Unlocking Your Potential: Conquering Imposter Syndrome

Join me as we dive deep into the world of entrepreneurship and tackle the pervasive challenge of imposter syndrome head-on. In this episode, I'll share my personal experiences and expert insights to help you overcome self-doubt and unlock your true potential.

Imposter syndrome can hold you back, hindering your growth and success. But together, we'll explore practical strategies to catch imposter syndrome early, set ambitious goals, and surround yourself with the right mentors/coaches and models. I'll guide you through a mindset shift that empowers you to stretch beyond your comfort zone, without fear or hesitation.

Discover the transformative power of mindfulness, journaling, and healthy habits as we explore how they can strengthen your confidence and self-esteem. Whether you're an aspiring entrepreneur or a seasoned professional, this podcast offers actionable advice and inspiration to navigate the challenges of entrepreneurship with resilience and self-assurance.

It's time to conquer imposter syndrome and unleash your full potential. Join me in this episode and start your journey toward entrepreneurial success today!

00:00 - Introduction and Imposter Syndrome Definition
03:39 - Five Subtypes of Imposter Syndrome
05:42 - The Role of Coach/Mentor in Overcoming Imposter Syndrome
06:59 - The Impacts of Impostor Syndrome
08:14 - The Concept of Paralysis by Analysis
09:45 - Setting Appropriate Environment  for Your Mind and Body
11:27 - Overcoming Imposter Syndrome through Validation or Affirmations and Visualization
13:01 - Overcoming Imposter Syndrome by Managing Energy and Building Self-Confidence
14:50 - Key Points and Summary

