How to Handle Imposter Syndrome as a Small Business Owner

Business Tips and Tools

Sep 24

Written By brandmerry

How to Handle Imposter Syndrome as a Small Business Owner

BY MICHELLE KNIGHT

Ever struggle with imposter syndrome as a female entrepreneur? The reality is you’re not along and while it might ever go away completely there are four things you can do to build up your resilience and get to work. Read more here: brandmerry.com/th…

You're here for a reason.
You saw the title and you're like, this is something I need support with.

Now one of the things I want to share with you is I’m not promising to rid you of your feeling of imposter syndrome because I don’t think it ever fully goes away.

What I do believe, as with anything mindset related, you have to actively be flexing your muscle to move through something difficult. It’s not that things stop happening to you.

It's not that the feelings stop coming. It's not that you ever stop, comparing yourself to somebody else. It's not that you ever don't feel like there's not a space for you or the market never feels saturated, or your money mindset doesn't come into play and is like, “You can't do that!”

It's not that those things stop happening.

It's that you become stronger, and your mind becomes stronger and as a result, you can move through those things quickly and with confidence, and they don't affect you for long periods of time.

Remember as an entrepreneur your goal is to constantly be growing as you work towards new things, so you’re probably going to feel a bit at some time, but what I want you to have are ways to process and move through it quickly so you can continue taking action in your business.

If you want to skip reading the post and watch the video below, I’m sharing the same tips, plus a little inspiration around handling competition.

IMPOSTER SYNDROME

Imposter Syndrome was first discovered in 1978 by psychologists Pauline Rose Clance and Suzanne Imes and stems from the idea that you’ve only succeeded due to luck, and not because of your talent or qualifications.

As you can imagine this impact two groups of people a great deal:

+ Perfectionist. Perfectionist’s set ridiculously high expectations, and this is coming from a recovering perfectionist herself. Perfectionists often feel like they’re never good enough or measure up to their own expectations.

On the flip side perfectionist also do everything they can to avoid shame or embarrassment so putting themselves out there in a situation, where they could possibly look like they don’t belong is the worse (again speaking from experience here).

+ Experts and Leaders. Those that are considered an expert or leader, think influencers, coaches, mentors, teachers, might feel as if they need to know everything before moving on.

They spend their time-consuming information, rather than taking action because they never feel ready or good enough to move forward.

As you can probably see, these feelings don’t work well with being an online entrepreneur. As entrepreneurs 90% of the things you will do have to come from experience. It’s one of the golden rules of marketing...test, test, test and then evaluate your results to move forward.

You can’t possibly test if you’re not taking action.

If you let your inner feelings of being an imposter run the show, you're not putting yourself out into the world.

You're not testing things, you're not marketing, you're not fine-tuning your voice.

You're not finding your authenticity, you're not growing a community.

And as I've shared time and time again, those things are absolutely necessary when you are launching, running and wanting to scale an online business, there's no way around it.

4 WAYS TO MOVE THROUGH IMPOSTER SYNDROME

1. REFRAME YOUR THOUGHTS

When you find yourself having these feelings of imposter syndrome - feeling like you can’t do it, or you need to overdeliver to be worthy, or that you don’t fit in - I want you to stop and think about how you are acting?

As a result of the thoughts that are going through your head or the feelings that you have, what are your responses and then how do they manifest themselves in action or inaction?

Remember, it's not just what action you're taking, but it can also be what action you are avoiding. You might find yourself constantly postponing, postponing and postponing until it’s ready, but we know that being ready is totally up to you.

When you recognize these thoughts and recognize the things that are happening you can build up your awareness and that muscle to move through it quickly so that when that happens again, you can be like, “Oh, wait, wait, I know what's going on here. And I'm going to take a couple of minutes to work through this!”

2. ASSIGN YOUR VOICE

This is a little trick, one I’ve used while working through my recovery of perfectionism, and that’s separating my inner perfectionist or in this case the feeling of being an imposter, from my true identity.

I suggest giving your inner critic a name.

And the next time you hear that little voice that says, “You don't belong here,” you can separate her from you.

Give her a name. Talk to her and tell her, “Not today, Sally, I don't have time for you to show up today. I've got things to do!”

So this can be one of the things that you do to recognize that this isn't you, this voice isn't who you are, this is a small little voice in your head that does not control the outcome or does not control your success.

3. RECOGNIZE YOU ARE WORTHY

You don't need to justify anything.
You don't need to justify why you charge what you charge.
You don't need to justify why you do what you do.
You don't need to justify anything because you are worthy as you are.

And you can show up as you are at this moment. If you are changing who you are, and you are changing your voice, then you're missing the point of building a personal brand, you're missing the whole entire mark.

The whole point of a personal brand is to show up as your true self and build community around what you have to offer.

But people don't just buy the products and services, they're paying attention to you. They're here for you.

If someone sells something similar to what you sell, why did they choose you? Because of the personal brand.

And one of the best things that you can do for your business is to own your voice. Practice putting your voice out there.

In order to do this, you have got to start to recognize that you are worthy.

If you don’t feel it, spend your time working on your mindset around your worthiness. One of my favorite tricks is to put reminders everywhere around you, post it in your bathroom, your office, your can and remind yourself every single day that you are worthy of all of the success.

4. GET SUPPORT

Having someone in your corner who understands when you’re feeling like an imposter can be one of the best strategies for an online entrepreneur. Find yourself a community, a business bestie or a coach that can support you when you’re feeling as if you’re not good enough.

These feelings can keep you from having a successful business, so it’s important that you don’t ignore them or you’ll find yourself feeling stuck in your business for an extended period of time.

CONCLUSION

Imposter syndrome is just one of the many feelings that might come up for you as you build your online business. It’s important that with every strategy you implement you also take the time to build up your resilient mindset.

I recognized this need very early on when I also felt intense feelings of imposter syndrome, comparisonitis and perfectionism, so I got support.

It’s one of the many reasons we have a Mindset Coach inside of my signature program Roadmap to Freedom.

Roadmap to Freedom is a live 90-day program for the new and aspiring female entrepreneur ready to simplify the process of building an online business that allows her to make money on her terms and create a life of abundant experiences and impact.

Doors open October 2020.

If you’re looking for not only the mindset support to grow your business, but the step by step strategies I’ve taught over one hundred women, through this program, I invite you to learn more about Roadmap to Freedom at brandmerry.com/freedom.