# 13: Beating Imposter Syndrome: The Lie That Follows Successful Women Everywhere

Intro & Music: 0:06

Welcome and get ready to embark on the journey of a lifetime with your host, Kamara, motivational speaker and certified professional life coach for women. With over 20 years of experience as a life coach, healthcare executive, and mother of two, Kamara shares her own story while providing expert insights and building self-confidence and resilience, while overcoming fears and breaking down self-defeating mindsets. Subscribe now to Kamara Speaks and begin your journey of transformation to becoming the woman you want to be and living the life you want and deserve.

Kamara: 0:52

Hello ladies and welcome back to Kamara Speaks. I am your host Kamara and I am so glad that you are here with me. Today's episode is one that I've been wanting to do for a long time because it's something I know that we've all struggled with, and it's something I've struggled with for a long time. I want to talk about the lie. Yes, the lie, you know the one, or rather the many lies. The lies that we tell ourselves just about every day. And often they are the ones that show up right after you accomplish or succeed in something. And how do these lies show up? Oh, there are many different variations, ladies, different variations of the same lie. There's the one that whispers in the meeting that you should stay quiet because you're not qualified, or the one that follows you into the promotion or the new title, or onto the stage, or in the corner office, or in that parenting milestone. And sometimes the lie comes in the moment that everyone else is celebrating you, and you are standing there thinking if only they knew, if they knew the real me, they would know I do not actually belong here. Or you're thinking I don't really deserve this. They are all absolute lies, ladies, and they fall under the umbrella of one name, and it is called imposter syndrome. And it lurks in the dark corners of your mind every day. But today we are going to drag it out into the light, because something that lives in the dark only grows. So let's expose it and let's talk about it. So what exactly is imposter syndrome? Imposter syndrome is the persistent belief that your success isn't truly earned. Even when there's a clear evidence of your skills, hard work, and accomplishments, you feel like a fraud who's only one mistake away from being quote unquote found out. However, the truth is it's not a lack of ability, it's a lack of believing in your own ability. Many accomplished women experience imposter syndrome because we've been taught to minimize our strengths, compare ourselves to others, or believe we need to be perfect before we're qualified. We wait until we feel quote unquote ready, not realizing that confidence is often built after we take the first step, not before. Now imposter syndrome was first identified back in the 1970s by two psychologists, uh doctor Pauline Clantz and Dr. Suzanne Imes. And here is the fascinating piece. They discovered it specifically while studying high achieving women, women who were objectively successful, with degrees, accolades, licenses, accomplishments, and awards. And their studies proved that almost all of these women shared a secret belief that they had somehow fooled everyone, and that one day they would be exposed as frauds or impostors. And this same phenomenon was not found in people who were underqualified. It was found in the women who had every reason to feel confident and somehow felt like impostors anyway. Those studies since then, those studies and since then, estimate that up to 70% of people experience imposter syndrome at some point. Seventy percent, ladies. But here is what I have seen in twenty plus years of coaching and leading women. It hits us very differently. It hits midlife women and working moms and professional women in a very specific and very exhausting way. Because here is the thing that nobody tells you. The more competent you are, the louder the lie gets. So why does imposter syndrome target the best of women? Because it does not target the unqualified. It targets the most capable and the most competent. And I know you're probably thinking that doesn't make sense, but here, I'm going to explain why. Because to feel like an imposter, you first have to be in the rooms you had to fight hard to get into. You have to be achieving things. You have to be in charge. You have to be holding some large responsibility. A woman who is coasting by and who is not growing, who is not stretching herself, and who is not achieving, she does not lie awake at night second guessing herself, or feeling nervous or anxious, or feeling like a fraud. It is the woman who keeps rising, the woman who keeps achieving, the woman who moves up to the next level. That's the one who keeps hearing the voice, the voice that tells her those lies. So if you are feeling it right now, I need you to reframe something. That feeling is not evidence that you do not belong. It is evidence that you are growing into something bigger than you have ever been before. The discomfort is not a sign you are failing, but rather a sign you are expanding. But and this is so important, knowing this fact intellectually does not make the feeling go away. And that is where so many women get stuck. They read an article or listen to a podcast like this one, they learn the term, they understand the psychology, they even understand the why. And then they go right back into the same meeting or whatever situation and feel exactly as fraudulent as they did before. And that is because the imposter syndrome, it itself is not a thinking problem. It is a belief problem. And beliefs do not change through information, they change through experience, through practice, through community, and through being witnessed by people who reflect the truth back to you. But I'll come back to that again a little later. Now, how does imposter syndrome show up in our lives? Now that we know the lies, let's talk about how those lives affect behaviors. Like women, imposter syndrome wears many hats, or should I say costumes. It is very clever at disguising itself, and you probably don't even recognize it in