Am I Good Enough?
Dealing with imposter syndrome, comparisons and why I'll probably marry a tech bro.
Hi hi!
I know I say this in every newsletter but where does time fly to?
Yesterday was just the 1st of September & now the month is ending.
We have less than 100 days to the end of this year and I'm not sure how to feel about this.
How are you, though? How has the year been for you? (I'll be looking forward to your response)
In today's letter, I'll talk about some of the things I struggle with & if you can relate with any one, let me know. Also, don't forget to share this letter with your friends.
On Imposter Syndrome.
I never feel good enough. I teach classes, coach private clients and more than half the time, I'm waiting for them to tell me I'm saying rubbish and they want their money back. No one has done that. Yet.
It's a funny thing, me feeling this way. I know that I'm good enough but why don't I ever feel this way?
According to this article, my type of Imposter Syndrome is that of “The Expert”
Experts measure their competence based on “what” and “how much” they know or can do. Believing they will never know enough, they fear being exposed as inexperienced or unknowledgeable.
Haha, this is true.
I won't lie, this has affected me negatively. I have said No to some opportunities because of my fear. But I think it has its positives too.
This fear has pushed me to learning more and being “certain” of my skills and knowledge before showing up to the world.
What I'm trying to do now is to manage create a balance between these two.
How am I doing this?
I've stopped hoarding knowledge. I've cancelled a lot of courses/masterclasses, deleted some YouTube videos, podcasts because after a second thought, I realized, I don't really need to know about this.
I read positive feedback from people who have benefited from my work. I mean, they can't all be lying.
When I'm conscious of me feeling like an imposter, I try to reframe my thoughts and find out why I'm feeling that way. I also remind myself that literally no one is perfect.
I talk to my friends. I have friends that are not afraid to call out my feeling like an imposter. Many times, they have kind words to share to help me feel better, other times, they give me a kick in the behind.
I don't know what kind of imposter syndrome you have, but I hope these tips will help you like they help me.
On Comparisons.
Something else I struggle with, like many other people (maybe you included), is comparing myself to others.
Half the reason I'm sending this letter at this time is that, I wondered for a moment, what's the point?
Why would you care about my newsletter? When there are so many other great letters out there written by people you actually know & like. These people even post more frequently. I only post once a month & I don't talk about the things you might be expecting.
These thoughts were running through my mind but I stopped them.
Yes, I post just once a month but that's because I don't want to overwhelm myself.
Yes, I don't write what other people write but of course, I can't do that because I'm not them. We have different writing styles, different thought processes etc.
Many of us unconsciously compare ourselves to people- our friends, people we admire on social media.
It's worse when our parents or older people around us do this. My good friend, Abdulhameed wrote about this here.
When we do this to ourselves, what we're doing is telling ourselves that we are not enough.
But we are.
Always have been. Always will be.
In the words of Iyanla Vanzant,
Comparison is an act of violence against the self.
Sounds harsh but that's just how it is. We don't see it as something major and that's why it's so harmful.
Social media even makes this easy for us. You're scrolling through your timeline and you read about XYZ person's win for the umpteenth time and you think, “How is this person doing all these things?”
The reason we struggle with insecurity is because we compare our behind the scenes with everyone else’s highlight reel.” Steve Furtick
People package things online. People would rather talk about their 1 success instead of 34 failures.
Also, we forget that not everything we see online is true.
An example:
Comparisons are inevitable. But I hope that whenever you start to compare yourself to someone, you choose to do either of these things;
~ Allow this to motivate you and push you forward.
~ Remind yourself that everyone has a different journey so if you're not going on the same road, how can you compare?
Why I'll Probably Marry A Tech Bro
I like tech stuff. Always have. I participated in a Technovation challenge twice in secondary school. We had to solve a problem in our community by creating an app. The first year my team and I worked on an app to help people who had depression. The second year we worked on an app to curb environmental pollution.
These were really fun times. Since then, I've been wanting to learn how to code. I'd start learning then stop. It's been like this for 6/7 years.
The most recent attempt of me wanting to learn was two weeks ago and this was when I finally gave up.
As was usual, I created accounts on websites where I'd learn: w3schools and freecodecamp.
Then I took the first lesson. I didn't understand shit. I recited affirmations to myself “ You're smart. You can do this"
I couldn’t do it.
I stopped and asked myself, why are you even doing this?
My reason was not a bad one but it wasn't compelling. I was doing it because coding was a good skill to have.
But was it a good skill for me to have?
No, it wasn't.
I'm already good at a few things and I'm quite passionate about these things.
Why didn't I just focus on these things that were my strengths instead of focusing on the weaknesses I wasn't even sure I would be good at?
This was such an A-ha moment for me and I didn't waste any time deleting my accounts from these platforms. I felt a huge weight lifted off me.
I still love tech, I might look into some non-coding roles and if not, I'll just marry a tech bro. If you know anyone, let me know ;)
Some Recommendations.
Book: A good fiction book. Sometimes get you head out of reality and enjoy the magical world that is fiction. My recommendations will definitely be too cheesy for you 😂
Free Program:
Dr Benjamin Hardy is an organizational psychologist and bestselling author of Willpower Doesn’t Work and Personality Isn't Permanent.
He has a free 30 day program on your future self.
In his words, your future self is more important than your current self. Not sure I agree but give his program a try and let me know what you think. I'm currently taking it too.
Sign up here.
Book Club:
If you're a Muslim and you want to read more books, belong to a community of readers and get access to free books, then you should join my online book club. Send me a message here for more details.
I want to ask, was this letter too long? I want to know how best to serve you so please let me know if I should reduce the length of these letters.
CONNECT WITH ME
Until next month,
Lots of love,
Nusaybah.
Hey hey hey welcome back. I’ve been good and the year has been bad and good but mostly good for the greater parts. I think we all experience imposter syndrome in different ways and can also relate to comparing ourselves with others. The goal is to always remind ourselves of what we’re capable of and run our race without looking back or to the sides. Personally, I don’t find myself comparing my life to others often. Of course, there are times when I might think oh I should be here because this person here is younger than me but it’s not often. I mostly can’t even relate to comparing myself to someone on social media. I’m thankful for that. Lmaooo I remember wanting to learn coding/tech stuff some time this year when my life was a mess and reading this now, I can def relate. It’s okay to leave this for the tech gurus and marry one! Hahaha save yourself the stress! P.S: Sorry for the long comment and I typed this in my drafts in two days and kept it for a week because busy bee. Smh
Heyyy. This year has been really challenging but it has also made me discover a couple of things about myself too so I guess that is a silver lining. I want it to end although there's no guarantee that next year will be better but we can only hope and pray
This is my first time reading your newsletter and I must say you're doing a really good job. Keep it up and no it was not too long💙