Imposter Syndrome: My Experience
Well HELLO there!
It’s been a while (two years?!) since I’ve written on this blog.
We could probably spend a month recapping my whole life in the past two years: being pregnant, living life during a pandemic, having a baby, writing and publishing my first book. SO. MANY. THINGS. If you are interested in a recap of my life, feel free to listen to my podcast or catch up with me on social media.
But for the sake of time and so I don’t bore you to death with details of my life, let’s skip the recap and dive into what I want to chat about today: imposter syndrome.
What is Imposter Syndrome?
Upon doing research on the topic, I loved these two definitions I found:
“Imposter syndrome is loosely defined as doubting your abilities and feeling like a fraud. It disproportionately affects high-achieving people, who find it difficult to accept their accomplishments. Many question whether they're deserving of accolades.” - Source
Caryn Farvour Humphreys also wrote that the California Institute of Technology Counseling Center defines Impostor Syndrome as: “A collection of feelings of inadequacy that persist even in face of information that indicates that the opposite is true. It is experienced internally as chronic self-doubt, and feelings of intellectual fraudulence.” - Source
The term imposter syndrome gets thrown around these days, but here’s how it shows up in my life:
I doubt myself and abilities
I don’t feel qualified enough to do what I’m doing — the idea that I just need to read one more book, listen to one more podcast, get one more certification
I fail to see all that I have accomplished, or minimize accomplishments (“Oh… writing a book! Yeah that’s not really a big deal!)
If I’m not showing up as the most ideal version of myself, I feel like I am failing myself and others and therefore can’t show up to create content because I feel “out of alignment” with what I’m teaching
When others congratulate me on an accomplishment, I tend to downplay it (“That just comes naturally to me! I just got lucky! I don’t really deserve credit for that!”)
I’m sure I could come up with ten more ways imposter syndrome tends to show up in my life, and it may show up in different ways for you. But in my experience, imposter syndrome ultimately leads to one outcome: self sabotage.
And to boil it down to its simplest form: I don’t show up in the way I want to in the world because I don’t feel good enough.
This manifests as me procrastinating and putting off work that’s deeply meaningful to me — a concept written in one of my favorite books: The War of Art by Steven Pressfield. In that book, Pressfield claims that the more meaningful something is to your soul, the more resistance you’ll feel about doing it.
If I’m being 100% transparent with you, that’s the reason I haven’t blogged for so long (aside from the fact that I have other obligations, a baby, was working on a book, blah blah blah). It’s also, unfortunately, the main reason I don’t show up to create my podcast consistently.
And that’s why I’m sitting here and writing this blog post today — because I’m sick of waiting until. I feel “good enough” to do work that I know is deeply impactful for myself and others.
Imposter Syndrome Part 1: My Health & Wellness Journey
There have been two distinct times I’ve felt imposter syndrome in my life. The first is when I was about a year into my blogging journey. I had created my Health Nut Julie blog on Tumblr and was posting regularly about my newfound love for health, fitness, and all things wellness. I’ve talked about my story a bunch (check out my book!), but you likely know that what started out as an interest in health turned into an obsession, and I ended up developing a bad habit of restricting my food and binge eating.
Ironically, this was all happening behind the scenes as I was still blogging about healthy eating and working to get my personal training certification. I felt so guilty and shameful, because I truly WAS making those healthy recipes and doing the workouts I was posting, and I really was trying so hard to become the healthiest version of myself.
But what people didn’t see was the struggle behind the scenes: the fact that I would post about a healthy recipe, make that recipe for dinner, and then proceed to binge eat in my room afterwards. I eventually shared my struggles on my blog and podcast, and that became the catalyst for what I coach people through now: how to develop a healthier relationship with food and their body. It was such an intoxicating freedom because I could finally share out loud the things that I was struggling with privately for so long, and even better — people could relate to my story! I didn’t feel so alone in my struggles anymore.
Imposter Syndrome Part 2: My Work
Imposter syndrome reared its ugly head for me again after I found a lot of unexpected success in my podcast, book and coaching business.
Let’s start with the podcast. I’ll be totally blunt here -- I honestly didn’t expect it to become so successful.
(It even feels weird saying that out loud because I automatically compare myself to others who are WAY more successful, and/or I wonder how speaking about the success of my podcast will be perceived – “oh she’s so full of herself to say that.” IMPOSTER SYNDROME STRIKES AGAIN!)
When it was just my mom and husband listening to my episodes, I felt like I could be creative, talk about whatever, and it didn’t really matter if any of my episodes sucked because no one cared lol.
