Finding your higher purpose

People who know me find this funny but I used to be quite shy.   I grew up in a quiet house, in a quiet street with the same gang of kids to play with and weekends only punctuated by chaotic get togethers with my noisier cousins before another week of relative peace.

And then one day I was offered a chance to be in the Lord Mayor’s parade in London.   Growing up in West Wales, a trip to London might as well have been to another planet in terms of difference and distance.   No one pressured me, it was clear to go or not go was my choice and my decision.

At the time my thinking was – surely there was someone else more qualified, presentable, confident, stronger, taller, more looking the part -  in short anyone who’d be better at this than me?

It’s only when I look back now with adult wisdom can I see I was asked because the adults thought I already was the right person.  Younger me just lived with self-doubt and being the imposter.

The night before the parade, in my mind fears abounded.  What if I drop this important ceremonial thing (which likely had an improbable name like “The Golden Rod of Destiny”.   What if I forget what to say if I meet the Mayor. What if I fall out of step with the marching or can't do the distance. Did I train enough?  Every disaster played in my head, and it was all going to be broadcast on live TV.

Of course, the morning soon came, the parade started, and everything passed off without a hitch, the golden rod of destiny wasn’t dropped, I actually never got to speak with the Mayor. I finished the march without breaking a sweat and my family sat through three hours of not the most thrilling of TV waiting to see my moment of glory “on the BBC no less”. 

My grandmother was convinced she recognised my arm (how?) but that was it.   We marched, the Golden Rod reached its destiny and that was the Lord Mayor’s parade, sorted - with a cheese sandwich and a kitkat at the end and a sense of pride and accomplishment.

We all have our moments of self-doubt.

Yet often the expectations we have of ourselves is higher than others expect of us.  Research shows we have a heightened awareness of our imperfections and often an ignorance of what others value in us.   We can be empathetic to others and yet the harshest critics of ourselves.

When your imposter syndrome is built around the value of perfection, you learn to get your self-criticism in fast before someone beats you to it.   It is an attempt to insulate us from the hurt that comes from fear of shame when things go wrong.   At its worse the fear of getting things wrong,, from not being able to be perfect means we stop trying at all.  

“If you can’t win then better not to show up than show up as a loser”

Here’s some strange things about imposter syndrome and perfectionism.

Most people don’t care as much as you think they do

We take in information at a data and emotional level.  If we’re giving a speech and we forget a few lines, if the music and the dance and the emotional engagement is there, most people aren’t listening and hanging off the detail of every word.   Value you offer them comes from more than just detail.

Your brain can be trained through rehearsing ahead

This I find fascinating and still learning the neuroscience but in essence you can improve performance in a challenging encounter by rehearsing and visualising it ahead running well.  This is something elite athletes are practicing – the brain’s neural pathways gear themselves to see the scenario playing out well keeping imposter syndrome at bay.

And the reverse can be true – if you believe it will go badly, likely it will not because you can control the fates but because you're heightening your brain's sense of risk and jeopardy and it's this that has greatest influence on your performance.

It takes four good encounters to overcome a bad one

We tend to remember the worst that has happened.  For good reason because learning from mistakes is meant to keep us safe.  But we are also very good at unremembering the times things go right.  

·        This always happens

·        Things never go right

We talk in absolutes when in reality no one lives a life quite as rigidly.  In Brenee Brown’s book the Gift of Imperfection she writes about our tendency to be our harshest self-critics and when we latch on to an imperfection it tends to get amplified.  Leave it alone and it barely merits a mention.

Mirror neurons

MRI scanners have allowed scientists to study what are called mirror neurons.  These are considered to be the way our attitudinal thoughts and emotions can be picked up by and affect other humans.  You know when you just sense someone’s nervousness and that makes you feel nervous – or you can feel and sense confidence and sincerity without actual words?   Mirror neurons at work.

So our own false sense of imperfection can lead others to perceive something that isn’t actually there.  “I can’t quite put my finger on it, it just doesn’t feel quite right”.

If you really struggle to take praise and recognition for the things you do, then you might well experience a sense of imposter syndome that comes from valuing perfectionism. Praise that you can't believe is merited because somewhere out there, in another universe must be someone who is better than you. 

Beating the perfectionist imposter

One way to handle your perfectionist imposter syndrome is to create a higher purpose.  Whether you are out there playing championship tennis, giving a critical business pitch or holding your child’s hand at their first day at school – those encounters hold a higher purpose.   Committing to the higher purpose is a neat way of putting the foibles back in their place and into perspective.

I sometimes feel I don’t remember much from childhood but I do remember going into that parade with a sense of pride and duty.  I’d been entrusted to do this task and there was no way I was going to let how I felt about it get in the way of doing what needed to be done.  That was my higher purpose.

And finding that higher sense of purpose is one way I’ve found of beating off the imperfectionist imposter.  I consented to my photo appear in the paper even though my mates could have laughed at it (it was a safe bet my mates weren’t big readers of newspapers).

Finding and believing in that higher purpose has helped me with speeches, presentations in large auditoriums, making audacious asks and bringing people together who really didn't want to be. But it's also a reminder for me to get out of my own way.

What’s your higher purpose?

Most of us when we encounter imposter syndrome find it most acute when it is a moment of importance for us.   We feel it when the stakes are high or never been highest.  That’s when we are most vulnerable to believing we aren’t up to the standards this encounter merits.

But you are unique.   There is no-one with the same set of cells, the same knowledge, the same personality and the same capability as you.  And you are a product of the time you were born in.  There never will be another you, so celebrate what the unique you can bring to the party because there will always be gifts you can bring that no-one else can.   Yet if you choose not to show up – we all lose out.

Shift your focus to your higher purpose, the reason you are there, the duty or responsibility you have to others, the potential you have to make a difference.

Granted you may not be saving the world, but you can change the world around you - one bit at a time.   And you can put imposter insecurities in the shadows they deserve to be.

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