Did I catch your attention? Okay, let’s be honest here, Brené Brown DID NOT personally make me feel like a failure. Impostor Syndrome, or more specifically, my willingness to allow Impostor Syndrome to rule my feelings, made me feel like a failure.
“Authenticity is the daily practice of letting go of who we think we are supposed to be and embracing who we are.”
~ Brené Brown
It was 2013. I was a brand new coach. When a counselor friend of mine, someone whom I both admired and was a little intimidated by, mentioned that she wanted to do a training with Brené Brown. Honestly, I didn’t really know who she was talking about, but I knew that I kept hearing the name in my circle of peers. I decided I should look into who this Brené Brown is.
I did a quick Google search and found out that she is a professor from Texas who researches and talks about shame and vulnerability. My first reaction was, “Awesome! She sounds great! And, if Kelley likes her she must be wonderful!”
But, there was something else there too… There was a little niggling feeling of unfairness. A feeling of my own shame and sorrow. A feeling of personal failure. And yes, a feeling that if I continued to pursue my new career path I would be fooling other people into thinking I know what I am talking about. In other words, I would be a fraudulent Impostor.
FAILURE, PERFECTIONISM AND IMPOSTOR SYNDROME
FAILURE
You see, I was still beating myself up for “failing” as a professor, the career I half left, was half pushed out of three years before. At the same time I was embarking on a new career. I was working in a new career field that I was very excited about. I was going to be able to help other women give themselves permission to feel good about themselves and to learn, grow and get stronger from going through life’s trials and tribulations. But, I still felt like a failure in a deep, dark part of my heart.
In that deep, dark place of shame in my mind this Brené Brown person was not only a successful professor, but somehow she was also succeeding in the field I was hoping to thrive in – helping others. Therefore, there must be something very special about her and there must be something very wrong with me!
To use Dr. Brown’s words, “the story I was telling myself” was that I was a failure and she was succeeding in the field where I failed.
And, as many people do with their shame stories I buried it down deep, ignored that it existed and moved on. But, I certainly was NOT going to move on by learning more about, or heaven forbid, learning from this Brené Brown super star!
I refused to recognize my feelings for what they were: Impostor Syndrome.
The common definition of Impostor Syndrome tends to focus on how high-achieving people do not give themselves credit for their accomplishments and have an internalized belief that they are only successful because of luck, not talent, intelligence or hard work. Further research has expanded this definition to include feelings of failure, most especially fear of failure.
For more on the definition of, and theory behind, Impostor Syndrome see Dr. Valerie Young’s work on high-achieving women. Dr. Young coined the term Impostor Syndrome, created the theory behind it and is the preeminent researcher in the field.
I was misguidedly calling myself a failure for leaving academia and not pursuing another academic position when, in 2010, I was temporarily laid-off from my teaching job at a prestigious university. This then transformed into the Impostor Syndrome symptom of fear that I would fail at my new venture into coaching and what I was hoping would be a career as an author, a speaker and a person who could help many, many people.
In my mind Brené Brown had succeeded at being a professor and now she was succeeding at being an author, speaker and thought leader. That shame-filled little voice inside of me was asking, “how did she do that?” And, “why did I fail at that?” I must be a fraud and I’m going to get caught!
PERFECTIONISM
Fast forward six years to 2019.
At first my coaching business saw early growth and I was feeling good about it and myself. I was still struggling with Impostor Syndrome. Not necessarily because of Brené Brown, but because of my underlying insecurity and struggles with self-worth.
My Impostor Syndrome would tell me that I shouldn’t be coaching women who were struggling with feelings of sadness and anxiety because those feelings should only be handled by a trained therapist.
It would also tell me that other women’s businesses were growing faster than mine because they were smarter, had more knowledge, and had better personalities than me.
Luckily, my coaching skills fought back and reminded me that I have plenty of degrees and training, I was getting great results and rave reviews from my clients and that my personality clicked with enough people that I was gaining a mutually-affectionate community of clients and peers.
But then we moved.
And we did not just move to the next town over. We did not just move to the next state over. We moved all the way across the country!
I found myself living in a place full of Southerners and North Easterners. Where a cultural revival of the Civil War seems to be thriving and no-one, but no-one knows what to do with a yoga teaching, positivity preaching, beach girl from Southern California.
I was, and still am, like a hippie-dippie fish swimmin’ in a swamp full ‘o gators. And yes, we have the animal form of gators here in spades!
The result of this move was that my slowly growing business ground to a halt. My personality was not (and still is not) clicking well with the people in my new home region. And my Impostor Syndrome came back with a vengeance.
