Dr. Aziz connects imposter syndrome to low career confidence and offers three steps to reduce it: notice what holds you back from risk, drop perfectionist expectations, and actively list your professional value.
Chapters
Have you ever experienced imposter syndrome? This is that uncomfortable feeling that arises in a work situation where you feel this strange sense that you shouldn't be there. This could be in a meeting, this could be leading a project, this could be doing just your day to day job. But there's this nagging sense that like, I'm not the person to do this. I'm not enough in some way to pull this off. I'm not skilled enough, I'm not smart enough, I'm not confident enough. And oftentimes it's a vague sense, it's not even a specific reason, it's just like somehow I can't do it. And the strangest thing about this imposter syndrome, if you ever experienced this, is it doesn't even matter if you have a track record of doing it in the past. Even if you have pulled off that kind of leading that meeting or doing that project, or completing those sales or leading that thing or whatever it is, your mind still says you can't do it, it's not going to work out, you're not enough. And then we feel it, we believe it, and at least to a lot of anxiety, a lot of professional anxiety. And this really stems from a lower level of professional career confidence. And this is something that in this video, I'm going to teach you three steps to shift this so you're no longer stuck in that imposter syndrome. And of course, if you want to go further than this short video and really resolve this at its root, then I encourage you to come to my upcoming event, Maximize youe Money and Career Confidence. We're going to spend three days going deep into your career and your relationship with money and how to open up a whole new level of confidence way beyond anything you've ever experienced, so that it really opens the doorways for you for opportunities in your life so you can step through those doorways with much more confidence and achieve whatever it is that you really want in your career, in your business, and as a result increase your earning potential because you've increased your confidence. But first things first, we gotta resolve this imposter syndrome thing. So in these three steps, I'd like to help you move forward with that. You ready? Okay. The first step is actually to examine what's the payoff for this imposter syndrome? What's the benefit of it? Any behavior that we're repeating again and again and again, even if it's very unpleasant, actually has some hidden benefit or it's attempting to, to do something, it has an Agenda, even if we don't like it. So when you can become aware of what that is, instantly, it'll remove 50% or more of its power. So let's find out what that is for you. What do you think that benefit could be? What does it help you experience? What does it help you avoid to be doing that imposter syndrome thing in your head? I could share in just a second, but I want you to really think about this because if you see it for yourself, it gets through way more into your subconscious and you're able to let go a lot more quickly versus me telling you. But I'll tell you now. So I have one hint, sp your safety police, right? You probably heard me talk about this in other videos, but your safety police, that's the collection of voices in your head that tells you you can't do things, it's not going to work out. And its whole purpose is to keep you totally safe. And that its version of safe is not doing anything, not taking any risks, not putting yourself out there, not stepping up in any way. Because if you do that, you might fail, you might get rejected, you might look bad, you might get fired, you might whatever. So you know what? Just lay low, fly under the radar. That's what your safety police wants you to do. However, that's at odds with you being your fullest, boldest, most confident self. That's not going to lead to you reaching your potential. That's not going to lead you to escalating the ways that you want in your career, in your life, in your income and all those things. But the safety place is not about that. And so when that imposter syndrome is going, that's just think of it as like, oh, it's my safety police again coming up in a new form. And it's saying things that are trying to get me to not put myself out there. So pay attention to when the imposter syndrome often arises. It's like, I'm not smart enough. Other people in this room are smarter than me. So what is that steering you towards? Don't speak up, right? Because, oh, I'm not smart enough. What I say is not going to sound intelligent, so I just won't speak up. Do you see how the safety police has sneakily steered you, cleverly steered you towards not speaking up? Same thing of like, you can't do that project. That's not gonna work out. Who are you to think you're a fraud, you're an imposter, you're not the kind of person, blah Blah, blah, blah, blah. That brow beating from your safety police is gonna lead you to what? Not take on that project, not try that new venture. This comes up like crazy when we talk about people wanting to start their own businesses, right? So who are you to start your own business, right? And then you're like, oh, yeah, I guess I'm not enough. Again, safety police wins out. Not anymore. First thing I do is become aware of that sucker and then kick them to the curb, lovingly say, no, thank you, safety police. I hear what you're saying. I understand that you're scared and I don't believe you. That's not actually true. I can do this. So that's the first step. The second step in freeing yourself from imposter syndrome is to drop your superhuman expectations. A lot of imposter syndrome comes about due to perfectionism. You have some crazy fantasy, distorted idea of how much you're supposed to be able to achieve, how good you're supposed to be at something, how quickly you're supposed to learn something, how fast you're supposed to get success in some new project or venture, how quickly it's supposed to happen that you just get it and you resolve all the issues. And it's like this unrealistic idea that it's just never going to happen that way, though. And yet every day it's like, well, I didn't get those 97 things done today. I guess I'm just