In this 5‑minute episode of the "5 Minutes of Momentum" series, host Christine Corcoran explores why high‑achieving women often experience impostor feelings even as they reach new levels of success. She explains that as women scale into higher‑visibility roles they encounter unfamiliar challenges, heightened expectations, and a moving goal‑post of confidence, which can trigger fear, anxiety, and the sense of "winging it." Corcoran argues that the core issue is a mismatch between external achievements and internal identity – the brain hasn’t yet caught up to the new self‑concept. To bridge this gap she offers a concrete identity‑upgrade exercise: write down achievements, skills, and overcome challenges from the past 6‑12 months, prepend each with an "I am" statement (e.g., "I am a confident leader because I navigated a difficult client"), and read these statements aloud each morning for a week to ten days. Repeating the practice helps the mind internalize the new identity, reduces impostor feelings, and encourages more confident, purposeful action. The episode ends with an invitation to share results via Instagram DM (@ChristineCorcoran_Coach).
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Welcome to 5 Minutes of Momentum. These episodes are a short 5-minute burst of inspiration, motivation, and massive action. If you need that little kick up the butt to get things moving and to inspire you to take massive action, then every single Thursday I'll be sending you through a 5-minute episode to download, digest, and implement to finish your week off strong. Are you ready to get started? Let's go! Welcome back to 5 Minutes of Momentum. I wanted to do an episode about why high achievers still feel like they're faking it. And this has come up because I've had a few conversations with women who I would identify as a high achiever, and they would identify themselves as a high achiever, and why they still feel like they're winging it, why they're faking it. And it's one mindset tool that I love to teach because it actually supports your identity upgrade. When you're scaling and you're really working towards building into your next level, you're really wanting to create next level results, identity work is some of the best things that you can do to support you to feel more comfortable at that next level and to also help you take that scary action. Because as you are scaling, you are doing things you've never done before and it is uncomfortable. You're investing in ways that you've never invested before. You're stretching yourself in the way that you're showing up as a leader. You're having conversations with the next level people. Like it absolutely challenges you because you are stepping outside of your comfort zone of who you've been all along, right? And if you haven't experienced success at the next level, it feels scary because it is a form of the unknown, right? So it's normal for you to feel scared and have anxiety and have fear and to feel like you're absolutely winging it, right? Like, the amount of conversations that I have with women that it feels like they literally don't know what the hell they're doing, but they're just taking the scary action at that next level is where it's at. Like, that's absolutely where it's at. But why do they feel like they're faking it? One of the biggest things that causes us to feel like we're faking it is because of the expectations that we've set up of what it would feel like or what we think it would feel like at that next level. I think we set ourselves up to fail from a perspective of failing that we feel like we're getting it or we feel like we know what we're talking about because we think at that next level we'll have all our shit together, we will know what we're talking about, we'll feel confident. But the more and more people that I talk to at this next stage of growth, this next level, even like so much further along than I am, the amount of times that I have conversations with them and they're like, I still feel scared. I still feel anxious all the time. I still feel like I'm winging it. I still feel like I'm faking it. I still feel like there's elements to what I'm doing that I've got no bloody clue what I'm doing. So I think we just need to eradicate the belief that we think that once we achieve a certain level of success, we will feel confident or we will feel like we know what we're doing because the goalposts are always moving. So even though you might get to a point where you're at a level of competency or confidence, at where you're at right now, that's going to change, right? And I'm sure with AI coming in, everyone's feeling like, oh my God, I don't know what the hell I'm doing. This is all new. What is my business going to even look like in 2 years' time? Like, it's a thought that runs through my head on a regular basis. And the more that we sit in a state of fear, the more we're avoiding the opportunities that are available to us right now. And so we've got to move through that resistance and keep learning and keep growing and to keep implementing and keep changing and keep pivoting and working with our evolution. Otherwise, it'll always feel like we're never, never getting ahead, right? So one of the mindset tools that I wanna share with you today is learning to attribute your success, your skill sets, your achievements to who you are as a person. That stops you from feeling like you're faking it because your brain hasn't actually caught up with your new identity, the action steps that you're taking, your brain hasn't actually caught up with you. So we need to get it to catch up. So what I would suggest you do is literally sit down and write down all the things that you've achieved, all the things that you've overcome in the last year, just the last year. You don't have to go back further than that. You can just focus on even the last 6 months, right? Sit down and write down all the things you've achieved, all the things you've overcome, all the skill sets that you've developed, all your abilities that you've honed. And I want you to start to learn to attach those to who you are as a person. So what you do is you write down all these things, and then what you do is you add an I am statement before them. So if you wrote down, I've overcome having challenging clients within the business, right? Or I've overcome having to pivot in a new direction because of this. Or I have achieved becoming a bestselling author, or I have achieved having a sold-out event, or I've achieved having a sold-out program, whatever it might have been, right? Write it all down. And then you want to add the I am statement in the beginning. I am a confident person because I overcame this challenge. I was able— I am now a bestselling author. I am someone who has sold-out events. The more that you can attach the I am statement at the beginning, at first it'll feel foreign, it'll feel weird, it'll feel like you're boasting, but this isn't for anybody else but for you. And if you do that activity and you repeat it back to yourself, and if you just do it for a week, right, a week to 10 days would be great, where you, the first thing in the morning, you read those statements out loud, and I guarantee your identity will catch up with you and you will feel less like you're faking it, less like you're winging it, because you'll start owning your talents, your abilities, your skill sets, your soft skills that you have as well, like those internal qualities that you have that you can strengthen, right? And the more that you attach them to who you are as a person, the more your identity will upgrade. But often what we do is we take the scary action, we do the thing from a place of anxiousness or hustle, or because we feel like we have to, and then we keep moving on to the next thing, the next thing, the next thing, without actually attributing the growth that we have had and who we've become and who we've grown into to our identity. So I would suggest you do that simple little activity. Write down all the things you've achieved over the last 6 to 12 months. It's attributing those to who you are as a person now because you have grown and you maybe haven't attributed that, and your identity hasn't, hasn't caught up to you yet. I'd love to know if you do this activity and what it means to you and the impact that it has for you. Feel free to send me a DM on Instagram at Christine Corcoran_Coach, and I hope you have an incredible day.
