Channel Imposter Syndrome Into Growth, Not Self-Doubt

Every creator faces imposter syndrome in their careers. You know, some get trapped in feeling like they don't belong, and others feel constantly stressed, overwhelmed, and fearful that they're going to get found out while other creators sit with it and channel it into excellence. So are you a creator that feels like you're always behind your peers because you don't have the X experience, credentials or right to talk about your topic, space, or area? Are you a creator that feels like someone is going to point out how you're a fake and imposter and have your audience turn on you? Or are you a creator that feels like you're constantly having to prove yourself to your audience, to potential guests, to sponsors, to your team, to your family, to yourself? What if you saw imposter syndrome as a sign that you're on the right track? Or what if you could do what all creators at Crush do and channel imposter syndrome into personal growth, productivity, and excellence? Welcome to Creators that Crush, the show where we help you move from crushed to crushing. As a creator, I'm your host and certified high performance coach, Sean Butner. In today's today's episode, we will answer the question, how do successful creators channel imposter syndrome into personal growth, not self doubt and burnout. And five strategies to help you channel your imposter syndrome if you're feeling it into something positive. Positive psychology. So why do creators sometimes feel like imposters? Well, for me personally, the biggest time that I felt like an imposter was during my first trip job as a programmer right after business school. And yes, you heard me correctly, I went to business school and thought, hey, I can code. I should do that for my career. So, like so many creators, I had a passion in my life that I turned into a job that wasn't maybe my main focus. And so I didn't have the computer science degree. I didn't have a lot of work experience as a software engineer. And therefore I didn't feel like I should be called a software engineer. And on this team, I felt like my team would figure it out that I get fired and then I would never, ever find a job ever again. Because they're like, hey, you lied about what you could do. And so therefore at that job, even though they selected me and hired me for the programming position, I didn't feel like I belonged there. And so I never said no to any opportunity to join a project to help out because I needed to prove that I deserve to be there to my team, to my customers, and to me. And Because I never said no. I always felt like I wasn't measuring up. You know, I was spread too thin because I said yes to everything. So I wasn't completing tasks or the things that were actually assigned to me or everything I agreed to help my teammates with. So I didn't ever feel like I'd make enough progress or create space to learn or optimize or change anything, right? I was always flying by the seat of my pants. And that turned me into a stress ball that never slept, which made it harder to think and get things done, which led to lack of progress, which led to stress, which led to lack of sleep. And there was a doom cycle that happened. And maybe you've experienced that in your creative career. Eventually I realized after too long that either I was going to change or something was going to pop in my brain and I was going to drop dead. So surprisingly though, by that time I had gained experience to hold my own as a software engineer. And that allowed me to chill out a bit, right? And to live into that identity a little bit more, which then allowed me to bring in some outside ideas from software engineering, outside of software engineering. So my business background to an organizational theory and interpersonal skills that helped me develop a specialty as a tech person and that I could talk to the business people because I had the terminology and education and could understand how things worked on the business process side and then translate that to the engineers to put it in technical documents and software and vice versa. So that led to promotions that eventually led to me becoming a software engineer for Apple years later. Which is crazy to me, but I suffered way too longer than I needed to. And what helped me get out of the stress loop, I had to change how I felt about the work and about myself. So I had to develop a stronger positive psychology. So the difference between a creator that is crushed by imposter syndrome and one that crushes because or in spite of imposter syndrome comes down to creating a positive psychology. And real quick, if you want more help on creating a positive psychology, check out my five day email course called Creators that Crush in five days at creators thatcrush.com. so you get one email a day and it goes over on day two. Developing a positive psychology, we go through the creator crush path. People are loving it. I know that you'll love it, you'll find a lot of value in it. So if you're curious, check it out. If not, let's get back to how do successful creators channel imposter syndrome positively? And so the first idea I Have is. And that works for me. And at the top of the show I hinted that, you know what if imposter syndrome was a sign, a good sign, right? And here's the reframe for that is that, you know, you can choose how you feel. The first thing is to reframe and you should replay reframe