can experiment and develop habits via your clothing that support you.
Most people just wing it
Those people that always seem to have everything in order, they never forget their keys. Everything they do seems to work. They stand in front of a group and easily explain exactly what they meant. Let me share a little secret with you: they probably were just winging it. Most people just wing it. And then it works, and they’re happy. They didn’t think about it too much. They didn’t over think as people with impostor syndrome might do with everything. What we, the over thinkers, the over preparers, and the overly nervous can learn from that: we can sometimes just see what happens. Maybe not for the big scary meeting that your promotion is dependent on (please prepare it, and get help preparing that, you don’t have to do it alone!). But for smaller stuff, you can totally sometimes not be prepared.
Thank you for reading part two of three of my impostor topic. For more tips and more information about the topic, please look out for part one and three.