Ep 149: Why Imposter Syndrome Is Costing You Hours Every Week—And How To Stop It
Episode Summary
Ever catch yourself rattling off reasons you aren’t “ready yet,” even though others tell you to just go for it?
If you have a nagging voice inside that says you’re not good enough or qualified enough yet, this episode shows you how to unwind imposter syndrome and get back to scaling your business faster, better and easier.
In this episode, you will:
Discover how to embody deep confidence without faking a thing—so you can lead, sell, or serve powerfully, even when you’re doing something new.
Learn the daily practice that rewires your brain to own your brilliance and silences impostor syndrome faster than any mindset journal ever could.
Hear the energetic shift one entrepreneur made that transformed her client relationships from “Can I just get the bare minimum?” to “Thank you, I’ll take it all.”
Press play to discover how to transform doubt into confidence and stop wasting your precious time on compensatory behaviors you don’t need.
Resources Mentioned:
Download your Thought Cleanse tool to help shed imposter syndrome and experience a different way of showing up in the world. You’ll be able to feel the results immediately in your business: https://www.theuncommonway.com/thought-cleanse
Episodes mentioned
Ep #47: Safeguarding Against Burnout with Rachel Hale
Ep #80: How to Find Your Secret Sauce: Tactics, Mindset and Beyond
Schedule a call with Jenna about joining the Clarity Accelerator--the same mastermind that we talk about in this episode--to unlock your inner genius, streamline your strategies and offers, and dial in the mindset that lets you work smarter, not harder.
https://www.theuncommonway.com/schedule
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This podcast dives into the challenges of leadership, decision making, and delegation, helping women business owners and mompreneurs overcome overwhelm, decision fatigue, and the guilt of working less. Learn to build powerful habits, embrace smarter working, and master time management by streamlining tasks, implementing business systems, and even prioritising self-care. We explore efficiency, productivity, and automation to create passive income, reduce overworking, and finally take time off—without the fear or shame. Say goodbye to imposter syndrome and people pleasing while running a small business: It's time to shift your mindset, reclaim your work-life balance, and thrive!
Full Episode Transcript:
Jenna Harrison: (0:00 - 0:29) In this episode, you'll discover how to shed imposter syndrome and feel deep confidence without faking a thing, so you can lead, sell, or serve powerfully, even when you're doing something new. Welcome to the three-day workweek, helping women entrepreneurs run profitable, meaningful businesses in just three days a week if they like, without stress, guilt, or sacrificing growth. I'm your host, Jenna Harrison, sharing practical strategies, mindset hacks, and even some woo to help you work smarter, lead boldly, and find true balance.
(0:30 - 5:28) Welcome, welcome back to the three-day workweek. Just this week, I was speaking with a woman who had amazing stories to share about her many very impressive personal and business successes. But if you looked at her website, you would just never guess.
And she admitted that she rarely talked about those things and often kind of forgot about them. And that pattern of thinking was severely limiting her potential because when she thought about launching a new business or even committing to a program that would help her, she felt deep self-doubt that she would be able to do it. And maybe you've been there too in some shape or form.
I mean, I know I have. In fact, a study that I've quoted before, and we'll link to that episode in the show notes, it shows that women not only experience imposter syndrome more frequently than men, but we feel it more profoundly too. And I know that my clients go through this as well.
I remember once I challenged a client of mine to think through the lifetime value that her clients got from working with her, and she found it really challenging. So she decided to plug it into ChatGPT and was blown away by the hundreds of thousands of dollars that it calculated. And really, only then was she really able to let herself start believing it was true.
But isn't it so interesting that it took an outside source, an official seeming source, to grant her validity and permission? Because when we hold ourself in the imposter position, we're telling ourselves that we don't know as well as someone else does, instead of sourcing our own truth from within. So today, I want to help you increase your sense of self-worth and really own your superpowers, and decrease your imposter syndrome. In this episode, you will discover how to embody deep confidence without faking a thing, so you can lead, sell, or serve powerfully, even when you're doing something new.
You'll learn the daily practice that rewires your brain to own your brilliance, and it helps silence the imposter syndrome faster than any mindset journal ever could. And you'll hear the energetic shift one entrepreneur made that transformed her client relationships from, can I just get the bare minimum, to, thank you, I'll take it all. But first, a little PSA.