yourself. So here I'm going to give you some examples of those disguises. It is the over preparing. You spend three times as long as anyone else getting ready for the presentation because deep down you're terrified of being caught not knowing something. It is the overworking. You cannot rest because if you stop performing for even a moment, surely they will see you are not as capable as they think. Or perhaps, maybe they'll even see you as lazy. It is the deflecting. Someone compliments you and you immediately say, Oh, it was nothing, or I got lucky. Or anyone could have done it. You physically cannot praise, let praise land on you as it should. Oh, this one I've been guilty of myself. It is the perfectionism. For you, if it is not flawless, it is failure. There's no in between. And lastly, the last costume, it is the silence. You have the answer in that meeting. You have the idea, you have the insight, and you do not say it. Because what if you're wrong? What if they look at you? Or what if it sounds stupid? This is the moment they'll finally figure you out. Those are the costumes, ladies. And for my working moms, it's guilt. It's guilt that you're not enough at work and not enough at home. That you are faking it in every single role, in both hats that you wear, that everyone else got the manual and you are just improvising and hoping no one notices. Do any of these costumes and lies sound familiar? Because if you're nodding or perhaps even feeling emotional at this point, I want you to take a deep breath. Because here is the truth. The truth, ladies. You are not a fraud. You are not an imposter. You are a high achieving, powerful, resourceful woman who has been carrying a lie for so long that it has started to sound like your own voice. But it's not, ladies. It's not. Okay, ladies, now here comes the coaching. So listen up. This is the part where we connect everything together, and I tell you about all the stuff that I teach. At the heart of imposter syndrome is a worthiness wound. A worthiness wound. It is the belief that your value is conditional, that you're only as good as your last performance, and that you have to earn your place over and over again, and that the moment you stop proving yourself, you'll lose everything. And that belief did not come from nowhere, because for most of us it was instilled in us at an early age. Like I've talked about in some of the other podcasts when you were a little girl. Maybe when you were that little girl, you got love for overachieving. Or maybe you were strong, you were the strong one who never allowed yourself to struggle or never looked like you needed to struggle. Maybe you learned somewhere along the way that being impressive was safer than being human. So you built a whole life on performance, and now you are the successful person that you are, successful and exhausted, and secretly terrified because the performance can never stop. I'm gonna go off on a sidebar here. Let's pause in that coaching moment. I don't know if you guys are a fan of Disney, but I am. And there is a cartoon movie that I love called Encanto. Encanto. Encanto? I think that's how you say it. And in this Disney movie movie, there's an older sister who sings to her little sister, who's the main character, about the pressure she feels of always having to be the stronger one, the older one who's always strong and protecting the family. And those of you who know the movie, you know the song that I'm probably talking about, and even some of the lyrics, because I love singing all the Disney songs. But anyway, the song is called Surface Pressure, and she sings about the pressure. Pressure like a drip, drip, drip that'll never stop. Pressure that'll tip tip tip till you just go pop. She's saying and she's talking about herself. She's like, you know, they say, give it to your sister, your sister's older. Give her all the heavy things that we can't shoulder. Who am I if I can't run with the ball? Who am I if I can't carry it all? What if I falter? And then she goes into sing about under the surface, almost like under her skin, like on the inside. Under the surface I hide my nerves and it worsens. I worry something is gonna hurt us. Under the surface the ship doesn't swerve as it heard how big the iceberg is. Under the surface I think about my purpose. Can I somehow preserve this? And then she goes, But wait, if I could shake the crushing weight of the expectations, would that free some room up for joy or relaxation or simple pleasure? But instead, we measure this growing pressure. I know. I had to talk about that. I'm actually gonna play the song at the end of this podcast, so stay tuned. So here is what I know, ladies, after twenty years of walking and working and coaching and just being around women my most of my life, right? My entire life. And I know and I can recognize some of those lies and some of the pressure that we put on ourselves. And in my experience with women, I found out this you cannot heal a worthiness wound by achieving more. We've all tried that. It doesn't work. The next accomplishment does not silence the voice, it just raises the stakes. So the only thing that heals is learning deep in the body that you are worthy before you perform, that you belong in the room because you're in it. And not because you earned your way to a temporary seat that could be revoked at any moment, because you belong to be there. And that, ladies, is why I do what I do. It's why I have this podcast, it's why I coach, it's why I believe in helping others, because I have learned that the healing, the learning, the feeling of worthiness is not work you can do alone in your own head. Because trust me, you would have done it already. The imposter syndrome wouldn't exist. And all of this is true because the same mind that created the lie in the first place cannot be the one trusted to talk you out of it. You need a mirror outside of yourself, and you need people who see the truth of you and reflect it back until you start to believe it. Okay. So now let's talk about what to do about it. Because I'm not going to just name the problem and talk about the issues and leave you sitting in it. That's not how I operate. So here's part two