Shedding Your "Imposter" Skin

So many of us, directly or indirectly, yearn for a “better” experience for ourselves. Whether it be a new role at work, a relationship that “meets our needs,” or just a more alive way of being in our day-to-day, we want more.

And riding shotgun on our desire for a better life is the experience of the unknown, of pushing past what we know into something foreign and new.

New is by definition unknown, and let’s face it, the open space of what’s yet-to-be can be intimidating.

Just as nature abhors a vacuum, and right on cue, we start scrambling to fill the unknown space with whatever we can to make it less threatening. And this usually means filling it with “what we know.”

For many of us this can mean throwing our self-limiting fears into the void. We fill the space of possibility with self-doubt, our “imposter” misgivings, our myriad “mistakes” and reservations. We feel uncomfortable and awful, and maybe progressively more so as we ignore our discomfort and continue our steady march toward our goal.

Wresting one’s fears is taxing work. It’s an extra burden many women carry as they hustle to follow the call to a better life, or a better way.

We all know about this burden by now, and helpful suggestions abound to deal with it.

Like:

“Just white-knuckle it and it will pass,” which it will. Until it surfaces again.

Or:

“Discomfort is an element of change and growth. See it as progress” which it is, though no less exhausting.

Or:

“Get the support you need to make it through” which is always excellent advice,

just as is:

“Take extra care of yourself: eat, sleep, exercise, play” which are some of the best remedies out there.

In other words, you now have many options to cope with the fear and self-doubt that’s sure to surface when facing your personal unknowns.

But all these strategies focus on lowering the temperature of your distress. What if we included a strategy to intervene at a deeper place, at the root of the distress?

If you think about it, isn’t your distress a by-product of the stories you tell yourself about who you are and what you can do? If you tell yourself “I’m not ready for this challenge,” guess what, you’ll sweat the request to lead the meeting. Think you occupy the lesser tier in your relationships? Every kindness offered will be perceived as unwarranted and thus suspect, giving you no peace and safety in any relationship.

Now I’m not saying the stories you tell aren’t backed up by lots of data – perhaps past experiences, or how others saw you and communicated what they thought you deserved. Some of us have a lifetime of “input” with which to construct the reality we now see.

And it’s this thing that’s seen in the mirror of the unknown which causes the distress you experience when faced with the unknown. We see our own stories reflected back to us.

Pause to play around with this for a minute to experience the truth of it.

When on the brink of the new, the unknown, if you feel fear examine the stories you’re telling yourself. It’s there you’ll find the source of your discomfort. This is not a fault. This just is. It’s how humans do.

A simple, though not easy, way to reduce fear when stepping into the unknown is to change the story you’re telling yourself. And when I say change the story, I’m not really saying to replace it with its exact opposite, for example, from “No, I don’t have the needed experience” to “Yes, I have the needed experience and more.” This 180 degree leap can be hard to stomach, and if you don’t believe your “new truth,” the simple reversal won’t work.

To shake up your narrative in a way that works, first really understand what you’re saying to yourself, what the story’s all about. Follow the language of your story and the images it conjures. Is it taking you to an event in your life, and what did you learn from that experience – about yourself or the world?

Once you understand your story, is there a truly fresh way of changing the narrative, one that completely steps out of the frame created by the old narrative?

For instance, going back to the earlier example of not feeling experienced enough to lead the meeting, you could instead say to yourself:

“Forget my experience. (Stepping out of the old framing.) Obviously that’s not at issue here. They asked me to do this because I’m genial and warm and they’re looking for a different perspective, one they know I bring.”

You don’t stay in the old frame of “I’m not ready” by repurposing it as “I am ready.” You let that framing go entirely and rest your confidence in something you truly are confident in, or situation you can truly believe in.

For example, here you make it about a situation you believe in:

“Me being ready has nothing to do with it. Taking this challenge on at an accelerated pace is the pace needed to meet the moment. I’m right in synch.”

Reaching for a new narrative is truly leaving the old one behind, which means not seeking to work within its rusty parameters or framing to craft your way forward. You literally step out of that context and create one in keeping with acknowledged strengths, either yours or the situation’s.

In the open air of all possibility, what’s the most arresting, “wow, I never thought of that” way of looking at yourself or the situation? What creates excitement for you and feels empowering? Try making a story out of that.

The unknown you face in moving toward “your better” is truly that flexible and expansive. Why not tell the story you yourself have been waiting to hear?