Imposter Syndrome, Self-Talk, and Owning Your Identity

Dr. Elisa Malangone

Welcome to *Ignite Your Insight.* It’s me, Elisa, once again coming back from our reflective Sacred Pause And before we move on from that, I’m genuinely curious—how did pausing work for you Did you notice anything you might have missed if you had kept pushing? Did something become clearer when you gave yourself permission to stop trying to figure everything out for a minute I certainly do hope so. For me it was exactly the fresh re-set that I needed... Because today, we’re diving into **self-identity More specifically, we’re talking about something most of us have experienced in one form or another Imposter Syndrome...Spoiler Alert...The Imposter isn't you... It's what you entertain...That uncomfortable little voice that says Who do you think you are Are you really qualified for this What if they realize you don’t know as much as they think you do Maybe you just got lucky Maybe you’re not as good as everyone thinks you are And I want to approach Imposter Syndrome a little differently today Because we usually talk about it as though it’s something that happens **to us Almost like one day this strange little syndrome sneaks into our brain and starts questioning everything we’ve accomplished But what if it didn’t sneak in at all What if we’ve been feeding it Not intentionally Not consciously But through the conversations we keep having with ourselves Because Imposter Syndrome may not always begin with believing you’re an imposter Sometimes it begins with all the little things you repeatedly tell yourself until eventually…you start believing them I’m not really an expert I still have so much to learn I probably just got lucky Someone else could do this better I’m not ready yet I need another certification I don’t want anyone thinking I’m full of myself I don’t know if I belong in that room And eventually, your subconscious says Okay. I believe you. Think about that for a second We tend to think of self-talk as commentary But repeated self-talk can become instruction And eventually, instruction can start becoming identity Be careful what you repeatedly whisper about yourself Because your subconscious may eventually stop treating it like an opinion…and start treating it like **who you are But What About What Other People Think Now, here’s where this gets interesting Because Imposter Syndrome isn’t always born from something we came up with completely on our own Sometimes someone really did question you Someone underestimated you Someone didn't believe in your idea Someone questioned whether you were qualified Someone didn't invite you into the room Someone looked at what you were doing and made it very clear that they didn’t take you seriously And yes Those experiences can hurt But there’s another conversation that happens afterward The one between **you and you They probably think I don’t know what I’m doing Maybe they’re right What if everyone else thinks that too Maybe I really don't belong here And suddenly, someone else’s opinion has been promoted It went from being **their perception to becoming **your evidence And sometimes—and this is where we humans are particularly talented—they haven’t even said anything We decide what they're thinking for them She probably thinks I'm ridiculous They're probably wondering who I think I am Everyone in that room probably knows more than I do Meanwhile, everybody else is probably wondering what they’re having for dinner And here you are having an entire conversation with people who aren't even participating But whether someone actually questioned you or you simply imagined what they might be thinking, there's still something worth noticing The conversation affecting your identity is ultimately the conversation happening inside of you Someone else can have an opinion of you But when did their opinion become more credible than your own lived evidence of who you are That's the question. If You’re My Friend, You Already Know...Now, if you know me personally, you already know something about me I have very little tolerance for hearing people I love talk badly about themselves If you’re my friend, oh... and this especially applies to clients...and I hear you minimizing yourself, dismissing something you've accomplished, calling yourself stupid, saying you're not good enough, or deciding you can't do something before you've even tried I'm probably going to correct course pretty quickly And lovingly Well usually lovingly Because sometimes I’m thinking, *Excuse me? Do we need to pull out the receipts Look at what you've done Look at what you've survived Look at what you've learned Look at how much you've grown Look at the evidence And yet, here's what makes this conversation so important We have all experienced this Me too We've questioned ourselves We've compared ourselves We've walked into rooms and wondered whether we belonged there We've looked at someone else's accomplishments and temporarily forgotten our own We've worried about what someone thought about us and then allowed the conversation we had with ourselves *about their opinion* to carry far more weight than it deserved That's human But we don't have to keep doing it Because I started thinking Why is it so easy to defend someone we love from a narrative that we quietly allow ourselves to live inside If my friend says I don't think I'm good enough I can immediately see ten reasons she is But if that same sentence appears in my own mind Suddenly I want to schedule a committee meeting. Why is that? When Humility Becomes Self-Erasure There’s another piece of this I think we need to talk about Somewhere along the way, many of us learned that diminishing ourselves was a form of humility Someone says You're really talented And we say Oh, I'm not that good Someone congratulates us Oh, it was nothing Someone recognizes our expertise Oh gosh, I wouldn't call myself an expert Why Why is I'm really not that good considered humble but I've worked incredibly hard to become very good at what I do can feel uncomfortable to say Those aren't the same thing Acknowledging your gifts doesn't automatically make you arrogant Acknowledging your experience doesn't mean you believe you're better than everyone else And acknowledging that you've earned your place in a room doesn't mean you believe you own the room Sometimes it's simply **accurate There is a difference between ego and evidence And perhaps part of overcoming Imposter Syndrome isn't becoming more impressive Maybe it's finally becoming willing to acknowledge what is already true So Who Told You You Were an Imposter Maybe someone did Maybe someone questioned you years ago Maybe a parent made you feel like nothing was ever quite good enough Maybe a teacher underestimated you Maybe a partner diminished you Maybe a colleague challenged you Maybe social media handed you a thousand people to compare yourself to before breakfast But eventually, we have to ask Whose voice is continuing the conversation now Because sometimes the voice that originally questioned you is long gone but you kept the script And now you're reading their lines In your own voice That’s where the insight is Not Who made me feel this way That's certainly worth understanding But eventually Why am I still agreeing with them And what might happen if I stopped Three Subtle Shifts I don't want to give you some giant five-step program for fixing yourself today You don't need fixing Instead, I want to offer you three small shifts to experiment with 1. Catch the sentence That's it Don't argue with it Don't judge yourself for thinking it Just notice it I'm not ready They're probably judging me I'm not as qualified as she is Who am I to do this Catch it And before you continue the story, ask Is that actually true Not: *Does it feel true Is it **true Those are very different questions 2. Stop speaking for other people This one might be my favorite When you hear yourself saying They probably think Stop Unless they actually told you what they think, you don't know And even if they did tell you you still get to decide whether their opinion has merit You don't have to attend every imaginary meeting being held about you And you certainly don't need to chair it 3. Become your own good friend For one week, listen to yourself the way you would listen to someone you deeply love If your best friend said I'm a fraud Would you agree If she said I've accomplished nothing Would you let that stand If she said Everyone else deserves to be there more than I do Wouldn't you remind her who she is Then why are you exempt from receiving that same kindness You don't have to stand in front of a mirror shouting affirmations you don't believe Just start correcting the sentences that aren't true That's not ego That's not pretending That's **course correction Your Insight for This Week So maybe Imposter Syndrome isn't always asking us to become more confident Maybe it's asking us to become more conscious Conscious of the words we use Conscious of the authority we give other people's opinions Conscious of the assumptions we make Conscious of the stories we inherited And especially conscious of the conversations we're continuing long after everybody else has left the room So this week, I want you to listen Listen for the moment you diminish yourself Listen for the moment you decide what somebody else must be thinking Listen for the moment you dismiss something you've earned, learned, accomplished, survived, created or become And then gently correct course Because perhaps the opposite of Imposter Syndrome isn't I'm amazing Perhaps it's something much quieter I know who I am And maybe that's enough Thank you for spending this time with me today on *Ignite Your Insight And remember, the most important conversation you have about who you are isn't happening somewhere out there It's happening right here So make sure the voice telling your story actually knows you Until next time Much Love, Light, and Insight