Have you ever felt too young, too old, too overweight or unhealthy or maybe even too skinny, too fit? You felt maybe judged no matter what you did? And because of that, we honestly can never feel good enough and sometimes that stops us from living the dreams that God has given us in our hearts.

In today’s video, I’m gonna share with you five ways to beat, overcome, breakthrough imposter syndrome and say yes to your spark. Let’s go! Hey you guys, my name is Denise Walsh and welcome back to my channel. In today’s video, I’m gonna share with you five ways to overcome imposter syndrome.

So first, let’s define it. Imposter syndrome is basically when you think I’m not good enough to do that or who do I think I am? Who’s gonna listen to me? I don’t have the expertise, the experience, I’m not wise enough, I’m not good enough, I’m not anything enough in order to step into this new role. Now, I have had friends that have thought “I’m too young, nobody is gonna believe me or trust me, I haven’t had massive success yet.” I’ve also had friends that have said “I’m too old, I’m not relevant. Who’s gonna listen to me?” And really what’s hilarious is that there’s no like magic time where you step in and you wake up and you go, “oh my gosh, I am now super relatable to everybody and now I’m ready”. No, the reality is – is that we’re always gonna find a reason not to take action on our dreams and the imposter syndrome is one of them.

Number one, the way we view ourselves is really just a neurological habit. it’s true. The way we view ourselves, the way we view the world, the way we show up in the world is simply habit. We’ve kind of retrained our brain to believe that we are of this certain status in our work, in our job, in our family and so we live up to our own expectation. The beautiful thing is we know that all habits can be changed and even neurological ones. So even the belief in yourself and the belief in your world can shift and can change if you decide you want it to. And that really just calls for retraining your brain and recreating new neural pathways and we’ll talk about that in just a minute.

Number two, we often think that we’re just not the right person for the job. Maybe we’ve got this big dream in our heart, maybe we wanna pay off debt, maybe we’ve got a message we wanna share, maybe we wanna give back to specific communities but we feel like, “eh, that’s a bit too big for me” or “I’m not sure that I’m the right person for the job”. I’m gonna read to you a few scriptures that say otherwise. 1 Corinthians says “God doesn’t call the qualified he qualifies the called”. What does that mean? If you feel that spark of inspiration in your soul, if you light up when you think about this specific dream then you’re called.

You’re called to take action on it because I can guarantee you not everybody has that same spark. And so, God will qualify the called, meaning he’s gonna give you what you need exactly when you need it as long as you can take – you continue to take action on that spark. Ephesians 2:10 says “for we are God’s masterpiece, he has created us anew in Christ so we can do the good things he has planned for us”. And then 2 Peter says “his divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of Him who has called us by his own glory and goodness”. He has given us everything we already need to live the life he has planned for us. You know, when I think of not feeling good enough or qualified or ready to step into my next best self, I always have to remember that I have everything I need already within me. Sure I may need to learn a new skill, sure I may need to learn a new – you know, create a new habit, but everything I need is already in me because God has already given me everything I need to live out my purpose and that gives me confidence to keep taking steps forward.

Third, let’s talk about your strengths. Now, we do a lot of identifying your strengths on this channel like, what do you love? What brings you joy? And if you’ve ever read the book StrengthFinders, then you know that 10 people in the entire world have the same five strengths as you do and one other person in the entire world has the same 34 strengths as you do. You guys, we all have lots of different strengths lots of different things that bring us joy, lots of different things that are – that we’re good at. And so when we identify those strengths and then we own them as being important that can help build our confidence to take action.

So, here are five ways to rewire your brain, to build your inner confidence to – to change the way you view yourself and the way you show up in the world, to honor and know that you already have everything that you need to fulfill your dream and to know who you are so you can honor and know your strengths too.