Transcript

0:00

Don't let it become a syndrome. Catch it early, catch it often. Don't be afraid to stretch outside your means, but do so through a very specific step-wise, goal-oriented process. And at the end of the day, if you're not sure, or if something comes your way, that creates doubt. There's always mentors, there's always modeling. It is very unlikely to be unique to you. And so that's where being thirsty for knowledge and being willing to accept help becomes critically important because there are things that you do not know, that you do not know. No matter how successful you are. Hey, everyone. Welcome to the Endgame Podcast, where I bet you didn't know what you didn't know. I'm Dr. Ryan Wakim, successful entrepreneur and your endgame coach. I'm here to talk to you today about a syndrome which you might find funny as coming from a psychiatrist, but I'm here to talk to you about what's called the imposter syndrome. In my experience in the field of business, and certainly in my experience as you cross reference that with mental health. It is not uncommon as an entrepreneur to have doubts along the way, especially if you are doing something daring or different you know, as you branch off on your own, regardless of how much schooling you might have, whether that's within your profession or within business itself. I know personally as a physician, I was never taught, you know, anything about business outside of what I had to learn, on my own. But there, regardless of what your profession is and, and what your career path is and, and who you are as a person, personality or otherwise, some points along the way of your entrepreneurial business based career path will come with hurdles, will come with interesting opportunities, and frankly may come with doubt. In fact, if you don't doubt what you're doing I would ask you to, you know, to, to have a little bit more self-awareness and think about, you know, where you may be missing opportunities yourself. Cause you know, you, again, as the, the beginning of the podcast suggests you can't know it all about knowing it all. So there's definitely gonna be areas where you can surround yourself with others or learn more and have kind of a, a never ending quench or thirst for knowledge that's not able to be quenched. Getting to specifically around the topic of imposter syndrome, this is a concept whereby in spite of outwardly looking very successful having that internal fear and doubt around whether or not you actually are successful. So this concept of imposter syndrome, in fact, to make it even more concrete and clear, I'll give you the exact definition as it comes up via Google, which is imposter syndrome, is the condition of feeling anxious and not experiencing success internally despite being high performing in external objective ways they'll even go further to suggest that there are actually five subtypes of imposter syndrome. I don't believe that's relevant for today's podcast, but the point just being it can take different forms. Those forms are really the external facing forms. So I will touch on them briefly. Those include the expert imposter syndrome, the Superman, or woman imposter syndrome, the perfectionist imposter, the soloist imposter, and then the natural genius imposter. So there's been a lot of research and data come out on this exact phenomena, right? This idea that you can be externally high performing, you know, hitting all sorts of objective measures for successful, but internally not feel that way, right? Or have anxiety or fear, self-doubt. Maybe looking too internally and not enough externally. And, and then what that turns into in terms of feeling the need for validation or seeking validation. And, you know, honestly what I've seen in my career is that can mean, you know, seeking validation in some of the wrong places. It comes back to my overriding concept of thinking back to mindset. You, you know, you certainly have heard me talk about that, if you've heard me talk before. The idea around mindfulness, the idea around surrounding yourself the right, with the right people and, and having self-awareness. These are all ways in which you can get at you know, or help prevent, I should say, the idea of imposter syndrome. The more you're, the more you are self-aware, know that there will be things that you will not know and understand that there are others around you who might already know that might be better or more apt to know it or might be a better, higher, and best use of their time as compared to yours. All of those things cut in different ways to create this idea that imposter syndrome doesn't have to become a condition, much like everything else in mental health or in in an illness state. There are these, like subclinical levels or the idea that it's below the surface and could bubble over with the wrong trigger or the wrong stress. But in order to prevent imposter syndrome and having that internal self-doubt and fear, it's really about strengthening your relationship, strengthening your self-awareness, strengthening your personal development, and all of those things can be done through the concept of a mentor or a coach. You've heard me say it before, but I'm a, I'm an avid golf fan. I played in college. Have watched it throughout my, my lifetime and even at his peak Tiger Woods as being one of the most incredible athletes of all time. Certainly in the realm of golf. I. Even at his peak, he had a a swing coach, right? So no matter how much you're firing on all cylinders, you could still always have a coach or a mentor, and especially if you're one who tends towards. Internalizing tends towards fears and anxiety and worries can, you know, have this concept of paralysis by analysis. You just can't get, you know, you stumble over yourself, you just can't get beyond yourself. All of those things could be symptoms or precursors to the broader, you know, syndrome or condition of imposter syndrome. Now that we've defined it and kind of given some spotlight to it, Let's dive a little bit deeper into how it can impact you. So, you know, we've talked you just mentioned that imposter syndrome can absolutely impact your effectiveness, and part of that is when you have self-doubt when you have kind of a fear of failure. You're less inclined to take that next step. You're less inclined to stretch outside your comfort zone. And you know, this, this key concept, if you're not climbing, you're sliding. Meaning if you aren't constantly stretching outside your comfort zone, constantly out there looking for knowledge and improvement and you kind of Isolate to yourself, or again, you, you don't take key steps or make key decisions because you're so worried or anxious or nervous or doubtful. You know, 0% of puts left, left short go in, right? If you think about the golf analogy, and that is you, if you never take the step, if you never stretch yourself, if you never get outside your comfort zone, if you never kind of reach a