18// 10 Tips to Conquering Imposter Syndrome & Build Confidence in Your Nursing Career

 Skill-building and research are not enough to silence the persistent whispers of inadequacy or the beast that is negative self-talk.

This episode will arm you with the strategies to stand tall in your nursing shoes, knowing you've earned them. We confront the perfectionism and core beliefs that fuel impostor syndrome.

Real talk about recognizing your worth and the practical steps to turn self-doubt into self-assurance. Let's celebrate your nursing journey's unique milestones, learn to appreciate your individual triumphs without the distortion of social media, and most importantly, empower you to pass the torch of knowledge to your peers.

 By the end of our time together, you'll be ready to embrace the Ambitious Nurse within, equipped with the tools to carve out your rightful place in the nursing world with confidence so you can have a seat at the table.

Imposter Syndrome Research Link

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:05

Welcome to the Ambitious Nurse Podcast, where I provide tips, tools and resources for the experienced nurse to put in your career bag to help you be a better person, a better leader, a better professional and, most of all, a better nurse. I'm your host, bonnie Meadows, a career coach and a clinical nurse specialist with over 18 years of experience in healthcare and nursing. It's my passion to help experienced nurses develop their careers to impact healthcare and their communities. Hello and welcome back. I am so glad to have you here for this episode. We are wrapping up our series on imposter syndrome. I hope that you are enjoying it. If you are enjoying it or have enjoyed any of my previous episodes, I'm going to put a plug here for you to make sure you subscribe to the podcast and make sure that you go in and pop in a five-star review just to let the people know what the podcast is about, why you enjoy it and as I get more reviews, then that's how other people are able to discover what you're learning on a weekly basis. And so you may have been telling someone about the podcast or mentioning some information in the podcast and trying to figure out, like, how do I share this with them or how do we get this out? Or I wish more people knew about this type of information, and if that's how you feel, then please feel free. And if you've been enjoying the podcast, I ask that you would leave a five-star review. Thank you for that.

Speaker 1: 1:53

All right, so I'm going to go ahead and jump into the episode. You know, a lot of times I try to provide like a quick story, but we have then this is more so of a series and I've been plopping like my little stories inside the episode. So I'm going to jump in In this episode. I want to empower you with some valuable tips on how to deal with imposter syndrome. It is not something that can be learned overnight. These tips you will have to practice over and over again. It's like the well-being coaching and the concepts that I've learned as I have developed as a coach in well-being and, yes, I do have a well-being coaching certificate and so I want you to be able to move past fear, get clarity and have a career that makes an impact, because I believe that that's what you want, and one of the things that we have to do in order to get there is to tackle and deal with imposter syndrome.

Speaker 1: 3:08

So there's a difference between lack of confidence and imposter syndrome and, shall I say, being an introvert and I mentioned this in a few previous podcast episodes but I wanted to dig deeper into lack of confidence versus imposter syndrome, and so, based on the findings of the 2019 imposter syndrome research study, which I will leave a link in the podcast or in the show notes for you to take a look at that, there's a clear difference between imposter syndrome and self-doubt in how we now measure it. So self-doubt we would pretty much call lack of confidence. Confidence is about what we can and can't do. Like what can we actually do? What are those skills that, yes, I have the skills to do this, but I don't have the skills to do that. Imposter syndrome is about who we think we are. Oh, I can't be that person, or I don't know if I could be like her, or I don't know if I could be like him. It's who we think we should be in that space, and so if we see others operating in that space, space and we're like I don't do what they do, that's imposter syndrome and it holds you back from moving forward. Like you can identify oh, I don't do what they do, but I know what I do and so my thoughts go to, and so my thoughts go to. I think I can still be who I need to be in that space. So here's an example If someone is lacking confidence in presenting, then a training course on presentation skills is likely to fix this for them.

Speaker 1: 5:01

And I see this in myself Like once I, when I get to a point where I am very, very nervous, I tend to be like, although I'm a researcher, once I got it, once I have it, I have it, or I feel like I have it, and then I'll just jump into something. And I found myself to be quite nervous and trying to understand why am I so nervous? Like it's okay to have some nerves, but I was nervous and anxious and all the things that like I was tense and I was like what is going on here? And what I found was that there was a bit of a lack of confidence because I wasn't well prepared. And so the more I prepared, the more I built my confidence and the easier it was for me to move forward. So if you have a lack of skills in the thing, then you go and get it fixed, and you go and you get it fixed. You learn and as you learn then you grow and you become more confident in doing that thing.