So first one, take action before you’re ready – take action before you’re ready. If you wait until you feel ready, you have waited too long. So much learning comes in the action taking. When you get feedback from your clients, when you get feedback from your followers, when you get feedback from those who are showing up and being serviced by you, you will create products you didn’t even know existed because of the feedback, the questions and the engagement you have by taking that action. So take action before you feel ready.

Number two, accept that mistakes are a part of the learning process and they’re just a part of the journey. I know that for me, I put something on my calendar, I reverse engineer it and that gives me the deadline to actually do it. And if it isn’t perfect, it’s not perfect and that’s okay, because I learned a lot in the process and I’ll do it again and I’ll get better and I’ll do it again and I’ll get better. So, when you realize that mistakes are just a part of the – part of the journey it – it takes the power away from that action. Sometimes we think if this one thing doesn’t work out, then we’re doomed for life when it’s just a part of the learning. So when we recognize that, we can take more action because we don’t give it that much power right, we just know it’s part of the journey.
Number three, look inside for reasons to feel good about what you do instead of relying on external validation. Again this comes to looking at everybody else, looking at what they’re doing and wondering if you measure up. With – to overcome imposter syndrome we have to own our space and stand strong in who we are. So the validation has to come from within. It comes from your journaling time. It comes from you beating you every single day. It comes from you doing more than you did yesterday. It comes from you learning a new skill and building that confidence. That’s all you centered focused like you are validating yourself, you are giving your own affirmations, you are telling yourself good job and you don’t necessarily need all of that externally. When you find that sacred space of knowing you’re serving others but yet you feel awesome in your own skin, you will be able to take that more uh, take much more action ’cause you’ll have the belief to do so.

Number four and this is probably the most important part because where does imposter syndrome really come from? The comparison game, mh-hmm, the comparison game. You guys, we are so looking at everybody else’s highlight reel and comparing their highlight reel with our like – like end of chapter, beginning of a chapter or failure or whatever and it’s just not fair. So end the comparison game, don’t look at everybody else because you have no idea what they’re going through or the growing pains they had to endure to reach where they are. You can use it for inspiration, sure, you can use it as maybe like a path to know it’s possible, but your journey is your journey and that is it.

So stay focused on what you can control and that’s your attitude and your effort. Okay, number five change up your routine and expose yourself to new people who might need your service. I think sometimes we’re in this little tiny bubble and we think it’s saturated and we think everybody’s here and we think how can I stand out amongst this crowd? When really there’s billions of people in this world all who probably need or want your service. And so get outside your bubble, find a new group of people to hang out with. Grow your network in that way and you won’t feel so claustrophobic surrounded by so many other people who also do what you do.

You know, there’s the balance, you wanna be – you wanna have comradely with people that do what you do, you wanna learn and grow from them, but you want your whole other network outside of them so that you can be the go to person because – because they’re there – they’re there. Word travels fast in a small town and you can just go find your own small town and word will travel fast. This time I’m gonna end with a quick exercise. This is an amazing way to grow through impostor syndrome and I recommend writing this down. So get out a notebook and in – in your morning journal – journaling time or devotion time, write out the exact way you would want this dream to come to fruition in your perfect world. What would you love to see happen? And I want you to use the power of visualization to reframe how you feel about what you want to do. Imagine everything going right and turning on exactly the way you want with every core of your being. People will learn because they hear it from you.

With your specific story, with your specific strengths, with your specific experiences because of the network you specifically have created. You are going to share a message or sell your product to people who need it because they need it from you. They might not hear it from anybody else because they like, know and trust you. So if you have a dream that is spurring within your heart, my friend it is your job to say yes to it each and every day take action before you’re ready. Know that failure or mistakes are a part of the journey and you’re gonna learn every single time. Look inside for that validation and that comparison game and get around new people because they are out there and they want what you have. Have an amazing day you guys and if you want more of this type of information, check out my podcast called, Dream Cast as well as my Action Planner, you can download it at denisewalsh.com/action. Be sure to subscribe, hit the notification bell and I’ll see you in the next video.