Imposter syndrome is more than just an uneasy feeling. It is a mindset that infiltrates every decision you make and every action you take, often without you realizing. It undercuts how much you make, how fast you grow, the impact you make, the way others treat you, and even how your children think about themselves.
Often when I first talk to women who've joined the Clarity Accelerator and they want to learn to step back from hustle culture and create powerful businesses that give them more flexibility, we find that so much of the unnecessary work they've been doing and the mental hoops they've been jumping through stem from imposter syndrome. You second guess what you're saying or putting out because there's that voice in the back of your mind going, who are you kidding? You say yes to challenging clients because deep down you don't think you're capable of working with those other people. You're prepping double time for meetings because you've got to make sure you can pass for knowing what you're talking about.
You stuff your offers with more services because deep down you don't think that core thing you do is really worth all of that on its own. And you micromanage team members because deep down you don't think you're capable of attracting top talent. If you suspect that this or something similar is true for you, work with a coach or therapist consistently until you shift things.
And get around other women where you don't need false humility to be liked, and in fact you're celebrated for leading into your gifts. Because imagine if you could just sit down and write out that speech or even speak extemporaneously with a few bullets because you believed your ideas were that valuable. What if you didn't need to prep that much for a meeting because this is your life's work and you know it like the back of your hand? And what if you were supported by top talent and each week they were surprising you with what they were bringing to your business? Don't waste your precious time trying to DIY your way out of such deeply ingrained beliefs and patterns.
Other things maybe, yeah, you hear a new way of thinking on a podcast and you're like, oh, I'll try that on and it's easy, right? But this just is not that. And you will never be able to see your own brain as easily or objectively as someone outside of your brain, right? Even a brain surgeon can't do surgery on herself. So please get support and please encourage your colleagues and sisters to do the same and call it out when you spot their imposter syndrome.
(5:29 - 6:13) Because together we can shift how women are showing up in the world, how they're experiencing the world, and we can get more women a seat at the table, right? Have them show up fully, get more wealth into the hands of women, and help the world benefit from the genius of more women. Okay, rant over. Without further ado, please enjoy the replay of our listener favorite, episode number 81.
Hi there, welcome back. Today we are continuing our mini-series on the secret sauce. In our last episode, episode 80, we talked about finding your secret sauce, but now we're going to go a step further and we're going to talk about owning your secret sauce.
(6:13 - 9:10) And this really goes hand in hand with imposter syndrome, which keeps so many women from playing full out. But also it's important because it can sneak up on you at any time. Maybe you think you're past it and you set your sights on some new goal and boom, there you are all over again, questioning everything.
I was talking to a woman the other day who had founded a software company that was extremely successful, but when she thought about growing it even more, she couldn't help thinking, maybe I've reached my limit. Maybe this is the Peter Principle and I'm just done. Here's where I stop.
And when we talked about potentially selling the company, she was saying, I just don't think I'm the kind of person that could go out there and sell it. So this comes up at all levels, my friends. And whatever is going on for you, wherever you are, I want to help you overcome that like yesterday, because you've got big things to do.
So today, as always, you'll get three super useful and actionable tips. I'll give you one tactical to-do, one mindset related tip, and one about the energetics of the situation. My tactical tip for you today is that you have got to desensitize yourself to talking about it, to owning it.
And you are going to need baby steps here. It's like when my son Dylan decides that all of a sudden he wants to change where his hair is parted. But his hair, of course, is used to parting where he's, well, where I've always parted it.
Now he's doing his own hair. Of course, he wants it to go the other way, because he is, after all, my son and wants to do his own uncommon way. But that's not going to happen overnight.
It's going to take consistent, repeated action to coax the hair in another direction. And whenever you are having thoughts of being an imposter or not being good enough, I guarantee it is not the first time you've ever thought that. That is not part of your higher self and your natural essence saying, you know what, maybe I'm an imposter.
No, that is conditioned thinking, something that's been given to you, and that your brain has thought over and over again, and it's become a pattern. It's become a pattern that jumps up every time you're moving into a new level. So I am going to challenge you to talk about your secret sauce or what you do so well once a day.
And each time you do, I want you to think in your head that you're using a hashtag not sorry. Not sorry. I'm not sorry for just speaking truth about what I do so well.
(9:11 - 15:25) I'm not sorry for owning this. Now I first tried this for myself when I was doing something a bit unrelated. I was taking my son for the first time for a month in Greece.