Speaker 1: 6:11

But with imposter syndrome, many of us we go and we learn all the things and we still hold ourselves back because of how we think we are supposed to or someone is supposed to operate and we don't feel like we have those things or I'm not all the way together. And so if imposter syndrome is the root cause for this person lacking confidence in presenting that may be some of you all because you don't want to present anywhere or you don't want to do a speech, or you don't want to do such and such, or you know going into a certain role might require you to do more presentations Then if imposter syndrome is the root cause, then increasing your presentation skills will help. But it won't shift that self-talk about people finding out they're not as good as they should be or being a bad presenter. Or who am I to present to the board Like somebody else should do it? Well, no, you know the work best. So really you should do it If you know the work best. If you've been in the work oh, I'm just a worker behind the scenes. No, you know the work best and you can speak to it. So you need to be the one to be a little bit more visible. Visibility creates opportunity for networking, for conversations with others, for people to see your skills and then from there it opens up the door for growth.

Speaker 1: 7:48

So how does this affect nurses? I've touched on how it affects nurses here and there. Of course, this is what we're all about here at the Ambitious Nurse podcast, but I wanted to hone in on it just a little bit. Situation with high stakes goals the profession has a steep learning curve. We go from knowing nothing to at least being able to do the baseline care for a patient, and one that can feel very daunting because it involves life and death situations Like we. That's what we deal with when we're coming out of and we're stepping into being a nurse, which is why even newer nurses, once, when they're coming out, they're dealing with anxiety because they're like who am I to take care of these patients and to have their lives in my hands, because I just stepped out of nursing school? Well, no, you have the baseline of what you need and your organization is there to help to prepare you for that specialty. And so once nurses realize how much on-the-job learning will need will be needed to supplement what they learned in school.

Speaker 1: 9:13

Then imposter syndrome sets in. It may also contribute to exhaustion, frustration and lack of energy that characterize burnout in nursing. Isn't that interesting? That is how imposter syndrome just starts in nursing, which is probably why, like once we get it and once we have it and once we are in our groove with where we are, we are very hesitant to leave the beds. Now some of us are not hesitant to leave the bedside or we hop around until we can get over that fear, but a lot of times you just got to stay in it. Continue to learn and get over that hump of imposter syndrome.

Speaker 1: 10:02

I told newer nurses that I was training about a month ago. I said that anxiety comes from the fact that you don't know what you don't know and it comes from the fact, of the thought of not the fact but the thought of. I don't want to kill anybody. I don't want to be that person that's responsible for killing anyone. But what I encourage them in is that it kind of doesn't go away until you understand your resources, so until you are able to get, because you won't have the skills. You're just not going to have the skills to be able to save somebody's life.

Speaker 1: 10:41

You got the basic skills of BLS, but it's understanding your resources and knowing what will happen next and what will happen next and what will happen next. But until then, you don't feel fully like a nurse, because you're like I don't know the exact steps of what to do next. Well, everyone around you knows that, and so you should be in an environment where they are helping you to understand what's next, what's next, what's next, and you just continue to soak that in. You just continue to soak that in and try not to put that pressure on yourself that you have to know everything. It is a step by step process and you're not going to know everything, not early in your career. It just doesn't happen. It takes time for our brains to really mature and soak in all of that information and build on those building blocks.

Speaker 1: 11:36

But when we're so hard on ourselves and we're just trying to get it, then that's when you hear complaints about exhaustion. They're frustrated. I don't want to go to work. But going to work is the action, and as you take action, as you see more patients, then you will not be as nervous, because you've seen enough, you've dealt with enough to then be able to pull things together and say, oh okay, so if this goes down, I know how I'm going to handle it, and it can be anything, but you know the basic one, two and three of what you need to do. And the same goes for stepping into any new situation, even if it's going from the bedside to some sort of management position or a corporate nursing position, it's the same thing. So Patricia Benner we know Benner, we know novice to expert laid out her framework for nursing in the path from novice to expert. And so it takes years to achieve expert status. And I'm just going to tell you, if we're quoting Patricia Benner and she has given us the framework for novice to expert but we keep, we keep trying to cheat the framework. Much research has been done on this framework to where, if it was a lie, then it'd be said by now, we'd we'd know oh, this framework is no longer. It just doesn't it does, it just doesn't apply. But I believe, even with all of the technology that we have, it still applies.

Speaker 1: 13:18

Often people begin their nursing careers with high internal expectations, which can lead to a sense of failure and, even when a nurse has achieved a level of expertise, the feelings of being a fraud can still remain. So you kind of keep yourself in that mindset. And that's where we are as nurses. And so that's where I'm trying to move you past, because many of you, as I speak to experienced nurses you've achieved your level of expertise, you've walked the road of. I am now an expert in this thing, according to Benner, but I still feel like I can't be that person or I can't do this thing, or who am I to do such and such and such. So nurses at any age of transition stage not age stage of transition of their careers can fall prey to this Student nurse to employee, novice Staff nurse to clinical leader, charge nurse to manager, career nurse to educator.

