Break Free From Self Doubt and Imposter Syndrome

Melanie Mishler: 00:01

Welcome to the Magnetic Creator podcast. I'm your host, Melanie Mishler, and each week we have intimate conversations about the things that matter most in life. My superpower is helping you remember who you truly are. A powerful, magical creator. I give you proven tools to help you get unstuck and manifest a life that sets your heart on fucking fire. Are you ready? Let's go.

Melanie Mishler: 01:50

Hello friend, today we're talking about... overcoming self -doubt and imposter syndrome. And this is such an important topic because literally every person in the world deals with this. And it doesn't matter how successful you become or how many accomplishments you have, it's still there. I don't want you to believe all the bullshit you see online because it's really easy for our brains to trick us into thinking like,

to like looking at someone's perfectly curated Instagram feed and thinking, oh, they have it all together. They must not deal with this or they must be immune from this. I promise that's not the

self -doubt and imposter syndrome, it's a shared human experience. In fact, it's how our old brain is trying to protect us and keep us safe. And until we can learn how to quiet that voice and build new neural pathways, it can be there breathing down our neck when we least expect it.

Melanie Mishler: 02:59

And because of that, it's important for us to like learn how to nip this in the bud and to learn how to move through it instead of allowing it to paralyze us or even worse, allowing it to stop us from going after our dreams and the things that we So today, I'm gonna give you one simple tool to use.

So today I'm gonna give you a simple tool to use that will help stop it dead in its tracks. And you might be saying like, oh, that's not gonna work. That sounds too easy. I don't believe. But I promise it works. And I'm gonna explain the neuroscience behind this. Because as you know, I'm equal parts woo woo strategy and neuroscience. I will explain the brain science behind it. And if you practice this tool over time, it's going to help calm those feelings of self doubt and replace them with feelings of confidence. Okay. So what is this magical tool you ask? Buckle up. So easy. The

The tool is simply this. Grace. It's giving yourself the space to be a beginner, to be a student. to be like someone who is learning and growing. It's simply giving ourselves grace. So let me give you a quick story to explain this and show you how we tend to like use self -doubt and imposter syndrome to cut ourselves down and stop our dreams. And then I'll go into the science behind As I’m going through this example, I want you to know that you can really transpose this onto any issue you might be having in your life. Anytime you have an experience like self -doubt,

or imposter syndrome

Okay, so many of you know that I have been a wedding photographer for over 20 years. My husband and I, we work together and have a really successful business. And part of that is over the years, we've coached and trained many new photographers.

We coach them on like how to build a business, how to learn photography on all aspects of it. And recently, I had a client who hired us because she wanted to learn how to become a photographer and build a business. And she had

Now, and build a business. Now, she had never studied photography. She had never had a business. She was basically just learning from scratch as she went along, which is great. Honestly, this is a great time to do that because we have so many resources at our fingertips to be able to learn like basically anything, right? Anyway, so she gets a new camera, doesn't even know how to use it. And she doesn't know the basics of photography, nothing. She's

brand spanking new. And all she knows is she's excited and it's something that like excited about and she really wants to do. So she was offering some free sessions to her family and friends to go out and And I was super excited for her because and I was super proud of her because even though she was nervous, she was just gonna go out and do it. Great. Okay, so a week later, she comes back to our coaching session.

And I can just see the look on her face. Like she's so discouraged, totally And I can see it in her body language, in her whole being. And she said to me, you know, Melanie, maybe this just isn't for me. Like maybe I'm just not meant to be a photographer. And it broke my heart. Because what she was doing was comparing her photos to mine. Now, I want you to remember, I've been doing this for over 20 years.

I studied film in college. I literally have spent thousands of hours with a camera in my hand. To me, photography is just like second nature, but it wasn't always that way. In fact, when like look back at my photos from my first like five to eight years, they honestly make me cringe a little So I had to remind her, okay, like, wait, wait, wait a second. So I had to remind her. I was like, wait a second here. Like, let's just. Let's just back the fuck up here. You are a You're learning. You're learning how to use your camera. You're learning about light and aperture. You're in the learning process. And quite honestly, you should not be where I'm at right now. Like not even close. And that's okay. like, let's not just throw the whole damn dream out simply because you're a student, So I remind her of

And I also reminded her, this is not because of some philosophical reason that, you know, that quote, photography is just not for her. And I also had to remind her that this is not because of some like philosophical reason that like quote,

photography is not for her. It's not because she's incompetent or can't figure it out or that she's never going to be a success. And it sure as fuck has nothing to do with her childhood, right? It's simply that she was in the process of becoming. So I want you to keep this in

And again, this can be transposed onto anything you're doing. And again, this can be transposed onto anything you're doing or going

And it's important because like this was a very smart, educated, intelligent woman that was successful in many areas of her life. And yet this self doubt was so eager to come in and just like chop down her dream. And I don't want that experience for I want you to experience, I want you to practice embodying the experience of being a student and a beginner. Learning without shame and letting things

this needs to be a straight up like no shame zone, like the Planet Fitness commercial,