of the coaching. Here are a few real things you can do starting today. Tactic number one, name the lie out loud. The first thing I want you to do is start catching imposter syndrome in real time and calling it what it is, out loud, not in your head, out loud. The next time you hear the voice that says you don't belong here, I want you to literally whisper to yourself out loud, that's imposter syndrome, that's not the truth. The next time you get a compliment, that promotion, that extra project, the accolades, the award, the achievement, the opportunity, whatever it is, and your first thought is, Oh, they're gonna find out I'm not really that good. I want you to say that's a lie. That's not my voice. That's the lie. And why do this, ladies? Because imposter syndrome survives in the dark. It survives when you let the thought run unchallenged. Because the moment you name it, the moment you separate it from your identity and call it what it is, it loses its power. Now this doesn't happen overnight and it doesn't disappear overnight, but it stops running the show. So you go from being controlled by that thought, that lie, to observing the thought. And that's a completely different position to operate from. So give it a shot. Tactic number two is to keep a proof folder. This second tactic is one of my favorites, and I want you to start doing this today. And I call it the proof folder because it's proof that you are not an imposter. So open a folder on your phone. I mean you can get one physically, but sometimes that's a little difficult to carry around. So your phone or a tablet is probably best, and in your notes app or somewhere, in your photos, wherever you'll actually see it, start collecting proof that you belong. Screenshots of positive emails, thank you texts, accolades, compliments, photos or events that you've organized, things you're proud of, milestones that you've hit, that certification that you earned, uh, that moment a stranger even told you something positive or gave you a compliment about your smile. Every time imposter syndrome says you're not qualified, you open that folder and look at all of the proof that you are. Because imposter syndrome, it never argues with the facts. It can't. But it'll tell you the lie because it doesn't want you to think about the facts or the proof. It argues with your feelings, and those feelings creep up, and then that voice pops in your head and it tells you you're a fraud. It tells you that you should feel like a fraud. And we all know, ladies, that feelings are powerful, and that's why you start to believe it. Tactic number f three is flip the script. Ask, what if I actually do deserve this? Here's the tactic that probably feels uncomfortable, but it will work, ladies. Every time imposter syndrome asks you, what if they find out you don't belong? Or if the lie is telling you that you're no good, you're a fraud, I want you to ask yourself a different question. What if I'm actually really good? What if I actually deserve this? What if that achievement wasn't a fluke? What if the opportunity came to you because you're genuinely that good? What if the reason people keep asking you for input or why you're in the room is because your presence brings something to the table that nobody else brings? Because we're each individually unique. What if the lie isn't that you're a fraud? What if the lie is that what if the lie that you're not good enough is the fraud? No no woman really asks that question about herself, what if I'm actually fantastic? Because we feel like that's bragging or possibly arrogant, but it's not. You need to start thinking that way. We've been so conditioned to question our worth that we never stop to question the questioning. We just accept the doubt and the fraud as truth. And we treat the evidence of our greatness like it's an exception. But flip it. What if it's not, ladies? Tactic number four is to stop comparing your behind the scenes to someone else's highlight reel. What goes on behind your closed doors, ladies, is going on behind other people's closed doors as well. And I know you've heard this one before, but I don't think that we actually apply it, and I'm pretty sure that you're not. Because if you did, you probably wouldn't be listening to this or have imposter syndrome going on in your head. So stop scrolling. Yes, just stop. I know it's fun. Maybe do it on rare occasion. Because imposter syndrome lives in those reels. Imposter syndrome feeds, feeds, let me stress this, feeds on comparison. It watches you look at another woman's LinkedIn post or Instagram reel, and you look at her business launch, her confidence on camera, her seemingly effortless life, that's picture perfect, and it whispers, see, she figured it out. She looks great. You don't have what it takes. That's not you. You can't do that. But what you're seeing is her result, not what goes on behind closed doors. The result, not the work and the effort that it took to get her there. You're not seeing the years of sweat and tears, the failures that she doesn't post about, the doubt. That she felt that morning probably before she hit publish. The coaching that she invested in, the therapy, the tears, the seasons of change, the seasons that she felt like a fraud. You're comparing your chapter three to someone else's chapter twenty-five and wondering why you feel behind. So just stop. Stay in your lane, run your own race. Your timeline is your timeline. And it's God's timing too. And he is never late. So the woman you're comparing yourself to, she probably felt like an imposter too. The only difference is she kept going anyway. Tactic number five is speak about yourself the way you speak about your best friend. It's this last tactic that I like. It's almost biblical for those of my faithful women like myself. You know, treat others like you want to be treated. Love others like you love yourself. Think about your best friend for a second. Think about the woman in your life that you love the most. And now imagine that she came to you and said, I got a promotion. But I don't think I really deserve it. I think they just picked me because there was no one else. What would you say to her? You would lose your