Authentic Success

It’s an interesting thing to watch the reactions when I talk about Imposter Syndrome.  There is normally this light of recognition that comes in to someone’s eyes as they easily agree that this is something they deal with in their life.  Then you can watch them mentally putting it on a shelf marked “work on this someday” and move on.  It makes me sad in that I don’t feel they fully understand the true costs of relegating this “issue” to the “someday” shelves of self-care and love.

When you suffer from Imposter Syndrome (and I don’t say “suffer” lightly), you are experiencing it in EVERY area of your life.  It shows up in all personalities, all walks of life and all roles that we take on.  It takes up a supply of your energetic self by using it to protect you from beliefs and emotional pain that you have carried likely your whole life.  It depletes you, and dims you, and keeps you playing small.  These are not little consequences… these are massively impactful to your health, wealth, happiness and success.

In simple terms, Imposter sufferers wear masks of protection.  These masks are made up of all of the coping mechanisms we have designed to protect us from anyone discovering the emotional spots of pain underneath.  I see the masks as heavy, solid and yet brittle enough to be at risk of shattering, whereas the emotional spots under the mask are soft, sore and tender to the possibility of being exposed.  The sore spots are all of the negative things we believe about ourselves… you know… I’m not good enough.  I’m not smart enough.  I am alone.  I’m not lovable.  Once we have created this belief (and yes, we create them ourselves as kids), we then spend the rest of our lives protecting ourselves from anyone discovering that we feel this way.  Enter the masks of protection that consist of our thoughts, behaviours, patterns and actions that we live every day.  By using our energy in these protective ways, we are taking that energy away from self-care, self-love, expansion, gratitude and every other positive emotion available to us.  To put it bluntly, it is a waste of your energetic resources… especially given that there are amazing ways to heal those sore spots and take off your mask.

Here is a really basic list of some categories of people and how their suffering commonly shows up:

Entrepreneurs

You are your business and if your business is not growing, it’s because you aren’t.  Especially for those of you that are service oriented – you are selling yourself and essentially your energy.  If you are using lots of your energy protecting your sore spots, clients feel the “lack” available to help them.  So grow, heal and up-level personally and the professional will follow.

Moms

You are the superheroes of giving.  Seriously – it is a HUGE emotional output in your life. The most important cost to you is that you miss the magic of what you have created.  You miss the magic moments, the magic feelings and the magically quirky growth of your little humans.  You miss it because you are so busy making sure you look like you have it all together.  Or managing EVERY TINY aspect of your entire family’s lives.  Or you miss it because you are too busy castigating yourself for not knowing how to do the 10,000 things demanded of you in a day in the properly perfect manner.  You frigging miss so much when you use your energy to protect yourself from all of the inferiority feelings instead of using your energy to soak up every bit of magic on your Mom journey.  This one is heart-breaking for me.

Professionals

How much are you running on fear?  Fear of screwing up the pitch or presentation, fear of not getting that client, fear of being by-passed by someone smarter than you?  It is absolutely exhausting having to pretend that “business is business” and feelings are for your personal life.  That is crap – you are having the feelings at work… you just take the energy to stuff them in to a box, then more energy to pretend they aren’t there, then more to unpack them at the end of the day (if, in fact, you do this at all).  More than likely your relationships at home suffer too because you have used so much of your energy stuffing and pretending, that you have run out at the end of the day.  This road leads to physical sickness, mental health issues and, in lots of cases, pure burn-out.

Care Givers

Nurses, teachers, doctors, paramedics, social workers etc.  I am talking to you here.  Like Moms, you give of yourselves ALL damn day.  Like professionals – you have to stuff your personal feelings.  When you are also hiding the fact that sometimes you are scared, sad, unsure, rejected and overwhelmed – you will just plain run out.  You will run out of compassion, out of empathy, out of emotions because out of necessity, you go in to lock-down mode.  You especially, need to care for yourselves more diligently than you care for your patients, students or clients.  You HAVE to make the conscious choice to clear your energy so that you can continue to be a care-giver at all.  You HAVE to.