Because I was struggling in my business I started “throwing spaghetti at the walls” to see what would stick with marketing. I went into hyper-drive trying to give workshops, collaborate with others, running social media campaigns and I even paid for spots on a local interest television show. I worked and worked. I tried to change my messaging, change who I am and how I interacted with people, and I kept striving for an undefined ideal of perfectionism so that I could grow my business and make friends in my new location.
And then it happened… Brené Brown came back into my world… with a bang! And my Impostor Syndrome went “WTH???”
Because I was struggling emotionally, I took a deep dive into the self-care, self-nurture and self-development practices I espoused in my coaching practice. Part of my “self-practice” is to listen to podcasts while I’m exercising. And don’t you know it, there I am listening to Oprah’s Super Soul Conversations podcast and who should be the interviewee, but Brené Brown!
And then… and then… I see her on Netflix! SHE HAS A FREAKIN’ NETFLIX SPECIAL!!!
“Rrrrggg… why is this woman skyrocketing to success while I am failing???” my Impostor Syndrome screamed at me! “She’s taking up the space I want to be in!” It was saying, “how was she able to do this and I am not??”
This time I decided not to push Dr. Brown and her messaging to the back of my mind. This time, I decided to dive in “wholeheartedly” as she would say. You see, I already knew that I admired her. I already knew that I wanted to learn from her. And I had enough emotional self-awareness to know that my Impostor Syndrome was lying to me and keeping me from delving into learning something brilliant from a brilliant someone.
At the same time I also realized that I was making myself both emotionally and physically exhausted with my striving for perfectionism in order to please people in my new location. I knew something had to change and that while I was in some ways practicing what I preached (“self-practices”) and focusing on what is important to me (my business and family), I was also working too much and putting far too much pressure on myself to be liked, to be sought-after as a coach, to be seen as a great neighbor, and ultimately, to be perfect in the eyes of others who just didn’t get the weird hippie- dippie fish from California.
THE LESSONS I LEARNED FROM BRENÉ ABOUT MYSELF AND MY IMPOSTOR SYNDROME
Brene challenges us humans to rumble with our emotions and to “rise strong” and resilient from that rumble.
When it comes to Impostor Syndrome her writings taught me that I needed to rumble with my shame at having left my academic career. They taught me that I had to rumble with the shame of having never achieved much in that field. She taught me that if I am going to be the amazing and inspirational coach I know I am, I have to acknowledge my strengths and recognize that I have many.
And perhaps most importantly, her teachings reminded me that I have to stand strong in the face of my fears of failure. I must listen to my own knowledge and recognize that my fears of failure are False Evidence Appearing Real.
I now write and speak and coach high-achieving women on how to rumble with their own Impostor Syndrome. (I coach online and all over the country instead of in person, locally). And even my local speaking engagements where I talk about the mindset pitfalls of high-achieving women are well-received by my audience!
I also read not only Brené Brown’s incredibly wise and inspirational books, but many other equally impressive and visionary authors.
I even watched Brene’s Netflix special and laughed my butt off when she lightly made fun of Californians for making “hand hearts” at her from the audience. Yes, I do that – LOL 🙂
Most of all, I learned how one brilliant woman’s success does not in any way, shape or form have anything to do with my success or lack thereof. Of course I never really believed that in the first place. I just allowed my Impostor Syndrome to tell me the lie that if she is successful and I am not there must be something dreadfully wrong with me.
Now, instead of listening to the lie, I just laugh at it and remind myself that as long as I am living with my self-defined integrity, living “wholeheartedly” as Dr. Brown says, I am just fine!
Are you a high-achieving woman who is, or has been, affected by Impostor Syndrome? I would love to rumble with you about your story!
Leave a comment!
Contact me at EmpoweredThroughPeace.com
And remember: YOU ARE THE DESIGNER OF YOUR SUCCESS!
JEN ROBINSON
Jen Robinson is the creative force behind the wellness brand Peaceful Living Wellness which is dedicated to providing a wide-variety of high-quality wellness information. Jen is also the creator of the Peaceful Living Wellness life coaching division, and offers workshops, individual and group coaching as well as retreats where she guides women in using Mindfulness and Mindset to build their inner strength on a foundation of inner peace. Jen also is the co-creator of the business coaching brand CEO Mindset that guides entrepreneurs in building their businesses without burning out.
The latest addition to her repertoire is that she recently signed-on as the Wellness Director for the business development company Wealthy Women Entrepreneurs . She is very excited to be leading this group of dynamic women entrepreneurs into success in their businesses and lives!
The most important part of Jen’s life are her two very active teenagers, AJ & Layna!
Jen’s Mindfulness and Mindset techniques inform her business, her parenting and her life!
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