#7 - Uncomfortable Growth and Imposter Syndrome

This is our seventh newsletter, how time flies!

We’ve covered time and setting goals through to being held accountable and reacting to change.

This month gets uncomfortable…

We’re talking about the discomfort that often comes with genuine growth.

Now, let’s be clear: growth doesn’t have to be uncomfortable, challenging and difficult to achieve.

But… the growth that happens when something you’re trying to achieve something difficult, that does make you feel uncomfortable, and that does challenge you is the real kind of magic growth.

Why?

Because most people don’t push through that uncomfortable, challenging period and simply give up or find an excuse to stop doing the hard work once it becomes exactly that.

And going from a very cosy inside a padded box of a comfort zone straight into the fire of unbearably difficult sacrifice will never work!

So, start small.

Pick something that seems daunting but achievable. Do that consistently until it’s no longer daunting. Then, go up a level and pick your next mini-challenge to overcome.

The compound effect will take care of the rest—once you’re six months in and have completed ten challenges, you’ll look back at challenge number one and be aghast that you ever saw that as a challenge!

And this is often where people go wrong.

Zero exercise to running a marathon in 3 months.

Takeaways every night to salads without a sauce.

Doing breathwork to zoning out for hours a day.

Growth should feel a bit uncomfortable – but not something so ambitious it paralyses you with fear.

How does this relate to business?

Well.

If you believed all the solopreneur gurus on LinkedIn, you’d think that starting, achieving and maintaining a profitable business on your own with minimal experience is super easy…

It’s bloody well not, I can assure you!

The whole ‘just quit your job, take my course and earn £10K a month in no time’ brigade can be cancerous to young, ambitious individuals.

Start with the first big scary step – don’t try and jump to step 5 from a standing start.

On the flip side, if that first step is only big and scary because of your own limiting beliefs and your ability is already at step 5? Take a big old leap!

Linked to everything discussed here is imposter syndrome.

That feeling that you don’t quite belong somewhere or aren’t worthy of being there. It often crops up in new jobs or promotions, when you start a business, have a child and lots of other big life events.

Mostly, it’s viewed as a bad thing in society. Something to avoid and run away from.

My view is the total opposite.

We should all be chasing that uncomfortable feeling of not being sure we’re good enough, but we’re giving it a go anyway with everything we have.

Sometimes, we’ll fail! And that’s okay, too!

Most 90% of the time?

You’ll realise very quickly that you are MORE than good enough and MORE than worthy of being there, and just wish you’d put yourself in that position so much sooner.

If you don’t have that imposter syndrome in any aspect of your life, you’re not pushing the confines of your comfort hard enough.

“But Ben, this all sounds pretty tough on the ego. How do you motivate yourself to make sacrifices and keep going when times are hard?”

Very simple for me… Mentors!

Having a mentor or coach in your corner is the number one way to keep you on track and ensure you’re being held accountable for doing what you said you would.

That, and having the right people around you. This doesn’t mean be around ‘successful’ people or ‘healthy’ people or ‘rich’ people.

It means people who support your ambitions. Who recognise, understand and accept the sacrifices you’re making. Who pick you up when you’re down and pull your feet back to the ground when needed, too.

For some reading this, the first big scary step you need to make might be having a cull of those individuals in your life who are inhibiting you from realising your true potential…

Children get growing pains in their legs when they’re little. But it’s necessary for their growth.

Adults get growing pains when change is difficult. And we often opt against said change, even when it’s necessary, in favour of an easier life.

Easier lives aren’t often synonymous with fulfilled ones.

Which are you choosing to live?