The cost of not addressing your Imposter Syndrome can be devastating.  I don’t want that for you.  I want you to know that there are ways to heal the sore spots so you don’t need a mask to protect them.  I want you to know that you can feel, think and behave in a way that makes you even better at your chosen role, while at the same time making yourself a priority.  I want you to be wildly happy and enormously successful in your life.

So if you are struggling, reach out and start to heal the sore spots.  The cost of not healing this is just way too high.

To your wild happiness and enormous success,

Deb

There are so many ways to internalize this statement.  It may make you feel selfish, it may make you feel small, it may make you feel powerful.  Regardless of your reaction today, I think it is SO important to learn the lessons from this statement.

I first heard this statement during a training weekend when I was telling the story of an incident.  We tend to get in to great detail about how the other person “made” us feel something, or they did something that prompted our reaction.  My imminently wise trainer simply said, “Deb, just remember it is always about you.”  It stopped me dead in my verbal tracks, and it was like little sparks started pinging around in my brain.  I had, of course, heard before that “nobody can make you feel something you don’t allow them to”, and other similar sayings, but I had not yet internalized the truth that my feelings were JUST about me.  Uh oh.  Time to sort some things out.

Nobody to blame, nobody to get angry at, no way to feel sorry for myself if it was all about me.  That truth was a HUGE lesson for me on my journey.  What is interesting though, is that for the first few years after understanding this statement (or at least I thought I did), it made me feel ashamed of myself.  It made me beat myself up for not doing, being and feeling better.  And that is NOT what this statement is about.

I believe this statement has a core in compassion and especially self-compassion.  So the next part of my understanding was that yes, I may have been playing victim way too much in my life, but I didn’t know any better at the time.  Thank you, Maya Angelou, for saying, “When you know better, you do better.”  She is right.  Once I knew that it was my responsibility to manage my emotions and my reactions to people, it was a whole new world of emotional control.

Here is a list of what this statement means to and for me.  I encourage you to think of it often and just let new awareness sink in each time:

• My happiness is completely dependent on me – my thoughts and my behaviours.  Nobody is coming to save me.  Nobody can hurt me but me.  There is so much responsibility to this statement, but please let it empower you as you create a life of happiness and success.
• My reactions to others are all about my life lessons, my beliefs and the lens through which I see the world.
• The behaviour, thoughts and feelings of others are truly none of my personal business.  For all of you “helpers” in the world (this includes me), this is a tough one, but my experience has shown me that the best way to serve others is to live, learn and be the best version of me right now.
• How I interact with the world is my choice every day.
• How I think, feel and react is not only my responsibility, but are triggers for how others react to everything about me (and those reactions are none of my business).
• My job is to be true to me, and trust that I am perfectly in the right place for my lessons, for my life, for my experiences.

So if you find yourself stuck in situations, emotions or turmoil that you are trying to sort out, please put the whole situation in the context of “my feelings are all about me. So what can I do about that?”  The solutions become pretty obvious from there.

From my “all about me” perspective, in the hopes of helping yours,

Deb

A couple of weeks ago, the host of a live cable show contacted me about Imposter Syndrome.  She had seen an event for my 8-week on-line course and wondered if I would like to come on her show to talk about it.  Ummm, yes!  I was excited about this new opportunity and new audience to talk to about authentic success.  I wanted to tell you the story of that day, and what I learned at the end of it!

It started at about 5am when I woke up to do an hour or so of work before my kids wake up, then I jump in the shower and put on my outfit of choice.  This is a quick process since I don’t have to do my hair or make-up.  I make lunches, choose kid-clothes, and get my two wee ones dressed and ready for the day.  6000 kisses and 4000 hugs later, I back out of the driveway with an ice-covered car honking and waving (as is our family custom)… it’s 6:45am.  My neighbours love us ;-).

