Hello my friends, and welcome back to not another Mindset show. I’m your host, Dr. Kasey Jo. My goal with this podcast is to take the science of mindset and behavior change and distill it down into actionable takeaways for you. Together we’re gonna unpack research around motivations, self-sabotage, willpower, and so much more, and we’re going to take all of that and translate it into strategies you can immediately apply.

To your health, fitness, relationships, business, marketing clients, all of the things. But just to be clear, it’s not all serious and sciencey around here. We’re gonna have a ton of fun too, and I’m so excited to share all of this with you. All right, let’s go ahead and get into the episode. Hello friends, and welcome back to not another mindset show.

Today’s episode is sort of a part two to last week’s episode all about. Imposter syndrome and essentially how reframing and rethinking what imposter syndrome means to you, and also with some research that I think you will really find helpful when it comes to reframing imposter syndrome. I. That’s what that episode is all about.

So if you have not listened to that one yet, I would really encourage you to do so. Today we are talking about self-doubt, which obviously imposter syndrome, self-doubt go pretty hand in hand. I will say if you’re just wanting to listen to this episode and get some, I. Real strategy around overcoming self-doubt, and you don’t wanna go back and listen to the imposter syndrome episode, that’s okay.

It’s not a situation where, what I talk about today will make no sense unless you listen to last week’s episode. However, they do really go hand in hand. We talk a little bit more about the mindset side of things, of course, in last week’s episode. So again, talked about imposter syndrome last week, how you might be thinking about it wrong.

How it’s absolutely not just a fully negative thing. In fact, there are some upsides to imposter syndrome, so definitely go check that out if you haven’t yet. Today we’re gonna talk more about the process, a process. I’ll say there are many different ways you could go about this. A process to help you start to overcome self-doubt.

So this process that I’m going to share with you is definitely not my own, and I am taking 0% credit for this process. It’s actually from Lisa and Richard Orbe Austin. They are psychologists. And executive coaches, they wrote a book titled Own Your Greatness, which is all about overcoming imposter syndrome and self-doubt.

So this is pulled from them and again, giving them full credit, but wanted to share it with you ’cause I think it is brilliant. And if you wanna check out their book, I will make sure that that is linked in the show notes for you if you wanted to dive deeper into these specific topics. So. I wanna start with an excerpt from the book where the authors describe some signs that you might be struggling with imposter syndrome.

So this could be helpful if you’re tuning into this episode and you’re like, yeah, I definitely like hold myself back a little bit, but I’m not really sure if this like three step process that I’m going to go into is for you, or if you’re trying to determine if this is something you might wanna use with your clients.

We’re gonna go through that here. So here are some of the signs that you might be struggling with imposter syndrome. You are high achieving. You desire to be special or be the best you deny ability and attribute success to luck, mistake over work or the result of another relationship. You discount praise, feeling fear and guilt about success.

You fear failure and being discovered as a fraud. Ooh, that’s a heavy one. You do not feel intelligent. You have anxiety, self-esteem issues, depression and frustration from your own internal standards. You struggle with perfectionism. You overestimate others, and underestimate yourself. You do not experience an internal feeling of success.

You overwork or self-sabotage to cover the feelings of inadequacy. Ooh, yeah. These are heavy, heavy hitters. So when I read through these the first time, my first thought was how many of them fit so well into what the description of a fixed mindset might be specifically struggling with perfectionism.

Overestimating others and underestimating yourself. Fearing failure, denying ability, and attribute success to luck. All of those things are signs of a fixed mindset because you believe that the abilities, the capabilities, who you are is more of a static thing. It’s not necessarily changeable. So. If you’re denying your abilities in saying that success comes from luck or overworking, or the result of something or someone else, that’s because you’re thinking to yourself that you don’t have the ability to do it yourself.

It has to come from these external factors or fearing failure and being discovered as a fraud. So from a fixed mindset perspective. You fear failure because you think then if I fail, everyone’s gonna figure out that I was never capable in the first place. I can’t fail because what does that say about me?

Fixed mindsets, drama, for sure. Struggling with perfectionism. So fixed mindset would say it has to be perfect. Or it’s not worth it at all, like kind of like an all or nothing way of seeing things or overestimating the success of other people and underestimating what you’re capable of doing. That is such a classic fixed mindset thing to do because we see or believe rather that.

With a fixed mindset. Other people can be successful in a given area and like good for them, maybe because of luck or because of something that was handed to them. Or they have some of this, like these skills or abilities or natural talent that we don’t have. So we overestimate other people being able to be successful because they’re more capable than we could ever be.

So a lot of what we talk about on this podcast about growth versus fixed mindset and how important a growth mindset is to success. All this is really making me think is everything that we talk about could actually be really helpful when it comes to overcoming self-doubt, especially if it’s rooted in a fixed mindset.