This is when he was not even two years old. And it was something I dreamed about and saved for. And yet when the time came up, I noticed myself feeling really bad about sharing it on social media.
And when I started investigating that, I just questioned, why exactly am I ashamed about this? And it coincided with a lot of inner work that I'd been doing. And I realized how much resistance I had to being perceived as too braggy and to owning accomplishments and owning an uncommon lifestyle. So I decided to go the other way and to actually start a series of posts about my trip to Greece, where I wouldn't be checking myself.
And I'd kick it off with a post with the hashtag not sorry, just listing 10 things about myself that I no longer wanted to be sorry about. Well, it really struck a nerve and caught on. And so many women started joining with me in this.
And somewhere, for instance, in their post, you would see, and I went to Oxford, hashtag not sorry. And it felt amazing. It was like in the Barbie movie when the Pulitzer Prize winner says, wait a minute, I did write a book.
And through consistent repetition, and especially if you're lucky enough to have others join you in this, so you're not alone, it will start to feel like you're waking up out of a fog. I really recommend that you try this for 30 days to see what a difference it makes. And just to let you know what's on the other side, here I am, years later, I've made these month-long trips part of our yearly routine.
And we are now moving to Spain because I did so. Many women have told me how much that inspires them. Now, when I was talking about the hashtag not sorry, I was using that on social media.
But you do not have to do this 30 day practice on social media. You might choose to do it on social media, in which case, you could just be dropping one line into your post that has to do with you owning your secret sauce just in passing and oh, this is something I do. Or this is something that clients love.
Or this is something that I've just always been good at. Or you could choose to do it as an entire post, maybe resurrecting a moment from the past where this has just been so innate for you, or how you've cultivated it, or how you've used it in service of your clients, or even getting real about how it can be challenging to recognize and own our own gifts. But if you've been with me for any amount of time, you probably know that I am not tied to social media.
I don't even think you need to be on social media. So some of you may prefer to not use social media at all, or to sprinkle in your 30 day practice with other places. Even just mentioning it to your family is a step forward.
Even just saying it and passing to an acquaintance or a stranger. There are so many opportunities and venues for you to just express. And that is all we're talking about here.
It's where you become comfortable with taking something that is inside you and expressing it out into the world to be received. Okay, let's talk mindset, shall we? The mindset that you want to maintain comes through parsing out all of the different things you do that add value. In whatever situation your brain might be telling you that you don't add enough value.
And not only are these things valuable, but specifically your secret sauce is so valuable, that it might be worth paying you, regardless of whether it brings the specific result that the person wanted. Now stay with me here, because some of you might be freaking out, thinking, oh no, that is just bringing up all of my worst fears about being salesy and not having integrity, if I'm not actually going to get these results for people that I promise. What I mean is that those results could just be the cherry on top.
And it's worth you doing the inner work to really think through this, to stretch your mind into how it might be true that just your secret sauce alone is worth an investment with you, or is worth your price tag, is worth your entire price tag. You can think through what you do, you can think through the way you do it, and you can think through how you are. All of those are entry points for you to begin this little exercise.
Maybe your people didn't really know that thing existed, and that alone is going to be so life-changing over the course of their life, or being surrounded by it will be so helpful for them to believe in it, or it will just be so reassuring for them to have it. I'm thinking of two examples here. One is, once I was talking to one of my first coaches about this new client I was bringing on, she had this amazing new concept that had just never been done anywhere before, and I was so lit up and excited.
And my coach looked at me and she said, Jenna, I would never take on that client. The fact that you get so jazzed up about uncommon businesses, and are willing to be a champion for those people, and to do the extra work of having to understand industries that you don't already know, that's going to be life-changing for those people, because up until now, they haven't fully believed that it can work. And now here you are as a business coach saying, I can't wait to work on that with you.
(15:25 - 16:07) So you see how over the course of that person's life, of potentially going off in some other direction rather than that business that they really wanted, but then they meet me and through that interaction, plant their stake in the ground and say, yes, I'm doing this. How that is so worthwhile, that alone. And I'm thinking of a landscape architect I worked with, who was just a genius at making people feel comfortable and really managing all the different personalities and all the different priorities of all the teams that have to come together in order to create the kinds of magnificent backyards that her clients wanted.
(16:08 - 19:17) And her clients could feel that right away. And it was so worthwhile for them to move forward with her, just because it was a load off their plate, a load off their mind. They weren't going to have to be coordinating between different companies or worrying about personality dynamics.
