Imposter syndrome and changing your thoughts

Imposter syndrome means you are smart, capable,  have all the mental tools and abilities but you choose to ignore that and believe your own negative thoughts.

This is not a blog to define imposter syndrome but rather discuss ways to overcome/cope and move on.

My ideas to overcome since I been through this before at different points in my life.  #5 is the best.

1. Write out all your past negative experiences.  Acknowledge it sucks but it doesn't define you. Shred the list and say goodbye ugly past, you did not kill me and I'm Moving on. We all have bad experiences when we may not have acted our best. We all have normal struggles. Nobody is perfect.

2. Write out all your skills and abilities or write out your accomplishments and successes and then link them to your own personal skills or abilities.  People with imposter syndrome will have a very hard time doing this, so you may want to hire a life coach or talk to a trusted person to complete this exercise.

3. If you ever start to hear the negative self talk, take out this list and recognize that you and only you lead to your personal success.  If you believe in luck or God, you can surely still attribute some success to that help but you and only you took the action to make it happen.

4. Accept criticism but remember to think it through and do not allow one or even 500,000 opinions to change you. Be confident in who you are and think about where the criticism is coming from 1st before you internalize it and use it.

5. The word syndrome sucks- syndrome means a set of medical signs and symptoms correlated with each other and often with a specific disease.  So, are we saying if you doubt yourself and are human that you have a disease?  Or disorder?  F- this.  While it's great to define our problems in a succinct term such as "imposter syndrome", classifications often impose limitations. 

You only limit yourself if you accept negative and reject positive. 

Define yourself,  love your life and know you can overcome anything. 

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