not a very skillful, productive person. So I guess I'm a fraud, right? Or in the realm of coaching where I work, right? You know, I would bring this to a coaching session, and back when I used to do therapy, therapy sessions, if the person didn't leave the session, like in a trance of, like, the most powerful confidence of their lives, like, I am a superhuman, right? Then I failed them. If they left the session and they were still struggling with an issue, or we're still working through something, or they felt more confident, but then they also doubted themselves or they were hurting or something because we were doing deep work. Whatever it is, I failed. Now, is that true that I was a fraud? That I wasn't a good enough coach? That blah, blah, blah, blah, blah? No, none of that is true. That's your safety police. But what's true is that that's the way this process actually works. That's how deep transformation and change works. It takes time, and people go through uncomfortable places, and we don't just snap our fingers and become confident forever. And so my imposter syndrome was arising from an Unrealistic fantasy, an expectation of performance, how it's supposed to go. And sometimes yours might manifest. Mine certainly did as comparison to some fantasy person. Well, so and so, you know, Bob at my company could have got every single sale or so and so would have handled it differently. Someone you know personally, someone you know in the industry, some author, someone. You just imagine someone out there is that perfect person. You're like, well, they're the real deal. I'm the fraud. Right? So drop. The second step is to drop those superhuman expectations. Come up with a much, much more realistic assessment of, well, what is the job? What is the role? What are realistic things that I would be able to do or achieve or outcomes that I can point to that are legitimate? And that might take a little bit of like really investigating what you expect and what's realistic. And then the third step to overcoming impostor syndrome is to own your value. This by, you know, hands down, is the biggest issue. People do not own their value. Are you fully owning your value? The issue is not that you aren't skilled enough or aren't smart enough or whatever. The issue is that your focus is distorted. It's heavily putting weight on your perceived shortcomings and lacks and completely dismissing, disregarding or deleting the experience that you have. The value that you bring, your track record, all of that just disappears. It evaporates. And it doesn't actually. It's not actually gone. It's just you're not focusing on it. Just like if I were to say, you know, turn your head to the left, you're not going to be able to see to the right. Your eyes aren't going to go there. That doesn't mean all that stuff disappears, although maybe on some metaphysical level it does. The observer effect, Schrodinger's cat, you know, all that stuff. But you know, in a general macro world sense, you turn your head and it's still there, but you're just not looking at it. So you got to start looking at turning your head towards your own value. So what are three things that you bring to your workplace, to your job, to your team, to your customers, to your employees, to the leadership team, to whoever that is of value. Little things and big things. Your presence, your skill set, your way of being with people. Hard skills, technical skills, as well as soft skills, because those matter just as much, if not more in a workplace. Your ability to work through an issue with someone, your ability to listen to someone, your ability to have someone feel supported. I mean, all those things matter. So what are three. Now we could go even further, maybe come up with an even bigger list, which we would do at maximize your money and career confidence event that's coming up that I talked about earlier. But we just want to give you something that's a nugget bite sized action step that you can take from this video. Beautiful. So what are you learning? What are you going to do with this? And again, if you are inspired by this, if you feel like this is an area of your life that you know would benefit you to invest time and energy, you know, because here's the thing, when you come to a live event, you're sending a powerful message to your subconscious and you're saying, you know what? This matters to me. I'm getting on a plane, I'm booking a flight, I'm staying at a hotel, I'm going to this conference, this event, I'm going to do this. And then regardless of what we cover, and we're going to cover a lot, we're going to create an environment that's going to be a growth chamber where you're going to grow rapidly. Our goal is to have you grow a year's worth of time or more in three days. That's our target. So that's going to happen and then what's going to. As you do that, you're going to come home and be able to start to make profound shifts in the way that you show up. And when you do that over time, what's going to happen in your career? So I want you to really think about opening doors for yourself. And that message that you're sending, regardless of what we do shifts things inside of you. Because you're saying, this matters to me. I'm going to do this. And so your subconscious and your brain is like, oh, they mean business. Okay, I guess we're doing it. So I encourage you to, to take that leap, to invest in yourself in that way, with your time, with your energy, with your focus, and join me for the maximize your money and career confidence event. It's gonna be a fun one. It's gonna be one that's gonna be really heartfelt. That's the way we do the events there. So it's not just gonna be like, here's 17 ways to make more money. Nah, right? That's not what we're teaching. We're teaching how to have core confidence in yourself. Show up as the most powerful, bold version of you at your career. And resolving all this doubt and insecurity and fear and hesitation, anything that's getting in the way, so. So you can show up bold and powerful and create the career, the income, and the life that you want. So click down below this video to join me for that event. You can reserve your seat now. And until we speak again, may I have the courage to be who you are and to know on a deep level that you're awesome.