I brave the highways that have been ice and snow covered for two days, causing bus cancellations and most people to stay home.  Not me though, I have a schedule to follow.  I arrive at my make-up appointment at 7:57am – first celebration of the day. I park on the street and race inside, excited to get my “fancy” face on (this is what my kids call my face when I have my make-up done).  Kerry is amazing – funny, talented and a multi-tasking Mom like me.  Kerry works her magic and I am transformed from slightly pale and puffy, to put-together and sculpted.  It’s a happy surprise every time.

I run out of her house at 9:03am – oops, my hair appointment is for 9am.  I set my GPS to my next location and start searching for the number of the salon.  I call them at a red light to tell them I am running late, at the same time noticing a parking ticket on my windshield.  I finish my call at one red light and hop out of my car at the next to grab the ticket.  Phew… lucky, it’s only $20!

I hit the salon at 9:20am and Megan gets to work.  I’m bubbling and excited about my “fancy” face and my upcoming T.V. debut.  She also works her magic, transforming my fine wispy hair into a shiny, gravity-defying masterpiece.  I’m sitting there watching my transformation and I start to get really agitated.  Hmmm… “Megan, what time is it?”… “10:02am”, she replies.  Uh oh!  I tell her that I am due at the studio at 10am and she performs the last of her magic (i.e. cements my new do with copious amounts of hair spray) and I rush out.   Thank you intuition!

I avoid a bone jarring fall in the icy parking lot, ignore the drizzle threatening my hair, and jump back in the car to my next programmed location.  I am doing this!!!  I arrive at the station at 10:23am.  I penguin walk my way over the ice and hit the buzzer.  Come on, come on… yes!!!  A kind gentleman lets me in.  Big breath, I’m okay.  I’m here and I meet Melissa the host.  She is so kind as we shake hands and I think – I have made it, yay for me!  Then she says, “I have you scheduled in for tomorrow’s show…”   What?  “NOOOOOOOOO!” my inner voice cried in horror, “This is not happening!”  I stand there frozen trying to calm the rush of adrenaline, the urge to scream that is matched only by my urge to cry.  We stand there for a very silent and dramatic 30 seconds before she says, “Hang on though, I’ll make this work.  You may actually be saving my butt today.”  Holy mother of peace and calm… I take a big breath and a huge smile blooms on my face.

I wait for my spot, and I focus on how amazing this day has been. Everything has fallen in to place and I feel on top of the world!  I do my spot and I had a really great time.  I’m out of the studio by 11:20am and headed back home.  I am exhausted and exhilarated, and then reflective.  I am amazed at my perspective, and that not once during the day had I thought of anything that had happened in a negative way.  This is a HUGE shift in perspective for me.  It could easily have gone the other way, and been filled with overwhelm and panic, but I didn’t go there at all.  The old me would have griped about the parking ticket, panicked about being late for my hair appointment, fretted the entire drive to the studio, begrudged a 2 hour drive with 2 hours of prep time for a 7.5 minute spot on the show, and lashed out when the date confusion surfaced.  I would have ruined the entire day just from my perspective alone.  What a waste of a fabulous, fancy-faced, va-voomed hair, live T.V. debut that would have been!

That is what success is… not the story of what happened, but the feelings you had about the experience.  I felt happy, excited, powerful and full of joyful curiosity for what would happen next.  What a day, what a lesson, and what a success!

Click here to watch my live T.V. debut!

Whenever I talk to women about their talent, capabilities or success, they almost always downplay themselves. I’d say, about 90% of the time this happens. There are two main responses:  1) They genuinely don’t internalize their success (i.e. they have Imposter Syndrome), or 2) They actually understand that they just pulled off something great, but don’t want to sound like a “jerk”.  As much as Imposter Syndrome is my passion and specialty, I want to address the “feeling like a jerk” reaction.

