The Simple Imposter Syndrome Solution

Hello and welcome to the Calmcast,

A time to feel calm and think clearly.

I'm Claire Downham,

The Queen of Calm,

A transformational life coach.

I was a burnt out headteacher who finally made the journey to calm after years of trying and I want to prevent you from having to do the same.

The Calmcast is a series of short explorations gently guiding you back to your natural state which is calm and clarity.

Just listen like you would listen to music with an open mind and curiosity.

There's nothing else to do.

Now let's relax into today's episode.

So today I'm talking about a simple imposter syndrome solution which sounds really far too formal for me doesn't it?

But it's something that just came out as I was typing up the kind of words to go with this.

I just ended up typing the simple imposter syndrome solution and I like a bit of alliteration so that's working for me I have to say because I just have become really aware that so many people that I'm speaking to at the moment are struggling with imposter syndrome and I'm not really even sure I even like the phrase or the title imposter syndrome but people understand what that means and so it's helpful to have that in place to talk about it.

It isn't really a syndrome but it's like it's some kind of illness.

It isn't that at all but I suspect you understand it as being something that is that feels like it's immovable that it's part of you that it's something that is hanging about there all the time and I was chatting to a lovely lady earlier this week and I just suddenly came up with this metaphor for the imposter syndrome because this is how I see it.

You are going through life merrily choosing and making your choices and probably feeling sometimes like oh that's something amazing to do.

I feel guided by it or you're just living your normal life doing your thing running your business doing your job whatever else it is and there is this voice inside your head chunnering away.

I don't know if you're familiar with the word chunnering.

I may have made it up but it is a voice that is going in the background and it's saying things like you're not good enough you can't do this you're not clever enough who do you think you are nobody's gonna like that your boss is gonna think that's outrageous and comically if you are your own boss probably the same voice is going you're gonna regret this whatever.

It's like I don't know a drunk old lady in the corner of the pub sorry to all the drunk old ladies out there that's not meant to be a judgement of you.

Now I think I've had a relationship with this voice that has changed over time because I distinctly remember feeling like that voice was had my best interests at heart really believing it really it feeling like a really good friend who was you know looking after me and keeping me on the straight and narrow and probably somewhere on the line getting me to work harder so that I could prove the voice wrong you know it's a voice that pushed me on and made me do things and got me to be more successful because I kept trying to be more successful until I burned out obviously and so that voice used to feel like my friend my support my confidant you know somebody who you would listen to a trusted advisor perhaps but that voice hasn't necessarily got your best interests at heart that voice really is coming from that place at some point it made sense for you to believe a voice that said you need to do better so you know you come home with your 18 out of 20 spelling test result and somebody says what about the other two oh so you know 18 is not good enough and so in order to stay out of somebody saying what about the other two and us feeling a bit deflated then we push harder to to get the 20 out of 20 but that little voice stays in our heads and helps us pushing ourselves too hard perhaps in order to please the little voice in our heads now that little voice may have first said that when we were five or six or seven or something like that but that voice has hung around and it still thinks its job is to keep you safe so it carries on twittering away in the background and the reason why at first it can feel like your trusted advisor or friend or support or whatever is it's just been there a long time you know it's a bit like I'm really familiar with my nose you know I don't kind of argue with it or get it to move or I'm not going to some people do get the chase shape of their nose change don't they but you know I'm happy with my nose I'm familiar with it it kind of feels part of me I don't know where that came from but anyway we will proceed and so that voice feels the same it just feels very familiar you know and and I suppose like an old comforter when you're a child it's just there or like a friend but I have to tell you folks that the niggly Nelly isn't really your friend and and and that's the only change that needs to happen so this is why this is the simplest of possible imposter syndrome solutions is that it is realizing that that voice is isn't really your friend so we will we listen to our friends don't we perhaps we take advice from them even from our parents perhaps even as adults we will there's certain people who reach you to take advice probably we've been taking our advice from niggly Nelly who was first installed in our heads when we were five or around that time now so all we need to do is is see realize that niggly Nelly isn't really helpful perhaps now one of the ways we can tell that an niggly Nelly isn't isn't helpful is that we fell at feel we feel physically held back by what she's saying we feel dreadful we feel bad about ourselves probably feel that physically in our body well there's a clue there's a clue that niggly Nelly isn't really guiding us in a very sensible direction because her words hurt the thoughts of making us feel terrible so so the simple solution is not to try and get rid of niggly Nelly because trust me she's she's quite a stubborn old a stubborn old woman shall we say and and she isn't going to move just because you start shouting affirmations at her she probably will dig her heels in even further but here's what happens as you start to distance yourself from niggly Nelly is you know that voice in your head is you just start to just it's starting by just going actually I don't I'm not going to listen to that today that voice going into doing in the background I'm going to just do what I thinks right to do and so almost you're just taking a little step away from niggly Nelly and just ignoring a little bit now that doesn't mean that she won't sit in the corner and with her gin and tonic moaning at you she will because she's been around a long time she doesn't really want to be pushed out into the cold so that that voice in your head will stay around but the more action you take that the that niggly Nelly saying you can't take the more things you do and the more you just carry on regardless of niggly Nelly so keep calm and carry on while niggly Nelly niggles away in the background you the more you do that the more niggly Nelly will just creep off into the corner and get quieter and quieter and she probably will I still get voices saying I still got a voice in the head in my head saying yeah who do you think you are you're not good enough at this you're a rubbish coach you're blah blah blah you know I still get that all the time but well not as much but and not as loudly but it still pops up it's like it's like now niggly Nelly sat in the corner over there she's got gin and tonic she's got several actually and I'm not sure why niggly Nelly's an alcoholic but she's sat in the corner with her gin and she's still every so often just shouting something out you know like you're like a drunk old lady might do in the corner of the pub but we don't have to listen to that and she's getting quieter and quieter because we're just ignoring it and that's why it's simple because it's not it's about changing your relationship with that voice seeing putting it out in the cold a bit not having it feeling like it's your cozy friend and it's there to look after you but pushing it away a bit ignoring it really and the thing is with thoughts when you ignore them they just go I mean it's really that simple it's that simple it's not so complicated you don't have to do loads of affirmations or meditations or gratitude journals or journals of any description you just can ignore that voice and the way we can learn to do that is by having a conversation with somebody who helps you to see that that voice is not real and I spend a lot of time with my clients just pointing out how amazing they are how wise they are how they've got this how the next step forward is coming to them despite the fact it might feel a little bit sticky sometimes and over time it's simple because the more you ignore niggly Nelly the less she actually turns up she just fizzles out she gets bored because nobody's listening to her just like anybody else would if nobody listened to them eventually they just stopped talking so get curious about your niggly Nelly I don't know why she's called niggly Nelly but anyway she is now so there we go yeah enjoy getting curious about what happens when you just step forward take the next step take the next action in life and ignore niggly Nelly and her nonsense about how you're not good enough sending lots of love as you explore this thank you so much for listening there's nothing to do now but bring some awareness to how this is working out in your life listen regularly to experience longer and longer periods of calm this has been the calm cast with Claire Downer,

Queen of Calm take care and keep listening.