Speaker 1: 14:26

Career changes always come with a period of adjustment and feelings of doubt and anxiety and unease. So let's just rest. There always come with a period of adjustment and feelings of doubt and anxiety and unease. So let's just rest there. It's going to come. How do you manage? It is what I go into. Next it's like, okay, how do I manage this? It's going to be here. That's why we're looking for jobs where we meet all of the criteria, because even if we meet all of the criteria. You're still going into a new place, a new culture. You don't know what your resources are, so that still brings you down back to level zero.

Speaker 1: 15:06

I am now working in a role that I used to work in previously, but it's a different structure, of course, different manager. They use the role slightly differently. I'm well qualified for the position, but the whole framework of how they work is totally different than what I did previously. I could have imposter syndrome because I'm still learning. I could tell myself, oh, I should have this by now or I should get this by now. But I have an understanding that the work is different and I also have an understanding that I have to give myself a full year to really pull the pieces together, to really understand and be able to take off like I want to. So I just want to encourage you in that and it's just, it's just going to take time. Let time be on your side, let time be a blessing to you and just pick up the pieces as you go along the way and just make sure that you're continuously reflecting and learning and just collecting data on yourself to understand what tweaks you need to make, what changes you need to make, what you need to do differently, and this I'm speaking to is those who are in new positions, and then I'm also trying to encourage those who are on the cusp of. I really want to move, but I don't know if I can, because I don't know if I want to go into a new situation.

Speaker 1: 16:43

So how do we overcome imposter syndrome? For success in our nursing career? First, you have to start asking yourself some hard questions, and they might include the following what are the core beliefs that I hold about myself? Remember, imposter syndrome is what you think about yourself. Do I believe I am worthy of this position as I am? Must I be perfect for others to approve of me? It's about belief. It's about knowing yourself. It's about understanding who you are.

Speaker 1: 17:21

To move past these feelings, you need to become comfortable confronting some of those deeply ingrained beliefs you hold about yourself. This exercise can be hard, because you might not even realize that you hold them, but here are some techniques you can use. One share your feelings with a trusted friend, someone who has been rooting for you and encouraging you in your journey, someone whom you know. If you said out of your mouth I think I want to change and do something else, they're like great, what is it that you want to do? How can I help you? Do not go to people who want to keep you where you are. Don't do it, because they'll just talk you out of it. And my thought process is if the thought has come to you over and over again not like a fleeting thought, but it's come to you over and over again that you want to move, but you feel like you're fearful, you feel like you're not worthy to move on, or you have these feelings, share it with a trusted friend who would be enthusiastic about you exploring other avenues, because that person is either going to be real about okay, well, that's great and all, but here's some things you need to do to work on. That Should be a mentor, or they will say great, and then you talk through those feelings.

Speaker 1: 18:58

Irrational beliefs tend to fester when they're hidden and not talked about. So share your feelings. Two focus on others. I said this in a previous podcast, but when I walk into a room, and especially if it's a room where I may or may not know a whole lot of people I try to shift my focus to how can I serve others, in what way, what do I bring to this room and how can I share that with others? I know that I love to make people laugh. I tend to say quirky things and I love to just kind of find people who are just slightly uncomfortable in the room and help them to feel more comfortable. So I tend to focus on others. So, while this might feel counterintuitive to try to help others in the same situation as you, if you see someone who seems awkward or alone, ask that person a question to bring them in.

Speaker 1: 20:08

As you practice these skills, you build your confidence in your own abilities. Next, just number three. Well, just number four assess your abilities. Now, y'all know how I feel about this. Your self-assessment builds your self-awareness. If you have long-held beliefs about your incompetence in social and performance situations or in other roles within healthcare and nursing, make a realistic assessment about your abilities. Write down your accomplishments, what you're good at, and compare that with your self-assessment and figure out what is it that you need to do to one, build confidence. What skills do you need to build on? Where do you have opportunity where you can build your skills up and then focus on those things that you have accomplished? What are those things that you bring to the table. Is it your critical thinking skills? Do you communicate well with your teammates and your families? Do you tend to like to do projects? Do you do projects well? Do you lead well, like? Think about those things when you're assessing your abilities.

Speaker 1: 21:20

Number five take baby steps. Don't focus on doing things perfectly the perfectionist of the imposter syndrome type but rather do things reasonably well 80% here. Reward yourself for taking action. Action breeds clarity. And then move on from there, baby steps, a little bit at a time. You'll get better at it as you continue to do it.