little further you're likely gonna start sliding and not climbing. And so really the, the core issue that kind of comes out of imposter syndrome is this idea of paralysis by analysis and just being an ineffective entrepreneur or frankly hitting a bit of a stalemate, right? Almost like a writer's block. But in the kind of progress of your entrepreneurial career. So very clearly that can impact you. It can impact your employees, it can impact the segment of the population you're working towards, assisting in some form or fashion, whether that's healthcare or otherwise. And so it is critically important to have the self-awareness of when you might be getting in your own way. And when something like the signs and symptoms I discussed are starting to creep in. And then how you overcome them. Oftentimes that would involve a coach or a mentor. It would involve modeling after someone else. You know, no matter what problem comes your way, I'd venture to say it's not a unique problem. That someone at some point has experienced said problem, and that's when, you know, modeling someone else's career path or behavior or reaching out and being thirsty for knowledge and understanding can come to the aid and really help you move beyond a full blown imposter syndrome and kind of that complete paralysis and take the next step in your career in your path. You've heard me talk about it a thousand times now, but I am a huge believer as a psychiatrist and as an entrepreneur, that you must set the appropriate environment for your mind and your body. To be successful, that starts, you know, before the feet hit the floor every morning coming outta bed. For me that includes, you know, I've talked about owning a juicery and involves making sure that I eat clean that I put the right vitamins and minerals and Antioxidants into my body first thing in the morning for me. That also includes ice baths. You know, actually making sure that anti-inflammatory, again, raising the cognitive clarity. Raising a factor in my brain called BDNF which allows for neurogenesis and new neural connections and, and brain activity and kind of reducing the, the clouding and the fog. Getting your mind right, getting your body right, motion drives emotion, physical exercise and activity. Creating that ecosystem through which you can view the world in that lens and through that context. Will absolutely help you be proactive and preventative from falling into the self-doubt and the fear of failure in, in being less apt to stretch, to climb and thereby creating this fall or slide. So all, you know, most of the things I've talked about before, mindfulness, journaling, mindset, health set. These things create the environment through which you're less likely to fall victim to imposter syndrome. One of the other ways you can help overcome this would be validation or affirmations. You got, you do have to be careful about that. It is not uncommon to fall into kind of maladaptive coping skills or maladaptive behaviors as it relates to how you get confirmation or affirmation. And so making sure that if you're going to go the route of seeking validation or affirmation that you do it in the right. Areas and not the wrong ones. You can work through visualization. Again, that includes journaling. Other things like goal setting. It's easier to stretch beyond your means and to, you know, stretch outside your comfort zone and reach for the stars if you build a ladder. If you just try to go from, you know, zero to 1000 overnight you're very likely to get burned. And then that'll just feed right back into this idea of failure, fear, fear of failure. You'll end up validating failure, and then that'll create again, a vicious negative. Loop from a behavior perspective, and, and then you're gonna be much less inclined to stretch the next time in a similar circumstance. So, so goal setting, journaling, taking appropriate steps, but taking the steps nonetheless, even when it feels like the next step might be a dangerous one. As long as you are surrounding yourself with the right people and informing yourself the way you need to be informed to make said decisions. Other things that can help kind of be preventative for imposter syndromes. Obviously building your own self-confidence. Now this is another like be cautious point, which is you can be confident without being arrogant. You can be confident without being narcissistic. Those who stretch way far beyond their means all the time will find themselves overstretched. And that could include a sense of arrogance or narcissism. So, Stretching, but stretching through an informed pathway. So anything you can do to build self-confidence and self-esteem is important. So again, find the things that you derive energy and pleasure, and power and purpose from, and do more of that. Right. So I always talk about, or you know, what I've been taught in my career is you end up, you know, we don't spend time, we, you shouldn't be allocating time, you should be allocating energy, right? And you should be allocating energy to the things that you derive energy from, right? So there's this concept of is someone or something sucking energy away from you, or is someone, or something adding energy to you? And so that's where self-awareness comes in and that's where taking, kind of taking stock of what's going on and who, who is around you and who your inner circle is so that you are always deriving energy from which you're doing and others, and not always giving energy. And when you are giving energy and focusing energy, it should be on things that you really enjoy, which will help you build confidence, build self-esteem, and frankly, build the infrastructure on that mindset and health set to be more successful and to be less reactive with time. So in summary today's topic as being imposter syndrome. I would say a couple key points here. Number one, Don't let it become a syndrome. Catch it early, catch it often. Don't be afraid to stretch outside your means, but do so through a very specific step-wise, goal-oriented process. Don't forget to use things like mindfulness, journaling healthy habits affirmations, validations to help build the infrastructure in that ecosystem to avoid things like imposter syndrome. And at the end of the day, if you're not sure, or if something comes your way, that creates doubt. There's always mentors, there's always modeling. It is very unlikely to be unique to you. And so that's where being thirsty for knowledge and being willing to accept help becomes critically important because there are things that you do not know, that you do not know. No matter how successful you are. I'm Dr. Ryan Wakim, successful entrepreneur. If you like this podcast, please subscribe, press like, share it with a friend or a family member or a business partner. And at the end of the day, I'm here to teach you how to exist today so you can expand tomorrow and create the ultimate endgame of your wildest desires. Talk to you soon.