IMPOSTER

I can't think of a single time in my life where I met someone that said, "I'm the biggest fan of ME... I give myself a lot of credit..." Not in a serious, they believed it whole-heartedly kind of way.

Not one time.

When you think about how we speak on ourselves, MOST people are afraid to say anything positive. They're timid to dare look at the qualities within them that make them strong, passionate, loyal, dependable, confident, conquering, etc. In fact, MOST of the people we speak to would say they have a hard time wanting to and/or writing an "about me" for a new position or profile.

Why is this?

The opposite speak is what typically will FLOW out of a humans mouth in regard to themselves. Ask, "what are things you would change...?" The answer will come abundantly, usually, and freely without much hesitation. This means the thought has been there time and time again about those pickadillows, those odds and ends they have a strong dislike and even disdain for within themselves. "Negative" speak is a second language for most of us and comes as naturally as breathing.

Negative speak is dangerous. There is a large difference between the inner monologue being destructive of one's self worth and being accountable of ones weak areas. "I'm not good enough" is far different a statement than, "Here's how I could do this with more consistency or accuracy." But how those statements will be constructed depends on the persons history, it depends on what they've experienced and, yes, it depends on what that humans trauma was as a wee lad.

How our parents spoke to us or those guardians around us can have a deeply rooted impact in how we speak to ourselves as adults. If we grow up feeling that no matter how hard we try, no matter the lengths we've gone to that accomplishes a set milestone or completes a project is good enough or seen as adequate; that will be the foundation to how we perceive our actions and energies as an adult. When you think back about your upbringing, it's important to be honest. It's easy, even as an adult, for us to want to defend those that raised us. Admitting that at times your parents way of speaking to you was damaging is not taking away from the work they did as parents or lessen how much you love them or that they even loved you. I've spoke about intent versus impact in previous podcasts and on this blog. Your parents could have been demonstrating what they thought was "tough love", hoping that what you were learning was to be strong, tough and independent. If that was the intent but their impact was that you felt nothing you did was good enough, does this make them bad parents? Conversely, if those responsible for you as a child degraded you at every turn, unjustly undermined your efforts and/or had little involvement in what you did as a child - well, their intent was to harm and their impact WAS/IS harmful. More than likely, that individual experienced the same and are continuing a "generational curse"; I do not say this as an excuse for them - sharing that curse with ones child makes that individual weak and there is no excuse for their poor treatment. But the reality is, they're projecting their experiences and upbringing on to their child or children.

It is highly important, at this juncture in the post, that if YOU are reading this and know there are elements of how you're parenting that is produced from the generational curse of your parents, that YOU work to end this IMMEDIATELY. If you do not know where to begin, please reach out and I would be happy to point you in the right direction.

Negative self-speak is one of the greater detractors in most of anyones lives. Many of the individuals I've had the opportunity to work with directly or have been able to learn from speak about "Imposter Syndrome".

"The persistent inability to believe that one's success is deserved or has been legitimately achieved as a result of one's own efforts or skills."

Most fall in to the first half of that definition. What do I mean? For one to doubt the legitimacy of their achievement, one first has to ACHIEVE. How many times have you wanted to start something but found a "practical reason" to never begin? I'm sure all of the reasons seemed very sincere and logical at the time, but the reality is this; at the core, you didn't start because you didn't believe that you had what it takes to complete the challenge in front of you. All of those reasons were hardwired fears. Fears learned over time that deny you the self belief to even begin and to WIN.

Your own wiring is cutting off your self worth and overall contentment at the knees. That imposter syndrome is that gulf between really moving forward in life and staying in the same stale waters of discontent, anxiety and depression you've grown so accustomed to because you continue to wade in them.

Most of my life I have been my own worst enemy. Most of my life anything I have achieved started with a litany of reasons concocted for why I would fail. Why I SHOULD fail. I believed these things as if they had already happened. But as I described it to a group of men the other night in The Cigar Room; there are two sides consistently waring inside of me - that Imposter that tells me I'm worthless and to stay put in the sludge of self-disdain. Then, there is this other side of me that wars harder than the first. It's this side of me that can only see the good and/or even the FUN in the challenge I've put before myself. This is the side of me that utilizes the Imposter element to my being as fuel. I utilize him as an ignitor for the sole purpose of proving "him" wrong.

