Your mindset is very powerful.
It influences your thoughts, decisions, and direction in your life.
It affects your emotions, your energy, and perceptions.
Your mindset will either help you or hurt you. And it can be difficult to control at times and can be difficult to change.
Mindset can be defined as the mental attitude that sets the direction for your thoughts, responses, and actions to a situation.
Basically, it’s how your beliefs about your life and world direct how you respond to life events.
You develop your mindset through the collection of your experiences.
Imposter Syndrome and Your Negative Mind
When you experience imposter syndrome, you see yourself in a negative light.
You feel that you will never improve, or be worthy, or achieve what you hope to.
You think of yourself to be in a position that you’ll never get out of, that you’ll be forever trapped.
You will have thoughts such as:
- “I’m not as good as they are”
- “They have more knowledge, better skills, more creative ideas…and do better at writing, and communicate with others better…”
- “I’ll never be as good as them.”
- “I’ll never move on to better opportunities”
- “I’ll be stuck here forever or get kicked out and be at the level I should be and they probably think so too”
- “But I deserve that…I’m not as good as they are”
- “But I can’t tell others…face it, I’m just worthless”
I would go through these days when I was teaching.
It could be “I’m not as good as the other teachers”, or “I’m a terrible teacher as I’m not good enough for my students”, or “My life will never change or ever improve, and it’s all my fault.”
And this wasn’t just in the first few years of teaching, but all through my 12 years of teaching.
I was focused on the negative mindset.
I was focused on how everything was and will forever be.
I could not see possibilities.
I could not even see the positives of who I was and what I had accomplished to that point.
Imposter Effects
Imposter syndrome and your negative mind will be draining and exhausting.
It takes all the good of what you have done and you do, and on who you are in your qualities and character, and squeezes all the life out of it.
It leaves you a shell of who you truly are and keeps you on the run.
Hiding from others, trying to compete with others, and prove to others you should be there.
But at the same time, you are frightened that it’s all a sham anyway because your mindset tells yourself, you don’t belong and aren’t worthy and aren’t good enough.
At the height of my imposter syndrome, I was constantly stressed and mentally exhausted.
I was even depressed due to my negative mindset.
My impostorism twisted my thoughts.
Time for Growth
When you have this negative mindset, you will not see the good that you have accomplished, nor the good that is to come.
You can’t appreciate your own qualities or characteristics that make you truly a wonderful person nor see your future possibilities of the life you desire.
This is where you have to stop your mindset from following this negative path and redirect it.
Redirect it toward a mindset of growth and possibilities.
You move your thoughts and the negative mindset from “I can’t” or “I’m not” to a growth mindset of “I am”, and “I will”, and “I have”.
You need to tell yourself:
- “Okay, stop this way of thinking. I’m working hard here.”
- “I’m getting what I need completed, and I’m doing more to make sure tomorrow is better.”
- “I have skills I worked at and developed”
- “I’m good at what I do”
- “I will create new ideas”
- “My style isn’t the same as theirs, but my style works for me.”
- “I want better for my life and step by step, I can get there.”
To get me through my imposter syndrome experiences, I began to create my new mindset and tell myself, “I have skills that I can use to make a difference.
I had to tell myself, “I will develop my future and not accept what has been”, and “I will continue to learn and add to my knowledge and skills.”
This made a big difference for me in not only how I saw my world, but how I saw my future.
I realized I could create change in my own life and that my thoughts and abilities were not fixed and unchangeable, but I could learn, and develop myself and my life.
Changing Your Mindset
By shifting into my new mindset of seeing my potential and my qualities, eventually, my stressed and exhausted mind eased. My depression dissipated.
I began to know and appreciate that my life had possibilities.
You need to change your mindset so you embrace and appreciate what you have accomplished.
So you can appreciate what you do in your life.
So you appreciate your qualities and character which express who you are and what you are capable of accomplishing.
But to do this, you have to break the Imposter mindset.
You have to actively work to stop the negative thoughts as they start. And redirect them to positive and supportive thoughts.
Your New Mindset
Yes, I know it may seem easy, as I’ve described above.
It takes time to change a lifetime of draining, exhausting, negative, and restrictive thoughts into a fulfilling, empowering, and growth mindset.
It takes repetition, and re-thinking, and support to create and grow this new mindset.
On the days when it just isn’t going right and your negative thoughts are running, you need to pause your thoughts.
Reflect on those negative “I can’t”, “I’m not good enough”, thoughts and redirect them toward your new “I will”, “I can”, positive thoughts.
Change your negative thoughts toward your new positive thoughts
Change your mindset toward your new empowering and growth mindset.
Changing and creating your new mindset is achievable and You can do this!!
It’s time for you to break out of the imposter syndrome and your negative mind, and embrace and appreciate your authentic self.
To achieve the life you truly want to live!
If you’re ready to take those steps and make those changes, message me and we can set up a conversation for you to start creating the life you desire.