They just knew that it would be done smoothly and handled and felt so reassured. Even if they had to hire a separate landscape architect, that job alone was worth so much over the course of the four months or six months, whatever it was that this project was being completed. In the Clarity Accelerator, we have an exercise where we really pull this apart and give ourselves the opportunity to ground into how this is true for us and our specific people.
And once you've really, really taken this in and accepted it, it makes it so much easier to sell with integrity. Because you know the value you're giving people is so much higher than they're even really recognizing at that moment. If we had time right now, I could go through client by client, every single one of my clients, and tell you exactly why their secret sauce is so fundamentally important for their precise people.
And I know I believe that 100%. And I know they do too, because they've worked on this. This is the perfect time to talk about the energetics.
Now the energetics of really overcoming imposter syndrome and owning your secret sauce is about shifting into your welcome energy. Let me tell you a story about Rachel, who was a client that tended to be really overworking and doing everything for her clients, but even then was plagued with a bit of imposter syndrome that they wouldn't really recognize and appreciate all of it. And as you could imagine, that could lead her to compromise on her price, on what she would and wouldn't do for them.
Sometimes they would say things like, well, could you only do this instead of doing all of the things? Could we just get this one little piece from you? And I told her, Rachel, you have gone through so many things in this journey. You've spent so much time learning the ropes and can keep them away from so many pitfalls. She does luxury brand consulting that every time you are interacting with a new client or a current client, you need to show up like you're welcome.
You are welcome that I've done all of this for you, been through all of this, learned the hard way so that you don't have to. You're welcome that I'm here to help you. Sometimes you can completely change a dynamic just by you remembering who you really are and deciding to shift into that energetic.
(19:17 - 21:13) Now, I don't think that requires too much information. And I know that you love these episodes to be bite-sized and digestible. So I'm going to stop here.
But if you want to hear more, you can go back and listen to my podcast episode with Rachel. It's episode number 47. So there you go.
Let's quickly recap what we talked about here so you can put these tips into practice and show up like you deserve to be here as much or more than anyone else, starting today. Number one, stretch yourself to talk about your superpowers and accomplishments in some way every day in order to desensitize yourself to doing so and release the shame around Remember, owning your secret sauce isn't arrogance. It's integrity.
Because you are literally expressing who you are in the world. You can't be more in integrity than that. So the not sorry isn't just a hashtag.
It's a muscle that you build every time you speak the truth about your gifts. Number two, stretch your mind to think through all of the benefits you bring to the table for your clients. Remember, the value you bring isn't measured only in one specific result.
The more clearly that you see the myriad of ways you create value, the more confidently you'll own your worth, the more conviction you'll have selling your offers, and the more easily you'll call in your clients. And number three, the real transformation happens when you stop asking, am I enough? And start saying, you're welcome. It's not about being full of yourself.
It's about owning the journey you've walked, the way you are, and the fact that your client just got a fast track to something that really matters to them. That energy shifts everything. And at this point, if you're thinking, okay, Jenna, I really see that this is not only an issue for me, but also that I do not have to live with it.
(21:13 - 22:54) But whenever I try to change the way I'm thinking, that same voice, it's just still there telling me, come on, you really think that if you just think happy thoughts, it means you're somehow more qualified or capable. No one else is going to realize that you're not half as great as you're trying to be. And that's when the doubt rushes in, right? That maybe this is just how you are.
And you really need to just keep your nose to the grindstone so you can finally arrive at a place where you feel accomplished enough that these thoughts go away. If so, that's exactly why I created a tool called the Thought Cleanse. It's to help you release persistent nagging thoughts in the same way you do a juice cleanse or a spring cleaning.
It's a short email course. You get one email a day in your inbox, and it helps you step out of the vicious cycle and experience a different way, which is exactly what's needed for so many of us who are gripping so tightly. Am I right? So if you want to grab this tool so you'll be able to feel better about yourself and also feel like you're making actual progress towards a different way of being that you'll actually be able to see reflected in your business throughout the course of this week, then click the link in the show notes so you can download it for free.
All right, get out there and own your gifts and accomplishments, my friend. And let's talk again on Tuesday. Thanks for joining us here at the uncommon way.
If you want more tips and resources for developing clarity in your business and life, including the clarity first strategy for growing and scaling your business, visit the uncommon way.com. See you next time.