So growth mindset kind of ends up being the cure in a lot of ways here. So. Onto the three Cs framework, which is the three step process that I wanted to share with you from these incredible researchers in the area. So the components of the Three Cs framework are clarify, choose. Create. I’m gonna describe the purpose of each of these steps and also give you some actionable takeaways with each one.

So again, this is not my framework. It is coming from some other researchers. Their book will be linked in the show notes if you wanna check them out further. So I will be looking at my notes here because I wanna make sure that I am doing this framework justice since it is not my own. So the first step is to clarify.

The purpose of this clarification phase is to get just a deeper understanding of yourself and trying to figure out and dig up the roots of your imposter syndrome. I say this all of the time, you cannot change what you don’t know needs changing. You cannot improve what you don’t know needs improving. So this clarification, clarification stage, this first step.

Is so necessary because you’re building awareness around what the heck is even going on in the first place. And that is the case for so many behavior change things. If you wanna change anything, you gotta figure out what your baseline looks like. So by recognizing and addressing these underlying causes of your imposter syndrome, you can start to change those negative narratives around it, better understand it, and eventually build a more positive perception around those things.

So some research insight here. Self-awareness is crucial for personal development and overcoming psychological barriers like imposter syndrome. We know from research that understanding your personal history and triggers can lead to more effective coping strategies. So essentially saying based on the research, this clarify step one stage in this framework is really important.

So some actionable step, actionable steps for you. At this first stage, understand your or origin story when reflecting on the imposter syndrome feelings that you have, try to better understand when those feelings first emerged. Was it like family influence, pure influence, friendship influenced? When did you first start feeling like an imposter?

Where did that come from? What made you feel that way? Not really. Not a super comfortable thing to do, but really, really important. Also, understand your triggers. Like what triggers you to feel the self-doubt or the, I’m not good enough type of feelings. Identify the situations that tend to amplify those feelings of being an imposter.

What are they? What are those things I would even maybe consider? From this point on, if this is something you really wanna work on, just pay attention to when those things come up. Maybe have like a note in your phone when you really feel those feelings of imposter syndrome. What happened? What happened right before that?

What was going on? Who said what to you? What causes it in the first place? Alright. Step two is choose. So first we clarified. Now we are moving into the choose phase, and this is all about taking steps to overcome imposter syndrome by embracing your strengths. Speaking your truth and silencing your negative thoughts.

This is important because it’s empowering you to essentially reclaim the narrative and make choices that align with your true self. You know, this sounds just kind of like a lot of like flowery language here, but things like perfectionism and imposter syndrome are often linked, and we can understand how those things are linked together.

So. This is often through fear of making mistakes or concerns of needing approval from other people. This is something that is all very much so identified in the research and overall, if you can address some of these things and take back that narrative and really like reclaim what that looks like for you.

You can really reduce a lot of those feelings of imposter syndrome. So the idea here is to choose the narrative. You get to decide what things mean to you. I say this nonstop on the podcast, but every, every feeling that you’re having based on a situation, something someone said to you, those feelings are developed because of your thoughts and you actually get to choose your thoughts.

You can have certain thoughts that kind of feel like they came out of nowhere, but then you get to stop and you can do this. You can stop and say, huh, that was an interesting thought. Where did it come from? Why did I have that thought? And this is kind of kind of similar to the clarify phase that I was talking about.

And then next step, you get to choose how you actually want to think about that situation. So maybe instead of thinking, I’ll rephrase that. When you have a thought of, I’m not good enough, I’ll never measure up. I don’t know enough. You get to choose what you think next. So those thoughts could still come up, but it matters what you think next, what you do with that thought, the meaning that you assign to that thought.

So maybe instead you have the thought of, I don’t know enough. I’ll never measure up to these other people. You can have that thought and go, huh, yeah, that didn’t feel good. That’s not a feel good thought. That’s my imposter syndrome coming up. Where’s that coming from? Why, et cetera, from the first step and then second step, choose to think differently.

Rewrite that narrative, take back your power, and instead maybe think I. There is so much more for me to learn and there are so many people who do know more than me. That doesn’t mean that I’m not good enough right now. Just means that I can get excited about how much more there is for me to learn how much more opportunity there is for me to become an expert in this field.

I can see the path clearly, that if I learn more, I find the resources I continue to practice, then I will continue to feel better and more comfortable in this. Role in, in this field, in whatever thing you are trying to achieve. So some that was, those were some actionable steps right there that I just kinda like came up with on the fly.

Um, but. Something you can do is speak your truth. I think so often we let these imposter syndromes just like stew inside of us and we don’t share it anywhere. So sharing this with someone that you trust can help relieve any feelings of isolation and that you’re alone having like community groups and other people that you can lean into that might be experiencing it too.

This not necessarily to do like a misery loves company type of situation, but to just feel supported and like you’re not alone. In this, recognize your strengths. Figure out where you’re already doing well, where you’ve already made progress. I talk about this in the health mindset coaching certification with my students, and we talk about it from the perspective of bright spots.