Okay, but you might ask, but wait, Melanie, what if I'm not a beginner? And so for those of you who are struggling with imposter syndrome and it just keeps showing and maybe it's keeping you from sharing your dreams, and maybe it's keeping you from sharing a gift or showing up in the world, maybe it just makes you

ask yourself, is there one person who I can serve? Is there one person who needs what I have to offer? We often get caught up in worrying about like what everybody's gonna think. And it keeps us from really focusing on how we can serve someone, on how our gifts can be of service, or even how our presence can help someone, Lots of times, lots of times,

or even how our presence can help someone, right? Lots of times imposter syndrome shows up and just says flat out like, you don't belong here. And it can be at a party, at a networking or any place. or any place where you go that you have the opportunity to serve and connect with And that can be as simple as uplifting someone's day or listening to

Because what I often see happen, like what happened with this client of mine, is women take this struggle and we do this a lot more than men. We take this struggle and

these feelings of self -doubt or the feelings of imposter syndrome and then we turn it into a story and then we weaponize it against ourselves. Like we straight up turn it into a And you might relate to some of this, the things...

And you might relate to some of this. The things I often hear are things like, I'm just not good enough. Or maybe I don't have what it takes. Or I should be further along. I could be doing better. Everyone else is more successful than me. All of this and all of this whole story boils down to a core fear.

And honestly, if we're getting really philosophical here, it could even be like a core belief, but it boils down to this. Maybe I'm just not Like maybe I'm just meant to be on the B team, right? And any of you Gen Xers like me who had the excruciating experience of getting picked for teams in gym class when you were younger, you understand what I'm talking

there was nothing worse than getting picked for the B team. Okay? So there was nothing worse than getting stuck on the B team, right? Anyway, so let me break this down even more for you because sometimes our brains like the most basic examples. So for all you mamas out there,

I want you to think about when your child was a toddler. Some of you have toddlers now, you know what I'm talking about. But when your child was a toddler, you would not stick a Harry Potter book in front of them and expect them to read. And then if they didn't read, be like, oh, well, fuck. Maybe reading's just not for you, right? Maybe they're just never going to get it. Like this is just not for them. No, we don't do that to kids.

We know we don't do that because we have an innate knowing that learning takes time and growing takes

and we have to teach them the alphabet first and the foundations of language before they're off to read Harry Potter. We know this, so that's like the most basic way I can explain it.

And sometimes when I break it down that way, our brain has a little like, oh, oh yeah, okay, I can do

Because I know a lot of you are beginners at something or working towards something. And you think you might have a feeling like you should be, because I know a lot of you are working towards something or you're beginners at something. And you might have that feeling like you should be further along. Like I'm started and bam, why am I not successful? Why isn't this working out for me? And friends, let me tell you, I do this shit.

all the time. Like I just started going back to the gym and after three times I'm looking in the mirror thinking like dang I don't see any results already. So Like why am I even going? Okay so let's just ease up on ourselves a little bit ladies okay. Now on to the brain science of this thing that I've been rambling on about. What happens when we give ourselves a little grace?

is that we stop strengthening those neural pathways that are so ingrained in this story of self Like they're very, very invested in it. And then we start gently building new neural pathways of competency, confidence, encouragement, and pride in ourselves. And friends, this is something that takes time. I want you to remember that chances are you've spent most of your adolescent and adult life

shit talking yourself, I guarantee you that you are more, that you have, like I guarantee that you have more practice and more experience at negative self -talk and questioning your self -worth than those feelings of confidence and encouraging yourself and practicing the idea that if something is in your heart, if you have a desire, then it is for

If you have a dream that you want to accomplish or do something, you can have it. It belongs to you. So with practice, we start to build those new neural pathways. And what happens over time is really interesting. When we practice this enough, the script will flip. And you will hear me talk about this more in upcoming episodes about flipping the It's um...

It's something that I learned from one of my coaches and I really love using it. I love the concept, but basically what it means is like we flip the script from the negative self -talk to the positive, right? We're basically going to transition from predominantly having those feelings of self -doubt and imposter syndrome to having more often the feelings of competency, belonging, confidence, et

I didn't say never having the feelings. And here's the thing, it's okay to have those feelings, but we don't want them to paralyze us. We don't want them to stop us. So again, I wanna remind you, this does not happen overnight. Because for

for most of us, this negative self -talk has been going on for most of our It's almost like as if you had been in an abusive relationship.

It's almost like as if you had been in an abusive relationship for 30 years and then leaving, it's almost like, imagine you had been in an, it's almost like if you had been in an abusive relationship for 30 years and then leaving and learning how to be in a healthy one, right? That's basically what we're doing with

So we don't do it We don't get rid of the feelings overnight, but it's gentle shifts. It's like little stops. It's little experiences. It's little reminders along the way that reassure our nervous system and our brain that we're safe here. This is for me. I can have this. Friends,

This is brain training at its most basic. It's like building that neuroplasticity. It's building those new neuro pathways. And it does take but I promise it is the best work you can do. It's so fun.

but I promise it's the best work you can do. So friend, if any part of this episode resonated with you Then I hope you will press subscribe so that you don't miss a thing. Please rate and share it with a

I'll see you next week