Chelsea: Hi I'm Chelsea,

Lauren: And I'm Lauren,

Chelsea: and we are

Together: The Financial Diet.

Chelsea: And we are actually joining you today, as you may be able to tell from our unique and elegant surroundings, uh, that we are in Anaheim, California for VidCon. And, we're actually even joined by our channel editor, Matt, who's normal not with us, but here he is.

Matt: Hi

Chelsea: Woo! Hi. And since we're sort of big and impressive event where everyone is talking about all the amazing stuff that they're doing, we thought it was a perfect time to talk about an article that I actually wrote a little while back on the site about impostor syndrome.

Lauren: Imposter syndrome refers to high-achieving individuals marked by an inability to internalize their accomplishments and persistent fear of being exposed as a "fraud." So, something that I really loved in the original article that Chelsea wrote was a short quote that said "no one knows what they're doing the first day of anything." And reading that was really valuable for me, because I think it's really important to keep in mind in those moments when you feel really down and you feel like a failure.

Chelsea: A big problem that a lot of people have professionally is that they really look at the people above them, and think that they have some sort of magical information or strategy that they don't have or that they're never afraid or that they don't make mistakes. But, that's not true. The truth is that an unintended consequence of being really good at whatever your job is, is that you're probably going to be pushed into a new job where you're much more unsure and you really have to start from zero and learn new things. And, often people can reach a level where they're really out of their league. They've kind of reached the maximum of their competence, and there's actually a name for that. It's called the peter principle, and we'll link to that in the description.

Lauren: So, it's pretty obvious that a lot of people suffer from imposter syndrome. It's a pretty universal feeling. So we're here today with five ways to combat it. So, number one is to keep a list of all that you've accomplished. A kind of to-done list if you want to be really cheesy about it. So, for me, it's really easy to kind of forget where I was just a year ago and how little I knew about design, content, media, working in a partnership, stuff like that. So, writing down a list of specific ways that I've hit new goals for myself keeps me feeling on track, really confident, and like I'm moving forward all the time.

Chelsea: Number two is remembering your horizons from one, five, or even ten years ago. A big part of imposter syndrome is judging yourself today on who you were yesterday, but a smarter way to do it is to judge yourself on who you were a long time ago, like a year ago in your career for example. It's so easy to feel like the progress you make is slow or not a big deal or that you're not really advancing, but if you think about who was I, you know, two years ago, what did I dream of doing, what did I dream of having, what did I think I could accomplish, it's way easier to feel good about yourself and see how far you've come. Like, for example, with my apartment, I love to look at decor blogs and read magazines about decor and sometimes I can feel like my apartment sucks and it's not adequate--

Lauren: same

Chelsea: Same. But, then I think about the apartment that I had, my first one, and I'm like holy crap. Like, Chelsea living in that squalor would look at my apartment today and be like it's inconceivably awesome, and then I feel great again.

Lauren: Another thing that you can do is to write a really long email to someone to catch them up on your life. Sometimes watching yourself expand upon all the things that you have done or are doing is a really useful exercise to measure how far you've come, and kind of remind yourself why you're doing what you're doing. I think this is a really useful way to combat imposter syndrome, because when you acknowledge your mistakes and short comings, you kind of get rid of the idea that life's suppose to be perfect and that you should get everything right on the first try.

Chelsea: And it's especially great when you're writing these emails to, you know, friends or family that you don't see very much, that you get to really present yourself as the person you are today, instead of the person they knew you as when they last saw you. Number four is forcing yourself to really write down on a literal list things that you're proud of about yourself that have nothing to do with work. Part of what gets you into that imposter syndrome of really not feeling like you're good enough for your job is getting into a cycle where all of your affirmation is coming from who you are at work. It becomes this vicious cycle of the more invested I am in work, the more I feel defined by it, and the more I feel defined by it, the more I'm stressed out by it. So, it's crucial that you take time to really acknowledge all the stuff that's going on around work that also defines who you are as a person.

Lauren: So, for example, I'm really proud of the fact that I was able to save up enough money to move out to New York City, which was always a dream of mine. Another thing I'm really proud of was having learned like five to ten new recipes on my own, which made me a lot less reliant upon Seamless.

Chelsea: And one of my biggest accomplishments every year is that I organize this sort of retreat every summer with about ten people who all live in different places, uh, and it's a huge hassle but it's the best time of the year and it makes me feel like I really have my shit together. So, number five, and this one may be a little bit gendered and a little bit negative but trust me that is works ladies, is to think about what use to impress you about guys. Pretty much all of us can look back at guys we had a crush on or even dated and the things that we use to think were like his best qualities or the thing that really impressed us about him. Like I use to think it was really impressive and cool when a guys apartment had soap, and I also use to get caught up in guys who were way overly defined by their careers, because I thought that it was so cool and adult feeling. And it's important now that I measure up my own standards for myself against the people that I use to be so invested in for no reason. As women, we're often taught, you know, whether we like it or not, to really lionize guys in our head, and can sometimes feel really inferior in comparison and downplay our own lives. When I look at myself today, and I compare it against the standards that I use to have for some of the men I dated, I realize how far I've come.

Lauren: So, important to focus on building yourself up rather than waiting on someone that you're crushing on to do it for you.

Chelsea: Chances are that no matter how impressive someone might seem on the outside, they're probably dealing with a little bit of imposter syndrome, too. So, hopefully you can use these tips to be a little easier on yourself, celebrate your accomplishments more, and realize what you're capable of doing.

Lauren: So, as always, thanks for watching and don't forget to hit the subscribe button and go to thefinancialdiet.com for more.

Together: Bye!