Overcoming imposter syndrome involves changing your mindset about your own abilities. Imposters feel like they don’t belong, so acknowledging your expertise and accomplishments is key, as is reminding yourself that you earned your place in your professional environment.
How to Recognize When Your Inner Critic Has the Microphone:
- Start to become aware of the negative self-talk, what is it saying?Separate yourself from that voice -- maybe put a name or a face to it.
- What do you need to tell it to get smaller or more manageable?
- Don’t let that voice be so loud, acknowledge it but don’t turn up the volume on it. A helpful visualization is to see the fear or negative self-talk as an off ramp from your higher purpose. You can still see the exit sign, but you don’t have to get off.
Additionally, staying focused on measuring your own achievements, instead of comparing yourself to others will aid in quelling our inner critic. This practice brings into practice the use of the Inner Mentor. The author Tara Mohr in her book Playing Big talks about the inner mentor and says, “there is a voice in each of us that is unburdened by fear and untouched by insecurity, that has utter calm, that emanates love for oneself and others.” That’s our inner guidance system.