So finding bright spots in your clients and helping them recognize their strengths. ’cause here’s the thing is humans, we’re not very good at doing that. But if you’re able to do that and recognize where your strengths already are and maybe where you can leverage them, even. Further and take it further can really help you in the moment if you feel like I don’t know anything.

I’m just the worst. I’m never gonna be as good as everybody else. But wait, no, I’ve made some progress here and I did learn this stuff and I am way further along than I was two years ago. That can be really helpful. Another part here too is to just think more about those automatic negative thoughts that you’re having.

Sometimes they do just come up, right? And I love a little bit of like a CBT exercise here and identifying that negative thought, evaluating the evidence that you have to support that negative thought of, I’m not good enough. I’ll never measure up. What evidence do you have to support that? And you do have some evidence, otherwise you wouldn’t be thinking it, right?

So we wanna be very. Real with this, but then also what evidence do you have that does not support that thought? So this is where we could say, okay, the evidence I have is, I’ve only been doing this for a short period of time, and the people that I’m comparing myself to have been doing this for a very long time.

So my feelings of being an imposter are valid because I’m not where they are yet. However, the evidence that does not support that is that I have made so much progress already in my own journey and there’s no reason I won’t get there eventually. And then kind of as a third step here, you could take the evidence for the evidence against and now create a the most accurate depiction of this original negative thought.

And with this example, the most accurate depiction would be, I’m not where I want to be yet, especially when I compare myself to people who’ve been doing this a lot longer. But that has nothing to do with my capabilities of getting there eventually. I’m just not there yet. It has nothing to do with how good, like my, my good enoughness in this moment.

Okay. The third and final step of our three Cs, we clarified. We are choosing a different narrative and now we are creating. So the purpose of this third step is to focus on designing conditions for overall optimal performance and personal growth by experimenting with new roles, building a supportive network, and therefore using those things to break free of any limiting beliefs in overall.

Foster some resilience. Again, lots of flowery language here. Lots of words. The the research insight that I have to support this step is that we know from research that building a supportive network and embracing new experiences does enhance personal growth and reduces feelings of isolation, which these are all really key factors in overcoming imposter syndrome.

So. If this is interesting too, I’m like putting these two things together from the last episode, last week’s episode about imposter syndrome that I did the research that I’m not gonna share everything ’cause you’ll have to go back and listen to it. ’cause it, I, I talk about a, a bunch of different aspects of res, how the research plays a role in explaining how imposter syndrome can actually, potentially be a good thing in some ways and.

From that we learned that people who often have imposter syndrome type of thoughts tend to overcompensate for those thoughts by then leaning in and helping other people in their work environment. So they end up being the people who are really great at interpersonal skills and a really great team player.

So you could see how that kind of connects here when we’re talking about building a supportive network, embracing experiences, and learning from other people. So. Actionable steps here would be try to expand your perspective and speak to other people in your field of work or parallel fields of work.

Create a dream team of your own when it comes to mentors and a support network and people who are doing things similar to you. Don’t do this imposter syndrome stuff in isolation, and if you have these other people that you can lean into, it’s going to make you feel better. And get you the support that you need.

So from this create perspective, what we’re doing is we’re trying to create an environment that is supportive to these feelings of imposter syndrome. And the more we can get around to other people and learn from other people and see what they’re doing and expand our process of how to be successful, and all of the different ways and opportunities that are out there are going to make you feel more supported and therefore make you feel like you’re not doing this alone and that you don’t have to be so much of an imposter when you have all of these other.

Opportunities and methods of support in your life. So as a quick recap, the three Cs framework to help you navigate self-doubt and imposter syndrome, this is from two researchers that wrote a book on exactly how to overcome imposter syndrome and self-doubt. Lisa and Richard Orbe Austin again, book is linked in the show notes for you.

We have clarify, get clear on where the imposter syndrome’s coming from. Try to better understand it. Dig out the roots of it. Choose. Choose to go a different route with your thoughts. Choose a different narrative because you can, and remember, you can just because you feel that way. Yes, it’s valid, but doesn’t mean you can’t choose to think a different way and therefore feel differently based on your new choice of thought.

And finally, create, create. The conditions for optimal performance. Get people in your network. Create the environment that will allow you to flourish. Don’t do this in isolation. Okay, my friends, I hope this was helpful. As always, would love to hear your feedback. If you really do love me a lot, I would so appreciate it.

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So I would really appreciate it if you would leave a review. Of course, we give back when you do. Give a review. So if you leave a review, you screenshot that review and toss it into our giveaway form, which is linked in every show note of every episode, you have a chance at winning a free DIY program from me.

So if you love it, if you want me to continue to do this, I would so appreciate that review. But for now, that’s all I have for you, and I’ll see you next week. And that’s a wrap for today’s episode of Not another Mindset show. If you enjoyed today’s episode, don’t forget to hit that subscribe button so you get notified of the next one.

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I’ll see you next time.