for positivity. So in the case of my story that I shared, I had imposter syndrome because I cared so much about being a software engineer, being in tech. It's something that I'd wanted to do when I was little and I had an opportunity to make it happen even though I was not fully experienced or fully educated to do so. And it was short term pain, but it paid off for me. But you know, this reframe thing is so powerful too because I had a client years ago and they were burning themselves out. They were a teacher, they're burning themselves out for their students and they were talking one day and they're like, I don't understand why. I feel like I can't ever really like connect or I never feel connected to the work. I just feel stressed all the time. And the reframe, I pointed out to this client that, oh, it's because you love being a teacher so much and you care so much that these folks are under. Your students understand the lessons that are learning and are growing and you take that responsibility very seriously. And so you love the job so much, you sacrifice so much else in your life and they're like, whoa. And you can see like the stress kind of drain. You could see the, the demeanor change after, you know, discovering that with them. And it was true for me too. Like I really cared about being a programmer, this client really cared about being a teacher. And when you love something so deeply, it switches the focus and you're able to channel self doubt. And I'm not doing enough, I'm not enough to be here into excitement because for that client they're like, oh, I get to do this. I get to go and teach and make a difference in these kids lives every day. And that's actually a really cool thing. And so switching or channeling that imposter syndrome feeling of self doubt into excitement can help propel you into success and momentum. Right? So that's the first idea. The second idea I have for you is to develop a growth mindset, focus on curiosity and learning. Because you can answer the question, what do I need to learn in my field and where I'm feeling a little insecure or have that imposter syndrome. It makes it very easy to get into action because you get clear on what you got to do. Right? For example, I had a different client who was a professional their whole career, and she's like, I want to start a business. Okay. And I want to do. Do this particular methodology. Okay, cool. And she's like, I don't identify as a business. I'm a creative person, my ideas person. I don't run businesses. Okay, well, what do. What we need to figure out, right? Where do you need to learn the golden question? She's like, oh, I need to know how to set up a business entity. I need to know how to reach my potential clients for the thing I would need to. We created a long list of things she would need to learn. And like, okay, this is easy. Your homework right now is to learn how to do this. You know, start a. You know, create a business entity, set up your bank account, you know, going down the list. And you don't have to do anything about it. You just have to learn how to do it. Right. Just go on Google, spend a half a day, and see what you can find. And coming back from that list, you could tell there was, like, a fire lit under here. She's like, okay, like, this isn't as hard as I thought. And I think, like, the thing that I'm getting caught up in is that I don't feel like I'm a businesswoman. I'm like, okay, like, what would that take to feel like you're a businesswoman? And a couple more things. And so that back and forth, one was. Was fun. Two, it engaged the. The curiosity part of her brain. But more importantly, because she was curious, she can explore in a safe way without a lot of commitment. What do it take to be a businesswoman? And so as soon as that got crystal clear, off to the races, she created a big organization. She ended up selling a couple years later. So it's pretty cool. So that's the power of channeling the focus that you don't know or the uncertainty into opportunities and problem solving. Right. That lead to momentum. So that's the second ad for you. Growth mindset. So reframe your impostor syndrome into something positive. Figure out what you need to learn. Number two. Number three is to not hide what you don't know. Right. You. So many times, especially if you're starting in, if you don't feel like you have the credentials that you might need to really thrive in a particular field or situation or topic, we try to, like, hide our ignorance and, you know, that was something you was probably more of a mindset from like 30 years ago. Like in today's world of social media and everything, being open, like, you don't need to hide that and you can actually hurt you and connect you with your audience if you do. So. You need to share what you're learning along the way, you know, and you need to change so you channel that feeling fake into authenticity. So if you're new to covering the topic of AI, say, hey, I'm kind of discovering this as I go. Here are the people I'm paying attention to, here's what they're saying in common. Here's what I kind of think about it. But, you know, let me report back what I'm researching right now. Just share the research with you, right? So that's kind of like the researcher role. If you are getting results and like, hey, I am implementing this type of AI stuff in my business and this is how it's going to, you know, you are. It grew my list by x