How do you deal with Impostor Syndrome?
I'm 4 years into entrepreneurship, and Impostor Syndrome has become a part of daily life.
That's the bad news. The good news is that I've kind of become numb to it.
But the early days of full time entrepreneurship were REALLY hard.
Facing the reality of risk while you have a salary-paying job and while you’re going it alone are two very different things.
I fell into a spiral of self doubt with 2 voices in my head:
Voice #1:
“This is stupid. You are stupid. This is a cute, silly joke. See you at your job in 5 years after making no money.”
Voice #2:
“The only way to get there is to start. It may not work, but the perfect idea will never just appear, you must go to it. It’s part of the process. Just start.”
Voice #2 is a nice thing, and I wish I could say it was louder than Voice #1.
It wasn't.
And so... the spiral of self doubt made me anxious…
…which made me worried about my judgement being clouded…
…which crushed my self-confidence…
…which made me more anxious, and so on.
It got so bad at times that I didn't want to get out of bed.
Nevertheless, through a combination of time and experimenting with different solutions, I've learned to deal with it.
What I've found works:
Setting an attainable goal - Sounds obvious, but starting small increases your chances of getting a win, which gets the motivation fly wheel going.
Getting a paid mentor - Learning from someone who has already done it is criminally underrated. Holding them accountable to you with a paid arrangement makes a HUGE difference. Would you try to get good at tennis without getting a coach?
Getting therapy - The benefits of just talking things out with a neutral party are huge. It doesn’t always work, but having a roughly once per month cadence with my therapist has been good for me.
What works for you guys?
Replies