For a very long time I have thoroughly enjoyed this odd, bi-polar aspect of my being. BUT, it wasn't always this way.

I had to come to terms with WHERE this element of my life manifested. There had to be a reckoning, of sorts, before I could turn that negative into something of a positive. Turning it, is the best way to put it here, because that side of me doesn't go away. I still have many moments where the imposter aspect of my make up gets the best of me. I have my doubts about most of the things I put myself in to. Specifically these elements of my life where I'm bringing the most raw aspects of it for people to read, hear and scrutinize. I've always been a writer and I've always been someone that LOVES to create. However, I didn't start diving in to this until just over a year ago. Why? That answer is simple; for the longest time I never believed that ANYONE would take what I had to say seriously or with any merit. This still holds true even as I write this post.

For the longest time I was made to believe and/or believed that what I did, no matter what it was, didn't add up to what it could be. "You have so much potential, Justin...." One of my least favorite things said to me. I never knew what that meant. WHAT potential were these people referring to and where did I find it? How did I find it? Conversely, I had those around me breaking down what I was doing or criticizing how I was performing, it seemed, at every turn. So my process was always that even if I did WELL, it could have always been better and didn't live up to the billing of expectation around me.

What I had to learn was that the expectation I was perceiving had far less to do with me and had everything to do with the person(s) projecting said expectation. Perhaps it was because they themselves didn't feel adequate enough. Perhaps there was an element to them that lived in jealousy of the opportunities I was building for myself. Perhaps it was simply that they were jaded and that hurt was all they knew how to provide because it was what was provided to them. Generational curse of sorts. Whatever IT was, I finally realized that their weight was not something I needed to carry. Once I put this into my own, weird perspective, it was liberating for me in ways that became POWERFUL.

It was powerful, for me, because I turned it into a competition; not a competition with anyone else, but even bigger. It became a competition with that thing inside me that told me I couldn't. That imposter that said no one would listen, no one would read, no one would look at my story and think it held any kind of relevance for their lives. That self doubt became the fuel for me to go after it - If I doubted myself in that "thing" that was the "thing" I long to go after the most because I know it scares me. I know that it makes me doubt these elements of who I am and that if this is the case, when I come out on the other side of it, at the very minimum, I can at least say, "I did that..." This is a very important statement, a very strong statement for the standard I set for my life, for my boys so that it can then be the expectation.

To open that up more transparently; when I look at my life I see it this way... IF someone were to write a book solely about me and the stories that surrounded my existence on this tiny blue dot (Brit); would anyone read it? Not only would they read it, but would they be ENGROSSED by it? Would they find motivation from it? Would they be moved to tears by it all?

For me, it is this simple. This is what drives me to continue to push my discomfort zone as far and as broad as it can be. I have a LONG way to go and the reality is this - it's never done. Our discomfort zone is forever expanding, if done right. **Note here that I'm calling it the "DIScomfort" zone and not the COMfort zone. Comfort breeds stagnation. Stagnation breeds anxiety and depression. Consistently expand that discomfort zone. It is in this zone that you will feel the most alive, one will feel the most necessary and one will feel the most motivated to find discipline.

So when you look at the mirror, what do you see? What are the first things you speak to yourself?

If these things are less than flattering, it's time to take a deep dive in to WHY they are so negative. If you follow Navigating The Intentional Life you know that I believe no one is coming to save you. No one is going to do it for you. So the responsibility to find that book worthy life falls on one set of shoulders alone - YOURS. The goal, the milestone before you is to find that first step to changing or better managing a thought process about yourself that has been crafted and aligned a certain way for a VERY long time. This is no easy task and you will stumble, you will have days where it wins out. Do NOT allow this to keep you down. Do not allow these minor defeats to push you in to a compliant submission with that imposter that lives inside of you.

Utilizing it as a fire-starter, as I do, will not be for everyone, but it is what works for me. The goal is to put as much distance between myself and the imposter that lives inside attempting to haunt the very fabric of my existence. You will have to find your process. You will have to establish your systems because until you do, the ghosts of your past will continue to win out and become the ghosts of your future.

J.L. Copeland