mind. You would look her in the face and say, Girl, are you serious? You worked your behind off for that. You've sweat, blood, and tears for years. You've earned it. Don't you dare shrink away your uh now, don't shrink yourself. You'd never let her talk about herself like that, never. So why do you let yourself talk to yourself that way? The standard of kindness that you hold for people that you love, start applying it to yourself, ladies. When the imposter voice speaks, respond the way you would if it was your best friend. With fierce, protective, no nonsense love. You deserve the same energy that you give everyone else. Just please start giving it to yourself. You're worth it. Okay. Now I just gave you five real tactics that you can apply starting today. And every single one of them work. But to be honest, ladies, tactics help, but tactics alone don't heal. Imposter syndrome isn't just a bad habit that you can break with these tactics, because it's not just the mindset, it's a deeply rooted belief system. It's the worthiness wound that I talked about earlier. It was built over years, sometimes decades, of messages that told you that you weren't enough, that your success was luck, that you had to work as twice as hard as everyone else, that your voice didn't matter, and that you needed to earn your place in every room room that you walked into. Identity level work requires more than a podcast episode. And it requires more than five tactics. It requires someone who can get underneath the lie with you, someone who can help you see the pattern you can't see on your own. And someone who asks you the hard questions and then sits with you while you figure out the answers, while you realize the worthiness of yourself. And not the polished answers, the real ones. And that's what coaching does, ladies. That's why I do this work, that's why I'm on this podcast, and hopefully that's why you're listening. Because a coach doesn't just give you the tools, a coach helps you understand why you haven't been able to use the tools that you already have. And that distinction is the difference between knowing you're enough and actually living like it. So I encourage you today to find that coach. Find that mentor. Find that person that you can look at and that can reflect an image back to you and walk with you so that you can start to heal that wound over time. Someone that you trust. Because it's gonna take time. Those tactics you put into place and you start to experience things differently and question things that pop into your head and your mind. But you need someone else too to help you gain those thoughts and realize your worth as well. And that's also why I'm building something special. The Tiara's and Lipstick Collective. Because I know that not every woman is ready for private one-on-one coaching, and not every woman has that resource or mentor in her life. But she shouldn't have to wait until she is starting to get support or to wait until she can find someone if she's searching for it. That woman needs a place to go now. A place where the work is happening in real time, surrounded by other women who are fighting the same lies. The women who want to break the same patterns and get rid of that imposter syndrome, and the women that are choosing themselves in the same scary, beautiful, and imperfect way. So the collective, that membership that I'm talking about is a coaching membership and a community for women that I am launching this fall, where you get ongoing ongoing coaching from me, and you get a real community with women who are on the same who are on the same journey. And the kind of accountability that actually helps you follow through on everything I talked about today. The wait list is open right now, and if you go to Tiarasandlipstick.com slash event, you can get on it. Wait list members get early bird pricing and exclusive bonuses that won't be available to anyone else later on. And when those doors open and I launch in the fall, I want you to be in the room. Because if imposter syndrome doesn't go away after one aha moment, it's not gonna go away easily. It goes away when you have a community of women reflecting the truth back to you so many times that the lie can't compete anymore. If this episode found you today and you're listening, it found you for a reason. So if you're one of those women who has been over-preparing, overworking, deflecting praise, and secretly waiting to be found out, this is your sign. That voice that says you do not belong, that voice that has been lying to you, let me help you replace it with the truth. Just remember you belong in the room, you belong in the role, you belong in your own life. And not because you earned it, ladies, not because you earned it through perfect performance, but because you are you and that has always been enough. So stop waiting to feel ready. Stop waiting to feel worthy. Stop comparing to other people. Walk through the door and step into the room anyway. Try to fight however you feel. Just go in. And if you need a room, a room full of women to walk in with you, then you know where to find us. The Tiara's and Lipstick Collective. And that's where we'll be. And that's it, ladies. That's a wrap for me today. I love you all. I love you, I believe in you. So go out there and do what you're meant to do. Keep going, keep pushing, keep moving in that direction. And I'll be here to walk with you next week. And that's it. This is Kamara Speaks. If this episode spoke to you, share it with a woman who needs to hear it. You know exactly who she is. And subscribe here, leave a review, or send me an email if you're on my email list, or rather, join my email list at Tiara'sandlipstick.com and drop me a note and let me know what you want to hear about on this podcast. It's all about us working to help each other. It's working to build up a community of women who are stronger, feel better about themselves and their lives, that we can help build a better place on this earth. Make our world a better place to live in. We can do it. And hopefully you all will join me in the TRS Lipstick Collective, and we'll do it together. And I'll see you on the inside. So until next time, have a fabulous week, ladies.