​Hey Reader!​

This week I want to share with you how I deal with impostor syndrome as a doctor, a Heroic Coach, and even as an entrepreneur.

Why? Because clients often come to me not looking for guidance but almost, looking for permission to do the things they want to do with their life.

And they often haven’t done it because they believe they lack skills, experience or resources. This is what we commonly refer to as impostor syndrome. And ironically enough, it’s the more experienced amongst us who suffer the most from it.

But that won't be you after reading this week's post. Ready?

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But let’s set some ground rules first:

If you’re looking for a post that explains what impostor syndrome is and why it happens, this is not it.

I frankly don’t care about the definition or the psychology behind it. I only care about overcoming it so we (yes, you and I) can live the life we want.

So in this post, I’m going to share with you the exact strategy I use with my clients (and with myself!) to get past any -and every- limiting belief holding us back from reaching our potential.

Ready? Let’s get started!

Here’s how I deal with impostor syndrome

In the introduction I told you we were not going to go into what impostor syndrome is but… I lied. Kinda.

You see, I don’t care what the “official” definition is. But I do care about what goes on in our mind that keeps us from doing the things we want to be doing. And here’s my dirty little secret: the reason I know so well what happens and how to overcome it is because I suffer from it. So, so much…

Ever since I was in high-school. Perhaps even sooner. But for the longest time I believed I was not good enough for X or Y.

And even to this day, I still fall victim to this belief. Specially when (not if) things don’t go my way. Thankfully, now I have the recipe to overcome these limiting beliefs.

And I’m giving it to you today.

Step 1: Look for -and find!- evidence that supports the opposite belief

So, the very first step to break free from impostor syndrome is to identify the belief that’s making you doubt yourself.

Once you identify it, don’t give in. Instead stop. Take a deep breath, and start looking for evidence that supports an opposing belief.

For example, I recently had a tricky situation with a client that made me second-guess my abilities.

But here’s what’s so nasty about suffering from impostor syndrome: it didn’t make me just second-guess my ability to help them, it made me second-guess my skills and expertise in general! Ugh…

Here’s what I did: I began looking for evidence that supported the fact I did know my stuff in regards to marketing and building businesses.

And, believe it or not, it took me a while to really break free from the negative memories my brain had been playing in repeat inside my head. My go-to for these situations is my trusty journal.

I simply write a sentence like the one I wrote that day:

And then underneath, I write down as many bullet points of “evidence” in favor of the belief I want to reinforce. The reason I like doing this in a journal is because my journal is something nobody else ever reads (except for you Reader when I post these little screenshots…😉). And even I rarely revisit past entries.

Which means I don’t feel pressure to write complete -or even coherent- sentences.

Oftentimes there’s only a single word on each bullet. In this particular case, I wrote a bullet point for each client I have helped in the last decade or so.

And right next to their name (if I’m being honest, I just wrote their initials ’cause I’m lazy like that…) I wrote down either how long we’ve worked together, how much money I’ve made them, what kind of growth I’ve delivered, or how much money they’ve paid me.

Now you do the same with whatever belief you’re trying to overcome.

If you’re anything like my clients I’ve walked through this (and I know you are…), you’ll likely end up with a list of bullet points with the name of patients that still send you Christmas cards many years after you last saw them in the office.

Or names of your residents who refer to you as their teacher or mentor. Or maybe you just have a list of times in which you particularly excelled in your craft.

The cool thing is, even when it’s hard to get get going, once you do, you’ll be overflown with evidence. Just write as many of them down.

And by the way, this isn’t the time to get picky about whether one memory qualifies as supportive of the positive belief or not… If it comes to mind, write it down.

The whole point of the exercise is to show your brain there are way more memories supporting the positive belief than the negative one.

Step 2: Given this evidence, how do you explain the negative belief?

Armed with this new evidence, I like to go back to the negative belief and analyze where it came from and why it came up for me.

This step has proven to be the most effective part of the process for me – and for my A-type clients.

Why? Because in this step we’re essentially working together with our brain to understand why it brought this negative belief up, before trying to force it to accept a different belief. And when your brain understands why a specific negative belief came up, it is much more likely to accept the positive belief you’ve just collected evidence in favor of.

I used to not do this step and, frankly, this exercise wasn’t as effective. So make sure to do it!

In my case, I go back to the journal and asked “How come I let myself believe [negative belief], when I have all this evidence to support the contrary”?

And then I just write whatever comes up. I do my best to not censor or edit myself as these thoughts start coming up. Oftentimes the answer is not in what I write, but in the realizations my braing arrives at as I’m writing.

It’s like therapy. But way cheaper 😝

But first… A Shameless Plug Instead of advertising someone else's newsletter or products, here's one of mine: ps. If you're interested in sponsoring a future edition of the newsletter, send me an email.

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Step 3: What action can you take to reinforce the positive belief?

And finally, once you’ve collected all the evidence that supports your positive belief, and you’ve “talked” things out with yourself, it’s time to take action.

So list out 3-5 actions you’re going to start taking to reinforce the positive belief. And this part is important: you’re not writing down actions to avoid the negative belief. Instead you’re intentionally designing a set of actions or behaviors you’ll engage in to reinforce the positive belief.

Little side note:

Anyway, sorry for the detour…

In this case, one of the actions I decided to take was to print out several of my “Hero Bars” and put them on my desk, just off to the side. And the algorithm was simple, every day before starting my work day, I grab my stack of "hero bars" and read one or two. Then again if/when things don’t go my way throughout the day.

This act alone keeps reinforcing the belief I want to reinforce, and prevents me from falling back into the vicious cycle every expert who has suffered from imposter syndrome is all too familiar with…

That’s it!

As always, thanks for reading.

Hit reply and let me know what you found most helpful this week—I’d love to hear from you!