You don’t need to feel ready. You just need to stop rehearsing the old role.
I walk into the lobby of the hotel. It’s magnificent. Open space and sunlit welcoming light engulf me. The concierge looks up smiling professionally before greeting me warmly. Almost immediately I feel out of place, ready to start my sentence with an apology. Then I check myself.
Because that’s the old me. The one who thinks she doesn’t deserve nice things. I know my worth now. And it’s got nothing to do with money. I step up to the reception desk and stand tall. ‘Good afternoon’, I say, clearly and confidently. ‘I’d like to check into my room please’.
I’m not pretending to be someone new. I’m no longer performing as someone old.
It’s something I’ve noticed repeatedly since my life began changing for the better. Whenever something wonderful is happening or I find myself in a place which I once would have thought impossible, I baulk. A wave of imposter syndrome washes over me, and I am forced to catch myself before I shy away or retreat, thinking such abundance and beautiful experiences couldn’t possibly be meant for me.
Was it growing up being taught that true wealth only happens to other people? Or was it the beliefs I built up about myself over the years based on too much self-blame and a misguided assumption about what I thought I deserved?
Either way, it’s taken a long time to develop the kind of awareness I have now, to be able to recognise these thoughts as they happen. Rather than simply being steered unwittingly to automatic ways of thinking and behaving, I have learnt to recognise the moment when such thoughts arise, and to choose – based on a more deliberate and conscious value system – to set them aside in favour of something else.
The triggers that bring these thoughts are sometimes surprising: dining in an elegant restaurant while not knowing, without asking, what half the items on the menu are; staying in a nice hotel with the kind of pool people laze around and look beautiful near rather than actually swim in; or wearing stylish clothes that are carefully made and put together rather than being picked up from a bargain bin. Even putting on makeup and wanting to make myself look pretty can be a trigger. An automatic rising up of something inside of me that scoffs: ‘Come on, who do you think you are?’
If I’m not careful, or if I’m not well-rested, or if I am not practising self-compassion, I can get it wrong. I can listen. I can start to believe the insidious little voice that wants me to think I’m not worthy of being happy, of having nice things, or of living a life of creativity and joy. It can make me focus on the negatives, the faults, the times I haven’t got it right or the times I wish I’d done better.
Most of all, it can cause me to compare myself to others – the worst kind of toxin there is. Because this pulls me back from seeing we are all the same and feeling as though I can contribute something, and it pushes me instead into a state of inadequacy and hopelessness at being able to be better, to give more, to grow. It stifles my creativity.
The way I overcome this is to saturate my brain with better thoughts. It might sound strange, but repeatedly telling myself I am worthy of the experiences I am having, that good things are coming my way and that I am intended to express my creativity has become like going to the gym for my brain. Is it always easy? No. Does it sometimes feel ridiculous? Yes. But so too do some new exercises to improve my physical health.
Repetition builds strength, and repeatedly telling myself I am good enough, that I deserve all the good the world has to offer – even when I may not yet fully believe it – is powerful. It is training my mind to focus in ways that help me rather than leaving it to revert to unhelpful defaults in moments of uncertainty.
The thing is, if I am going to become someone new, I first have to believe it’s possible. What do you say to yourself each day that makes stepping into what you want not something so overwhelming that it sets you back, but simply, the next most logical step?
I write from lived experience, not as a clinician or expert. What I share is what I’ve noticed and what has helped me, not advice for everyone. [Why I write this way]
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