If Not You, Then Who Conquering Imposter Syndrome in Your
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[00:00:00] Welcome back to another episode of How to Build a Profitable Nutrition Business. So my name is Chris Hugs. I'm a dietician and founder of Meals, and today's episode on Flying Solo. This is just a short, sharp episode, but it's a really important topic and it's about something that holds more people back in our industry than lack of time, lack of money, or even lack of experience.
And today I'm gonna be talking about imposter syndrome.
So imposter syndrome is that inner voice in your head that says, who are you to do this? You are not qualified enough and you're not good enough. People will find out you're a fraud.
And trust me, I've been there. It's an issue that I don't ever really think goes away. I just think people just learn how to deal with it. I've had a business with a team of dieticians. I've written a book and that was probably my biggest example of imposter syndrome.
I didn't wanna write a book, but my wife kind of signed me up to this thing and I did it. But I didn't even put my photo on the book anywhere. Like it was just. Almost a shameful thing as if I didn't, who was I to write a book and I didn't want it to get out there. So is [00:01:00] debilitating and it affects our industry and I know firsthand just how bad it can be.
So what I'm gonna talk about in this episode is what is imposter syndrome?
Why does it affect nutrition professionals so bad? and even some famous examples of some people that suffered from imposter syndrome.
So what is it? Okay. Imposter syndrome is that nagging feeling that you're not good enough despite evidence to the contrary.
It's that inner fear that your success is a result of luck, timing, or someone else's help,
And that if people really knew you, that they would see that you are not as capable as what they think. Does that sound familiar?
It affects high achievers the most, and in the nutrition world, it's rampant. Why? Because we're in a field where we constantly compare ourselves to either influencers or academics.
To keep up with,
and the core reason is that we just genuinely care about what we provide for our clients,
and we want to do the right thing.
So here's the thing, right? Feeling like an imposter is a sign that you actually care
and it means that you're stepping outside your [00:02:00] comfort zone. You're growing. In motion and that's critical.
And if you think you're the only one who suffers from it, you are wrong.
Michelle Obama famously said something along the lines of, it doesn't go away that feeling that you know you're never good enough or that you're a fraud. Even Albert Einstein suffered from imposter syndrome.
And Maya Angel, after having written 11 books, said something to the effect of, I think they're gonna find out I'm a fraud. This is the book where I'm gonna be exposed.
So it affects even though the geniuses, the high achievers, the people who have truly impacted generations.
But the thing to take note from these guys is they still showed up. They still did the work.
So please don't think that you've gotta have it all figured out and everything's gotta be perfect before you put yourself out there.
I think it's really important that nutrition professionals, whether you're a dietician, nutritionist, naturopath, health coach, needs to hear this message.
I mentor a number of dieticians and I hear this quite a lot. There's a lot of self doubt. Why would [00:03:00] someone pick me? There's so many other dieticians out there. What if I post something on social media and someone calls me out on it, or, what if I'm just not ready yet?
Yes, I've graduated from university, but I just don't feel like I'm ready. And the answer to that is you learn mostly on the job. You're never ready when you graduated. The Learn University teaches us how to learn, not exactly the content that we need to know.
But if you are saying these things to yourself, it's really important. This next message.
Someone out there needs to hear your exact voice, your exact tone, and your exact personality. You might have an influencer out there with 50,000 followers and she's got all this engagement, but at the same time, she might be rubbing other people up the wrong way because they don't have your tone, your personality, they don't deliver it in the way that you do it.
And the longer you stay in your head worrying about this, the longer they're gonna go without help.
Let me repeat that. The longer you stay in your head [00:04:00] battling this imposter syndrome that you're not good enough, someone out there is missing out on the services that you offer, that's going to impact their life.
So how do we actually get over this? How can you get out of your own way?
I'm gonna give you a number of strategies that have helped me over the years and so hopefully you can gain some value from what I'm about to talk about.
And the first one is to counsel yourself like you would counsel a client. If you had a client sitting there saying that they're not good enough, they can't do this, whatever it might be, you're not gonna sit there and agree with them.
You would reflect on what they've achieved. You would reflect on their skills, their attributes, their positives that they've got, that's gonna help them get outta that situation. You need to counsel yourself. You need to do the same.
This next one helped me a lot shift from perception to service.
So what do I mean by that? Stop thinking about what everyone else is going to be thinking and think, how can I actually help someone today? That should be the focus. It's what impact are you gonna have with the [00:05:00] services that you are going to put out there.
Also stop waiting for permission. No one's gonna come along, tap you on the shoulder and say, okay, now you're good enough. Now you're ready to put yourself out there. Promote yourself. Promote your services. That's never going to happen.
Start the blog, do the podcast, launch the offer. Whatever it is. The best time to do it was yesterday. The second best time is today.
Now once you put it out there, you need to embrace the cringe.
It is inevitable. And in fact, I almost guarantee you, you are going to look back at your early stuff and cringe at what you put out there. And to be honest, if you are not cringing, you waited too long. You have to cringe. It's evolution. Whatever you put out, you will improve on. And when you look back, it's always gonna be an improvement on what you put out initially.
That's evolution. It's going to happen. Embrace it, move forward.
Now I was at a conference a number of years ago and there was an exercise that significantly helped me in this situation. And apologies to the presenter, I can't remember her [00:06:00] name, but she was phenomenal. The exercise was basically to grab the partner next to you.
So this was a stranger, so immediately awkward. And what you had to do was just stare into their eyes, okay? So you're sitting there staring into their eyes and you're looking at them. And you had to reflect on, what are you thinking? And so basically you are thinking, what's this person think of me?
I'm sitting here staring at their eyes. Are they, picking apart my features or am I, whatever it may be? Are they thinking I'm an idiot? Do I stink today? Or whatever it may have been. And then so the presenter then got us to reflect on what we were thinking. And then the pivotal moment was when she said, now what do you think they were thinking, and everyone was thinking the exact same thing.
They weren't thinking about the person they were staring at. They were thinking about what that person was thinking about them. So people are more worried about themselves than they are about you. So just put yourself out there.
You can't control what other people think. It's [00:07:00] none of your business. Now I've also just recently read an amazing book by Mel Robbins, called Let Them. Some of you may have recently listened to it. I would highly recommend you have a listen. It's really just about letting go. You can't control other people.
Let them think what they want. Don't let that be a stress on your life.
If you haven't read it, I highly recommend you grab that book. It's a great read. And something that I certainly think most nutritionists, dietician, naturopaths, health professionals, would resonate with.
So I'm gonna leave you as one final quote or one final thought for this podcast. Hopefully you've gained something from this, and this is from Theodore Roosevelt
And the quote goes like this, it's not the critic who counts,
the credit belongs to the man or woman who is actually in the arena. Who strives valiantly, who errs, who comes short again and again,
But who does actually strive to do the deeds?
So to summarize that, at the end of the day, what counts is who's actually getting out there trying to make an impact. The [00:08:00] critics will be the critics. Let them do them.
You just get out there, put out the offer, the post, the podcast, the services that can have the impact on people that you know they can.
That's it for today. That's a wrap. Hopefully you enjoyed this podcast. Hopefully you got some real value out of it. If there's anyone that you think would benefit out of this podcast, whether it's a colleague, friend associate, whatever it may be, please feel free to share.
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