Speaker 1: 21:48

Question your thoughts. That's number six. As you start to assess your abilities and take baby steps, question whether your thoughts are rational. Does it make sense to believe that you are a fraud, given everything that you know? Number seven stop comparing. Given everything that you know. Number seven stop comparing. They are not you and you are not them, but you bring something unique to the table and you need to, and that uniqueness is needed at the table. So every time you compare yourself to others in a social situation or in a work situation, you will find some fault with yourself. That fuels the feeling of not being good enough and not belonging.

Speaker 1: 22:29

I have gotten to the point. Where do I sometimes compare myself? Do I look at somebody else and say, oh, I don't have that or I don't have that Sometimes? And then what I'll say to myself is, hmm, I don't think I really want that. I think I'm good with where I am. Like you have to like. If the thought comes and you think, oh gosh, I'm not that, I'm not that, I'm not that, you gotta think well, do I really want to be? Yeah? No, I like being me, so I'm just going to be me. So, instead of comparing, focus on listening to what other people are saying, be genuinely interested to learn more and then whatever you feel like you can bring to the conversation, bring it, say it. It might change the trajectory of the conversation or it might help someone who may not have thought those particular thoughts. It may help them to consider whatever it is that they are thinking about. It may help them to have an extra nugget to consider when trying to make decisions about a plan for whatever they may be talking about. I think this is eight Use social media moderately.

Speaker 1: 23:56

I've had to work on this myself. We know that overuse of social media may be related to feelings of inferiority If you try to portray an image on social media that doesn't match who you really are or that is impossible to achieve. It will only make your feelings of being a fraud worse. That wasn't necessarily my issue with social media. It was as I am building content for the podcast and trying to serve you all. Well, it was me looking at other people's content and thinking, oh, I already thought of that, I want to do a podcast on that. Oh, they already did it. And then I would be like, oh gosh, I can't do it. Well, yes, I can do it because I have a different perspective, but what I had to do was I had to stop following those people on social media and I had to stop really being on social media like that so that I could just lean in and focus. I want to hear from you all more. I have my email in the link in the show notes and I also want. Those of many of you are on my email list. Really, all you have to do is hit reply and I will reply back. I want to hear from you more about what you want to hear on this podcast. So, if you have some thoughts, I'm not quite doing interviews yet and even once I have that moment where I do start to do interviews. I've already got some people locked and loaded for that, so I probably won't even start doing interviews from people within the community until 2025. But for right now, the plan is to just build consistency in giving you all content that you would like to hear, that you feel like would be beneficial in helping you to grow your career.

Speaker 1: 25:57

Last point is stop fighting your feelings. Don't fight the feelings of not belonging. Instead, try to lean into them, accept them. It's only when you acknowledge them that you can start to unravel. Why do I feel that way? And you can unravel those core beliefs that are holding you back. You can unravel. Okay. Why do I feel this way? What is it that's making me feel this way and what do I need to do differently? What's true? Refuse to let it hold you back. No matter how much you feel like you don't belong, don't let that stop you from pursuing your goals. Keep going and refuse to be stopped.

Speaker 1: 26:44

So how do you overcome imposter syndrome? Let me wrap this up. One you start asking yourself some hard questions. Two share your feelings. Three focus on others. Four assess your abilities. Five take baby steps. Six question your thoughts. Seven stop comparing. Eight, use social media moderately. And seven stop fighting your feelings and remember that the difference between building confidence or lack of confidence and imposter syndrome it's. Confidence is about what we can and can't do and imposter syndrome is about who we think we are.

Speaker 1: 27:29

Until next time, if you want to work through some of these thoughts, I am here. I have a link to my one-on-one coaching call where I help people to talk through these things and help people to work through an assessment where we're assessing their abilities and looking at job opportunities. To say this is something that you here's how this skill applies and here's how this skill applies and here's how this skill applies. So if you want some conversation about that or you want to talk through that or maybe just at least do a baseline self-awareness test or self-assessment, feel free to click that link in the show notes and sign up for a coaching call with me and we can chat. See you next time.

Speaker 1: 28:27

Thanks for joining us this week on the Ambitious Nurse Podcast. To review the show notes and any links mentioned in today's episode, please go to theambitiousnursepodcastcom. If you enjoyed this conversation, follow or subscribe so you don't miss a future episode. Also, please consider leaving a rating, review and or comment about what you want to hear. This helps more nurses, just like you find this podcast. Thank you for joining me, bonnie Meadows, on the Ambitious Nurse Podcast. I look forward to chatting with you the next time and remember you don't have to grow your career alone. As iron sharpens iron, one person sharpens another. Thank you for letting me sharpen you as you take this knowledge to sharpen the next.