But as the listenership started to grow, as I started to receive messages from diehard listeners around the world, as my podcast downloads surpassed the 6-figure mark, as everyone and their MOM started creating podcasts… that’s when the pressure (imposter syndrome) started to creep in.
Who am I to do this? What if my new episodes aren’t as good as my old ones? I’ve talked about so much already, what if I just keep repeating myself? What if I say something wrong and get cancelled? Everyone has a podcast now – what if their podcast is better than mine? Should I even bother recording mine anymore now that [more successful person] has a podcast now?
Also, I just want to say, the feelings of imposter syndrome come from such an honest, genuine place. I care SO much about my listeners. I want them to receive massive value from the podcast, and look forward to listening to it every week. I don’t just want to do what everyone else is doing. I want it to be honest, real, vulnerable, and so easy for someone to walk away from an episode with a tangible action step they can take that week to change their life.
I’ve had my podcast for four years and I still get messages on a weekly basis about how my podcast has helped someone out of a dark time or inspired them to take positive action in their lives. These messages truly fill my heart with so much joy — it’s proof that what I’m doing is making a difference in the world.
But what started happening a few months ago is I would receive a message like this, and whereas I would usually be able to connect to their message deeply, I started to feel shameful – almost like I didn’t believe what they were saying. There was a disconnect between what I knew to be true (that it was helpful for them) and what I felt in my heart (eh, can’t really be that helpful. Why do you even do this? You have no value to offer).
It felt like, once again, I was living out of alignment – meaning, I have uploaded 100+ episodes on my podcast and even wrote a whole BOOK about living your healthiest, happiest life… but I felt anything BUT healthy and happy.
It felt like I was hiding behind a mask of who others thought I was.
And let me be very clear here: I would never try to intentionally deceive anyone. Anything I speak about in my book, podcast, on social media, etc., I genuinely DO or HAVE DONE to become who I am today. But the truth is that I often fall short of the expectations that others (mostly myself) have set for me, because I’m a human.
What’s ironic is that my imposter syndrome came to a head after the release of my book: something I worked SO hard over two years to achieve. Something I’d dreamed of doings since a little girl. Something that had so much riding on it because I was working with an amazing publishing company and didn’t want to let them down.
I always imagined I would see my book for the first time and feel SO proud of myself, that I would feel elated feelings of joy. Here’s what really happened: I felt that way for about 2.5 seconds and then… numb.
It was proof to me, yet again, that it’s truly not about the destination. Making X amount of money, publishing the book, going on a health transformation, truly is about who you become in the process of working to achieve those goals. It’s a fleeting — the feelings of success once you’ve achieved them is a fleeting sense of accomplishment before it’s on to the next goal you want to achieve.
So You Have Imposter Syndrome… NOW WHAT???
Here’s a note to myself (and to you if you need it, too):
Stop letting your imposter syndrome get in the way of the work you’re meant to do in this world.
You might feel like a fraud, show up anyway. (Unless, of course, you are actually a fraud and trying to intentionally deceive people. If that’s the case, go home and spare us the trouble booboo LOL)
I want to write on this blog because I love it.
I want to record podcasts because I love it.
I want to go back to the days on social media where you could post a picture of your Skittles with a sepia filter because you freakin felt like it and not worry about metrics and reach and engagement.
I MISS DOING THINGS I LOVE, SO I AM CHOOSING TO DO THEM AGAIN.
There’s no need to miss them when they’re readily available to me, right here at my fingertips.
All it took for me to sit down and write this blog after two years (TWO YEARS of imposter syndrome!) was heading to a coffee shop, sipping an almond milk lattee, putting my headphones in and just allowing myself to write with no filter. That’s what I love reading, so why wouldn’t I write what I love to read, and what I would find the most helpful on someone else’s blog?
Just because I’ve published a book, doesn’t mean every piece of content I post has to be *ground breaking* and *revolutionary.*
It just has to help people. And to be frank, writing helps ME process, too. There’s enough healing to go around hehe
So, here’s your permission to:
Click publish before you feel ready.
Do something you love, just because you love to do it.
Show up even when, ESPECIALLY WHEN, it feels big and scary – because that likely means it’s meaningful to your soul, and therefore you have an obligation as a human being on this earth to share your gifts with the world.
Or don’t. You can keep playing small and hiding. You can keep running away from yourself and what you truly love. You can keep letting imposter syndrome steal the joy from all you love to do because you don’t feel good or perfect enough to do it.
But we all know that’s not why you’re here, boo.
Let’s show up.
Let’s do the damn thing.
I love YOUUUUU! SO so much.
And to imposter syndrome, I say:
SIONARA, SUCKA!!!!
Can’t wait to see what we create now that we’re back in charge of our lives <3
Julie
