You Have to Be an Impostor to Achieve Success

How to use your impostor syndrome to your benefit

Impostor syndrome is a blessing.

Do we feel insecure? Yes! Do we think we shouldn’t be there? Of course!

Congratulations: You live in your discomfort zone.

Is She Really Writing About This… Again?

I know what you thought when you read the beginning of this post.

You probably rolled your eyes, spat a big *sigh* and thought, Another? You must be kidding me, another how-to-overcome-my-impostor-syndrome? Please, kill me now to avoid my pain.

On the other hand, we love those techniques to build habits and daily defy our comfort zone. Every day feel a little bit of discomfort, use tiny baby steps, and you will get very far.

Can you see the incongruence?

I couldn’t. I hadn’t connected those dots in my head.

I thought impostor syndrome was a bad thing. It has a less than inviting name. The word impostor has lots of negative connotations. And syndrome? Well, none of us want to have one of those.

Our Comfort Zone Is Not Necessarily Comfortable

We are just too used to it. It’s the zone of the known, and we don’t like changes. We can work on auto-pilot. We love the predictable.

Although most of the time, we are not living our life. We are just drifting.

And that is where all the self-help comes to assist us. The steps are simple:

1. We raise awareness of our current situation.
2. we decide where we want to get.
3. Decide the steps and go for it.
4. Habit building and journaling became our best friends.
5. We celebrate our little achievements and continue to grow until we reach that milestone.

Only to drift again into our new reality.

Rich Litvin shared two thoughts that can challenge our comfort zone.

1. What got us to one level of success won’t get us to the next level

We will have to shake our comfort zone every time we want to achieve another milestone.

2. What are you chasing now that you’ll be bored of after 6 months?

Please, take your time to reflect on this question.

We get obsessed with buying this new car, it’s all exciting in the beginning, and then we get bored of it.

Maybe not bored, but we surely don’t appreciate it as much. We got our goal, we celebrated it, and then we move on to chase another thing.

Sometimes we buy things to find happiness or to feel any emotion.

Embrace Your Impostor

Let’s be honest, when do we feel impostors?

It’s when we defy our comfort zone BY interacting with people that already achieved our goals.

And that is precisely what we should do if we want to grow.

I wouldn’t want to belong to a club that would have me as a member — Groucho Marx

We like to surround ourselves with people similar to us. We want to be understood when we complain about the taxes we pay or our struggles.

Even more, if we can choose between feeling impostors and feeling admired, we definitely prefer the second option.

Having people around us wide-opening their eyes when listening to our stories of great success is like a balm for our mistreated ego. It feels sooo comfortable being the most interesting person in the room.

But here’s one thought:

If you are the most interesting person in the room. You are in the wrong room

Yes, we all are. If we want to achieve one specific goal, we have to choose the room of the people that already feels comfortable with that.

Carter Kilmann wrote the other day on Linkedin a post about the mix of feelings he experienced in one discussion on a freelance writers group.

Someone asked if anyone was making more than $5000 a month, and there were many positive answers. Some of them even doubled that income.

Right away, all his insecurities flourished. He wasn’t making that money.

I know exactly how he felt.

I was once in a zoom meeting surrounded by high-performers. When the host asked: How many of you have coached Olympic athletes or super successful people? There were lots of pfff/ you tell me about it/next question, please.

They were taking it for granted. It was a low-level for them.

I started sweating. I felt the same doubts Carter had. What the hell am I doing here? This is not my place. I hope no one asks me any questions.

After finishing that zoom call, I had a brief moment of self-doubt so intense that I questioned my entire career choice. The temptation to go back to my old life was too strong.

But, as Carter did, I decided not to listen to those saboteurs. If I want to grow, that is EXACTLY the room I need to be in. Those are the people I want to have around to emulate their success and learn from their failures.

I took that as an opportunity to self-reflect about what habits successful people have that I don’t. I felt such a boost of energy that I wrote a letter to myself to remind me that if I want, I can.

It inspired my first published article on this platform.

Those Who Took Their Success for Granted Were in the Wrong Room.

Not me. Not Carter. Only them.

In Carter’s example, the writers making $10,000 should push themselves to be in the $50,000 writers’ room. He was in the right room.

I was in the right room, too. I was in the room that challenged my thinking, pushed me further, and made me dream big.

Aim to be the less interesting person in the room

Yes. I know our egos are suffering from this, but this is precisely what we have to do.

Go to the $5,000 writers’ room and feel invisible.

Go to the high-performers’ room and sweat when they ask you how many famous people you coach.

Feel uncomfortable. Be an impostor.

The only difference between you and them is time, patience, persistence, and some tips. Surely they will push your way out of your comfort zone.

And once you achieve their level, go to another room.

Move to the $20,000 writers’ room. Move to the room coaching millionaires.

And repeat.

Defeat your comfort zone, embrace your impostor syndrome, and let yourself shine.

Thank you for reading! I am a new writer in Medium. It means the world to me if you leave a comment 🤗 I would be over the moon and would do a little happy-celebration dance if you also decide to follow me 💃