percent or social engagement, like went through the roof or flatlined or whatever, right? Then you're sharing the results you're getting as you're experimenting stuff which is, you know, true, right? It's not you trying to hide that. Like, hey, I'm an expert in AI, but I can't show you the results because they're not perfect. It's like, no, show the mess, right? And that's allowing you to be authentic in what's going on in your life without feeling like you're being inauthentic, right? So it's channeling fake into authentic in the journey, which then allows you to really connect with the work you're doing. You get excited, right? Because you don't have to put on this extra layer of being this expert that you're not. You're just like, no, this is where we're going. And you'll find too that when you are vulnerable, people really connect with it. And I want to do a shout out to Gracie. I got an email from last week's episode of Creators that Crush where she, Gracie, said that she really connected with some of the stories that I told on that about imposter syndrome and perfectionism, which is crazy, and I'm really thankful for that. So thanks, Gracie, for reaching out. You should have an email from me soon. But that's neither here nor there. Share what you're learning along the way. Share your journey. Share you to make it authentic. That'll switch imposter syndrome into something that works More for you. All right, so we have reframe, we have growth mindset, we have authentic identity. The fourth idea for shifting imposter syndrome into something more productive is to adopt servant leadership, to focus on what others gained through your content. So an example would be this episode. If I'm doing my job, and I know as a high performance coach, I do this, and I'm exploring this in the context of creators with this podcast, but this episode should help me move from feeling imposter syndrome or those moments when you feel imposter syndrome, because that'll happen probably sometime in the future, to feeling confident, to feeling like there are things you can actionably do to shift out of it and get back into motion. Right? And so thinking about how you're helping people really channels the fear of not measuring up into the potential help you can do for folks, which is great. So that's how I would think about that. And then, okay, so we have the reframe, we have growth mindset, we have adopt authentic identity, we have servant leadership. And the final thing, magic trick that you could do to move imposter syndrome into something more productive is to take bold action. If you don't have credentials, you don't have experience, you don't have research, the one thing you can do is to get into action and learn from those actions. Meaning that you know, if you try something and you learn, you have that growth mindset. If you are authentically sharing, like, hey, this is what I'm seeing right now. If you're doing it in a way where you're trying to help people and you really care about the subject, which is everything we've talked about before. Then trying some stuff and doing the learnings and setting big goals and taking challenges can help you then get the experience you need to be an expert, which solves part of the problem of being an imposter. An example of this is when I left that first job after five years, I was so overwhelmed. Like, I knew I wanted to do something different. I knew I wanted to do something that helped people. And so I had some ideas. I had a mentor ask a question, are you living your truth? And I really didn't like that answer, which kind of kicked into, okay, so if I don't like that answer, what are some bold things I can do? I could switch my career and turn it upside down. And what would that look like? What do I need to do? You know, that would be in two months, putting in my two weeks notice. It would be making a big move across the country. It would be betting on myself and seeing what would happen and feeling like I was taking control of my life, feeling like I was going to figure things out no matter what. You know, the confidence there helped me try a lot of things. And I'm like, oh, I really don't know what I'm doing when I left that job and started a different business. But I learned a lot. And the experience at the first job at Walmart with this venture that I went on for nine months trying to start a business and figure it out, all had work that led me to getting that job at Apple, right? Which is crazy to me. That was a huge confidence booster. But, you know, I tried some stuff. I took some bold action. I got feedback from the world. I survived it. I had more confidence in my ability to figure things out. And it channeled the fear of messing up into strategic learning, into things I am very proud of in my life, that I left that job, tried something crazy, didn't have it work out the way that I wanted to, but it worked out in a way I could never have imagined. And that's what I hope for each of you. So Creators that Crush channel any imposter syndrome into excitement, into learning mindset, into authenticity and helping others and into bold actions. And remember, imposter syndrome is a good sign that you highly care for the thing that you're making, the career that you're building, the things that you're doing, and trust in that. Okay with that, we'll see you in the next episode of Creators that Crush. This is Sean Butner signing off. Take care, everyone.