4 Ways to Overcome Imposter Syndrome

Have you ever been on a phone call with a potential client, and you’re about to lock it down when all of a sudden you hear something in your head go “No way, you can’t do that, you don’t actually know what you’re doing!”? Or maybe you weren’t about to lock it down, but the whole time you couldn’t stop thinking “I don’t belong, I’m not good enough, I don’t have enough experience, I’m not ______ (fill in the blank with the excuse you told yourself here)”.

Ah. Good old imposter syndrome. If you’ve ever tried anything new in your life (literally just about anything), you’ve probably felt it. That feeling of “I don’t belong” or “I’m not good enough because _____” is all-too familiar, especially in the world of business.

What exactly is imposter syndrome?

Imposter syndrome is defined as:

“a collection of feelings of inadequacy that persist despite evident success. 'Imposters' suffer from chronic self-doubt and a sense of intellectual fraudulence that override any feelings of success or external proof of their competence” (Corkindale).

A lot of people who are starting new businesses, especially with this movement of digital nomads and entre- and solopreneurs, and it is not uncommon for them to feel like they are imposters in the industry they are entering. I’ve felt imposter syndrome myself, so I wanted to create a shortlist of four things you can do to overcome imposter syndrome.

4 Ways to Overcome Imposter Syndrome

1. Say “Yes” - I encourage you to say “yes” to new opportunities, but this does require context. Obviously, you want to say yes to new opportunities that are within reason, your area of interest, and scope of learning. For example, say you are a new Squarespace Web Designer on the hunt for a new opportunity on a freelancing platform, unless you are interested in learning coding languages or have a background in it, you probably aren’t going to accept the job that is entitled “Custom code needed for Wordpress Website.” This project is neither in your area of expertise or interest. Disaster waiting to happen. BUT. Say you come across a project titled “Upload new logo and help with re-designing Squarespace site.” This project has potential - you may not know how to upload a new logo, but you can learn, and you may not know what their re-design requirements are, but it is both in your area of interest and scope of learning. You can always figure out what they want and how to implement it. Take the chance and say “yes” to submitting a proposal and taking the job if you have a consultation and deem it a good fit/doable. 

2. Acknowledge strengths and play to those - If you know you’re awesome at branding for web design, play to this strength and offer it as part of your service web design service. You then have the confidence in this component of your service, while also taking time to focus and improve upon your areas of opportunity via…

3. Educating yourself. This is key to breaking from IS, focus on educating yourself whether it’s in your area of expertise specifically or the sales process. By taking the time to educate yourself, you increase your confidence because you have a better understanding of what you’re doing and greater skill level. Does a professor with years of education doubt their understanding of their area of expertise? No. Carry this concept with you and it will help you overcome that fear of inadequacy.

4. Use your testimonials for a pump up! The people who work with you won’t write a testimonial unless they truly believed in what they said. This is social proof that you’re on the right track! See a theme within your testimonials? Great! Focus on that! Acknowledge “I provide a _____ experience because I’m good at ____” and remind yourself of this in your moments of doubt.

There are so many ways to approach imposter syndrome. But most importantly I want you to know that it’s totally normal, and it will eventually dissipate with time and experience. I was also told once that if you feel imposter syndrome, you probably aren’t the imposter, because the true imposter won’t even know/realize/acknowledge that they are the imposter. Have you tried any of these ideas to tackle imposter syndrome? Or have you tried something different in your life or business?

Everything You Need to Work with a Web Designer

Congratulations! You’ve officially made the decision to invest in yourself and your business. You’re ready to take things to the next level and that means hiring the perfect web designer to bring your website dreams to life. 

Maybe your initial consultation call went amazing, and all you can think about is how excited you are to get this thing launched and ready to go. And then she hit you with your deliverables and you’re feeling a little overwhelmed with everything you need to prepare to work with her.

Maybe you haven’t had your consultation call yet, but you’ve picked the dreamiest designer and you’re hopping on a call super soon. 

Whatever stage you are in post-decision to hire a web designer, there’s one thing that’s certain, there are going to be things that you need to have ready to work on your project in order to launch your website. While yes, your designer will do the building and design of your website, she can’t do it without fully understanding you, your business and the content that you want on your site.

Here’s a breakdown into two umbrella categories of what you should prepare to work with your web designer:

Umbrella 1: Branding Development 

A lot of web designers include branding within their web design package offers because it makes sense as a 2-in-1 for workflow and design consistency purposes, but this can’t be done without your help. Having an understanding of the branding story you want to tell is crucial to developing a brand (and website) that calls to the audience you’re trying to attract.

To best prepare for the branding questions, I recommend having an idea of:

Your logo: what you want your logo to look like, or references for what you like and dislike

Branding colors: what colors you like/dislike, or if you have a specific color palette already developed that you love - even better!

A mood board: there’s a good chance your web designer will create one for you depending on if you opt for branding in addition to your web design service. But if you don’t, a mood board allows your designer to understand what kind of tone you want your website to set so she can design that . [Check out my Pinterest board HERE for some mood board inspiration!]

A branding board: Similarly to the mood board, your designer may create one for you to display what they’ve designed for you if you decide on a branding service, but if you want to create one yourself, branding boards typically displays the graphic elements you want in your brand design to include:

1. Main Logo

2. Alternative Logo

3. Favicon (the small icon that goes in the corner of your web page tab

4. Color Palette

5. 1-3 Fonts (Think Large Header, Secondary Header, Body Text)

6. Graphic Elements (such as photos of a specific flora/fauna you want/love that goes with your theme), or textures you want to include

   [Check out my Pinterest board HERE for some branding board inspiration!]

Sample Mood Board

Sample Branding Board

Reference websites: I highly recommend doing some website research to see what you like and dislike in a website layout and design. A list of 3-5 sites listing elements/functions that you like and dislike will give your designer a better idea of what you’re looking for in a website, thus making it easier for them to create your dream site. [Check out my Pinterest board of Squarespace website layouts and designs HERE if you need some inspiration!]

Umbrella 2: Website Content

Copy: This is the text that you want on your website - from your bio, to text on your home page, to call-to-actions (also known as CTA’s). If you’re finding that you have a hard time writing, you can also hire a copywriter to do the work for you!

List of Services/Products + Descriptions + Pricing: This item is similar to copy but I’ve found that sometimes this very important list is often forgotten about. If you are selling services or products - particularly products in this case - it’s important to list product names, descriptions, pricing, and how much you have in stock (whether it’s a limited number or unlimited), so they can display correct product information on your site, and ensure you don’t oversell anything you might have a limited stock of!

Photos: All pictures that you want on your website! I would also recommend making a note if you want certain photos at specific locations of your web pages as well.

Links: If your website is going to link anywhere within or out, noting where all CTA’s go, and any links to external pages will be important to include in your folder of items for your web designer and make their job easier!

Social Media Connections + Logins: Pretty simple - if you want any of your social media accounts connected to your website, you’ll need to provide the login information for them to your web designer. You don’t have to do this if you prefer to do it yourself, but if you are having a web designer do it, you may need to be involved for few minutes as a lot of social media sites now have two-factor authentication where they send you an email/text verifying that it is you connecting your account to your website.

So that’s it! Hopefully any anxiety about knowing what you need to prepare for your web designer is gone and you can get to compiling all the content to bring your website to life!