Why you feel insecure even though you’re competent

Just a few minutes into our call, my client took a deep breath.

Looking down at her hands, she mumbled the one sentence that I hear most often as a mental coach.

“You must think I’m crazy, but…” before confessing something that she’d been struggling with for quite some time.

Let me give you a little bit of context:

Anne (changed her name for privacy reasons) is a gorgeous, smart, energetic, and witty young woman. After starting her business just a few months ago, she is all in and committed to her vision.

She has spent years learning her craft and obviously knows what she’s doing. Every day, she thinks of new ways to over deliver on her promises and serve her students – and it shows!

Not only is she getting great feedback, but even her students are already hitting their first milestones and texting her to share their achievements.

At the same time, since she started her own business, she can’t help but feel small. Helpless. Doubtful.

She’s excited and inspired, but also scared and insecure.

And she judges herself for that. She feels like she should be positive and convinced all of the time – after all she believes in what she does, doesn’t she?

The crazy thing, though, is: there’s nothing crazy or strange about that! It’s perfectly normal.

You can be both competent and convinced, and insecure at the same time. I see it happen with nearly all of my clients.

And there are very good reasons why you might be feeling this way.

So, let me highlight 4 of the most common ones that I see all of the time:

1. You’re an expert in your field, but not in all things business.

Yes, you are an expert in your specific field and know your craft. You may even understand certain aspects of business already.

BUT while this is a great foundation to tap into your potential and become your own boss, it’s just a fraction of everything you’ll have to learn and do while growing & building a business.

You have to productize your expertise, promote it, sell it, and deliver it.

You’ll have to do market research, learn about customer experience, about communication, about finances and pricing, about how to build a team, set up technical systems and even legal requirements.

As an entrepreneur, your craft is at the center, but it’s just the beginning of everything else that needs to be built around it so you fulfill your vision.

So, as you feeling insecure may just be a very healthy sign that you’re not naive! You may just be aware that there’s so much more to it than just “following your passion” in order to succeed. Parts of this you’ll learn on your own with critical thinking and problem-solving, other parts you’ll have to delegate.

Now, does this mean that your competence or skillset is not enough? Not at all, this doesn’t have to stop you – it may just be a good common sense of realizing where your (current) limits are.

A strong growth mindset will help you overcome this obstacle and grow further than you thought possible.

2. You’re insecure because you’ve arrived at the second stage of your growth cycle

Have you ever heard of the 4 stages of growth? I love introducing my students to this concept! It makes it so easy to understand where you are at in your growth cycle and why feeling insecure and frustrated may actually be a good sign.

You see, there’s the first stage of building competence & confidence and that’s the “blissfully ignorant” stage. At this stage, you don’t know yet what you don’t know. Everything’s still vague and abstract, so it’s easy to just see the endgoal and be optimistic. We all start out here, especially when we first get an idea to try something new. (Btw, this can be a new skillset like learning the guitar or a new vision like building a whole new business.)

BUT as soon as you actually dive in, learn about it and take active steps to make it happen, that’s when you realize how much there is to know. And how much you don’t know or even how much you don’t know that you don’t know.

It’s like a great awakening and, most of the time, it’s painful, confusing and frustrating. But it’s just a natural stage of growth and a great sign that you’re in fact advancing.

The challenge then here is to not get discouraged and keep an open, curious, and goal-oriented mind. This way you’ll be able to grow through this stage with strategic steps and go on to the next stage to achieve real mastery.

3. You’re suffering from an impostor syndrome

First of, if you’re not familiar with that term, what is an imposter syndrome?

It’s the experience of feeling insecure, like a fraud and doubting yourself and your accomplishments, even if you’re excelling or achieving certain successes. It’s something a lot of high-achievers experience too, who are doing a great job, meet all the qualifications and then some, but still can’t acknowledge that.

Nearly all of my clients have struggled with this experience, so I’ve seen all kinds of forms of it too.

It may show up as negative self-talk, restlessness, lack of motivation, and anxiousness. You might notice yourself finding excuses for your success, basically saying that you were just “being lucky” or that you won’t be able to replicate your achievements.

All your hard work and the results you deliver seem like “distractions” from the truth, which is that you’re not good enough after all.

In reality, though, your imposter syndrome has nothing to do with your true value and capabilities. It’s mostly something you’ve adopted many years ago and can’t be solved by getting even better or achieving even more or bigger results.

You can’t outperform your imposter syndrome. It will just continue to find new excuses.

Instead, to get rid of it, you’ll need to face it head-on and dissolve the imposter syndrome itself. Sounds scary? I promise, it’s not. It can actually be quite fun once you know how to do it.

4. You’re insecure because of unrealistic expectations

This is something that I see all the time, especially with online freelancers and entrepreneurs.

You may feel insecure simply because you have completely unrealistic expectations of what is normal and how quickly you should reach a certain point.

If that’s you, you compare yourself to others who are way further “ahead” based on nothing but one limited, superficial number and no background info.

And it’s so easy to fall into this trap too. We’re all constantly bombarded with all the “record successes” and 10K months of others, without knowing where they started from and what it really took them to get there.

This may lead to something like “success dysmorphia” (don’t bother googling it, I just invented the term!). You compare yourself to an unrealistic ideal and think of certain things as flaws, failures, or mistakes that are perfectly normal.

It’s already difficult to withstand that temptation, even if you know in theory what is normal. (For example, I have a background in economics and studied entrepreneurship & innovation, so I know some of the “real” numbers.) However, if you don’t have any entrepreneurs with whom you can talk openly and create a realistic and healthy picture of reality, it’s even easier to fall into that trap!

(For example, did you know that it takes approx. 3-4 years for a start up to break even? No 10K months, no 100K launch – 3 to 4 years to hit the 0-mark and simply earn as much as they invest into their business! Not knowing that, it’s easy to get lost and feel like you’re the only one doing something wrong.)

So, why am I telling you all that?

Here’s the most important part.

If you’ve been doubting yourself because you feel hesitant or insecure, I want you to know that that’s okay.

You’re doing something brave, so it’s just natural to feel a whole range of emotions.

And, as we’ve seen, there may be very valid reasons for you to feel so.

BUT not a single one of those reasons means that you are not capable enough or that you won’t be able achieve your vision!

Instead, it just means that you’ll have to address those insecurities for what they are so that they won’t sabotage or stop you anymore.

That’s it. And that’s absolutely something that I know you can do!

Now I want to hear from you!

Let’s continue the conversation over on Instagram (@themonikalerch) or LinkedIn (in/monikalerch/) and let me know: what is your biggest takeaway from this?

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And if you’re yearning to break free from feeling insecure or playing small once and for all, I’m here to help. The Pioneers Mindset Academy is your ticket.

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