Have ever heard of impostor syndrome? It’s a complete mindset monster that can hold you back in your business.

Tell me if any of this sounds familiar:

• You’ve felt frustrated and embarrassed that you’re not growing fast enough.
• You feel like a fraud, and everyone is about to find that out whenever you publish a social media post, a blog post, a podcast, or meet people in person.

• You’re not ready to get out there yet.

• You feel stuck and can’t move forward in your business.

• You’re too overwhelmed.

• You feel like so many other people out there already do what you do, and in your down moments, you feel like they do it so much better than you.

• You’re too busy, scattered, and overwhelmed by things you feel like you should be doing.

If any single one of those statements ring true for you, than welcome to the club, my friend. At some point, every single online business owner and leader — or at least everyone that I know — has had those feelings.

You are not alone.

Let’s dive into the things I do personally and that I have my clients do to actively move past this AND why I feel like marketing funnels saved me from getting stuck in the sometimes overwhelming feelings of being not good enough and not ready.

Biggest Show Takeaways:

• #1: Focus on providing value to others
• • Part of the power of the imposter syndrome is getting stuck in navel-gazing. When my focus is mostly on ME, I start to have these imposter feelings creep in.
  • You see someone else in your industry doing well, and suddenly, you’re feeling not good enough which can spiral into deciding you don’t know as much as that person, or you’ve got no right to talk about/teach about this topic, and it can spiral from there.
  • If I don’t stop those thoughts, it will literally paralyze me, and keep me from moving forward. I’m creating this big hate-mob of people who are going to come after me in my mind. I’m using the success of others as evidence that I’m not there yet AND that I should just give it up because they’re better and that hate mob will call me out.
  • When I put my focus on helping even just one person, everything changes. That other person will tell me I delivered exactly what I needed. And boom, I realize I CAN add value!
  • It’s CRITICAL for me to get out of my head and interact with someone else, to help them and prove to my internal hate mob that, yes, I do have value.
  • This trick gets me off the sidelines and back into the game faster than anything else I’ve ever tried.
• #2: Keep an “I’m Awesome!” file
• • More than 10 years ago, I had a coach who had me write down 25 things that I’m awesome at. Just 25. It was HARD.
  • I stared at that blank paper for days on end trying to figure out what was awesome about me. I showed up to our next coaching call crying and saying I couldn’t come up with even one thing that was awesome about me.
  • Perfectionism has been a struggle for me for my entire life, and it was in full force with this exercise.
  • My coach asked me to open up my email and find just ONE email in my inbox from a friend or peer or boss at the time. So I did — and I read her the email. It was a thank you from a peer of mine about how I’d helped her solve a problem.
  • My coach pulled 3 things out of that email for my I’m Awesome list. We did this for about 30 minutes and at the end, I had over 100 things on that list.
  • At this point, I was crying tears of joy because of all these great things people had said about me that I hadn’t let myself truly hear or absorb because I was so hard on myself.
  • From that day on, I started keeping tabs on the I’m Awesome list. Now it includes testimonials, emails, and thank yous I’ve gotten from peers, from clients, from students and even from past bosses when I was in my corporate jobs.
  • Whenever I’m feeling down, I can pull out the list OR read a few of the emails/screenshots and instantly, I feel good again.
• #3: Treat Everything as an EXPERIMENT
• • I used to set crazy, lofty goals and then I’d mentally flog myself for not meeting them. I’d get so frustrated and embarrassed at my “FAILURE” that I’d miss the insights, lessons, and clues which were right in front of my face.
  • I made my goals the ONLY measure of success — and every time I didn’t reach them, I had another proof point that I wasn’t a success. And THAT is crippling in business.
  • I started looking at everything as a test and experiment, a way to see if my idea would work or if I needed to tweak it a bit.
  • If you’re afraid to try new things OR you’re beating yourself up for not meeting past goals, I invite you to take a look at that goal or that failure from a new perspective. Look at the new skills you gained. Look at the new contacts you made. Look at the new insights you have into what works and what doesn’t work.
  • My mantra now is to always be testing and to always be learning because that’s what leads to success.

• Now, you’re probably wondering how this all relates to marketing funnels. Almost every single person I’ve ever worked with — as a client or student — at some point runs up against the imposter syndrome. They all share the same worries –  
  • That a marketing funnel won’t work.
  • That a marketing funnel won’t work for them.
  • That someone else already has a fantastic marketing funnel and who are they to compete.

• If you’re not careful, that kind of thinking will block your business success. You need to get out of your head and get into action! Then you learn, grow, and tweak from there.

• Want to know which marketing funnel is right for you and your business? Take this free and easy quiz and in less than 5 minutes, you’ll know EXACTLY which funnel is right for you.

Links mentioned in this episode:

• Marketing Funnel Quiz: https://www.michellelevans.com/marketing-funnel-quiz/
• Make YOUR voice heard in the Marketing funnel Community Survey — just a few quick questions, and you may inspire a future episode: www.michellelevans.com/survey
• Annette Bond’s website: www.annettebond.com