I believe that feeling like a jerk comes from observing other women who celebrate themselves being treated like a jerk.  The empowering movement of having women be bold, take action and step forward consistently bumps up against the reality that they will be brought down with words, looks or actions if they do.  They are treated as arrogant, rude and, yes, like a jerk.  This is not just men reacting this way, I have watched women react chillingly to another’s success.  Contrast this sharply with a man celebrating a well-deserved success.  My observations have been that the people around him are happy to celebrate with him.  Like it is somehow more normal and acceptable for him to acknowledge his contribution to the world.  This standard of normal is very dis-empowering for women on their journey to authentic success.

Without getting in to a whole sociological debate on this, I simply want to encourage women to own their success and tell them that genuinely celebrating what you can, and have done, is never a jerk move.  It is powerful and necessary to build momentum, and move to your next level of success.  So please don’t allow your light to dim in the face of other’s potential reactions.  Celebrate the hell out of what you have done because you deserve it, and the rest of us need to see it!  Young professional women need to see you shining bright.  Our daughters need to see us stepping forward and owning our success with the same vigour as we own our responsibilities.  Our sons need to learn that this is the appropriate response to success for both men and women.

Let yourself be happy and proud for as long as you can hold that feeling.  It is preparing you to be able to hold that level of joy and excitement the next time.  This is a practice that will serve you on so many levels.  Power, joy, confidence, happiness, success – and all you have to do is celebrate!

A note for the men… this is not an attack on you.  It’s simple social conditioning that you can help change so that your wives, daughters, sisters and friends can own their very well deserved successes too.  If you find yourself not owning your success authentically, please know that I am speaking to you too.

Ever wonder why you can be capable, confident and powerful at work and yet, in your personal growth and development you feel like you are constantly floundering?  Or why you can be open, funny, silly and engaging at home, but that kind of behaviour has no place at work? For me, my “work self” was confident, solid, smart and powerful, and my “home self” was quiet, insecure, emotionally drained and in desperate need of a hug. These were two wildly different personalities that I put on every day. When I got exhausted enough by this pattern, I dug in to figure out why. The answer was pretty simple really – I was faking it at work!

Yep – I had simply learned to put an almost impenetrable mask of confidence on at work.  It let me be what I thought was a strong leader, a compassionate (albeit a little arrogant now that I think about it) listener, a great problem-solver.  It kept the vulnerable parts of me safe.  Genius really.  Or was it?

Here’s the danger if you notice your work life persona is a mask.  It is EXHAUSTING. I mean, on an energetic, authentic level…this kind of fakery is emotionally and energetically exhausting.  It robs from other areas of your life to shore up your professional life.  This might work temporarily to advance your career, but from an “authentic success” perspective, it is a flawed plan. One area will always be giving energy to support another, and eventually that imbalanced neglect will start to show.  You might get sick and need a few days off to recuperate, which allows you to store some much needed energy.  Your home life may get rather dramatic because you are short-tempered, exhausted and running on empty by the time you get home.  Your work may start to suffer because it is the only thing that will make you take notice.

For me, it was a series of dramatic and emotionally draining work events that precipitated my wake-up call.  A tricky thing about that confident mask – it blinds you to what your authentic self would see quite easily.  It keeps you operating in a state of fear that you have to be perfect, have the answer, push harder…all the damn time.  Here is the irony, your authentic, successful, flawed, powerful self, is so much more motivating and inspirational to others than your mask. Taking off that mask will allow you to fail without taking it personally, and achieve incredible success that you own on a very personal level (because let’s face it, you are too busy attacking the next challenge to own the success of the accomplishment you just achieved).  The truth is that there is immense power in shining your true face to the world.

Bottom line…the harder you are holding on to that mask, the deeper is your fear of not being good enough or accepted for your true self.  That fear is a dangerous place to live, because it cuts off your true access to happiness and success.  I can promise that taking off your mask is worth all of the learning, vulnerability and practice that it takes to show, shine and rock your authentic face to the world.  I hope you find that bravery for yourself – it is absolutely worth it.