The self-sabotage of self-doubt
Now that you’re familiar with some of our backstory, let’s get back to seizing your yay. And what better place to start this chapter than with some words on getting started? The many new beginnings Nic and I have embarked on over the past few years, including not only Matcha Maiden, but also more recently, writing this very book, have revealed to me that the hardest part of almost any endeavour is rarely its unfolding or implementation, but simply mustering up the courage to commit to it at all.
You might have picked up this book because you’re dreaming up your very own side hustle or business idea, considering a dramatic life change or simply looking to new projects that will incorporate more joy into your life in smaller ways. Regardless of where you’re at on your own way to yay, the very first step to making those dreams a reality will generally be the toughest one you make. Not necessarily in terms of what taking that step physically involves, but more in the mental and emotional challenge of taking it.
Enter the notorious impostor syndrome and my enduring favourite motivational quote on the destructive effect of self-doubt from American poet, writer and philosopher, Suzy Kassem: ‘Doubt kills more dreams than failure ever will.’ Each chapter that follows covers a different major facet of seizing your yay to build on the last as you work your way through the book. The creeping sense of self-doubt triggered by anything novel and unfamiliar is, at once, one of the most natural and common – but also destructive – human tendencies. It can send unsettling, disparaging voices through your mind, leading you to question the worthiness of your ideas, your abilities or even yourself. I suspect that this internal ‘I’m not good enough’ dialogue may sound very familiar to many of you. The resulting lack of confidence and uncertainty can lead to sabotaging reactions that nip dreams of all kinds in the bud before they ever have the chance to get off the ground and, ultimately, prove those limiting beliefs wrong.
You might assume that the further you progress or the more successful you become, the less you’ll worry about being a fraud or otherwise unworthy but, in my experience, not even the most successful and confident people are immune from its clutches. Particularly when Matcha Maiden really started to flourish and grow, I found myself expecting to wake up with a staunch confidence that would create an impenetrable armour against impostor syndrome but (spoiler alert) that day has not yet arrived. So, for any of you struggling against self-doubt or feelings of unworthiness as you approach the new or unfamiliar, please know that you are absolutely not alone nor are those feelings and later success, fulfilment or joy mutually exclusive. Let me reassure you that you can harness and use those feelings to your advantage once you learn how to manage them.
Rather than ridding myself of self-doubt and nerves, I now interpret these feelings as healthy markers that I am invested in what I’m doing and not becoming complacent. In fact, I would worry if they ever disappeared completely. Though the distorting and unsettling whispers of impostor syndrome do, I assure you, still pop by for a cuppa at the most inconvenient of times, I’m getting better at distinguishing them from reasonable and useful self-evaluation, acknowledging their presence then simply moving on. Like any great skill, mastering your inner critic takes repeated and dedicated practice. It will, I promise, get easier with time. Even as I acknowledge my worries that this book won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, I also know our story has already provided varying degrees of inspiration and guidance to people. I hope that this longer expression of it can do the same, and more, for others.
The many times along this journey where self-doubt nearly toppled me have shown me the terrifying cost of letting fear scare me away from my dreams. How tragic it would be if I’d never found out what I was capable of purely because I couldn’t believe it was possible. Sure, every single one of your ideas might not work. Various obstacles or bumps in the road (the ‘nay to yay’) might stop certain dreams of yours from coming true, but they might also redirect you to even better ones. As our story, and the stories of many successful people, demonstrates, those obstacles could mean things work out better than you ever imagined, if you just give them the chance.
Our close call: how Matcha Maiden almost didn’t happen
Allow me to run you through an example of how my self-doubt very nearly sabotaged Matcha Maiden before she was even born. Reflecting on this close call years later, with the benefit of hindsight, has made me desperately passionate to help others distinguish between reasonable concerns and the fallacies of impostor syndrome. As I’ve mentioned, at the start, our goals for Matcha Maiden were quite conservative. At best, we envisioned it being a one-off side hustle that would allow us to sell the excess powder that we couldn’t consume ourselves and recoup a bit of cash in the process. At worst, we would fail to sell anything at all, in which case our net position would be almost the same as it was if we’d never had the idea at all – so it wasn’t really a ‘worst case’ at all. In hindsight, this was a relatively low-risk endeavour: we’d already paid for the stock, both of us were keeping our existing income streams and we were investing very little funding into the infrastructure in favour of a DIY build-your-own-website, pack-your-own-product situation.
But of course, impostor syndrome isn’t remotely rational. Amid all our excitement, self-doubt crept nimbly into my mind from the beginning. Rather than focusing on the opportune gap in the market, our combined transferable skills and the fact that we had very little to lose even without those things going for us, I became consumed with the barriers, limitations and every way that things could go wrong (which, to be fair, is exactly what lawyers are trained to excel in, so my journey has involved a lot of unlearning). Among the most glaring barriers was, undoubtedly, the fact that we had absolutely no qualifications or experience in importing, manufacturing, or food.
If you are considering a similar life change or new project, I don’t necessarily recommend choosing the option that’s the furthest possible one from your strengths and experience to jump into headfirst, like we did. However, even if you do, you will find out over the coming chapters that this is still no reason why things can’t work out wonderfully. In fact, sometimes the naivety and untainted perspective of being a complete outsider can actually work in your favour. But it does mean your self-doubt radar might go off with a special fervour reserved just for those full-body leaps outside of the comfort zone.
This was precisely the case the very first time I nervously pitched the idea for Matcha Maiden to a third party beyond our immediate family to get some feedback or pointers in the right direction. Nic and I were, and still are, very lucky to be surrounded by friends who also happen to be wonderful entrepreneurs and business owners who have forged a path ahead of us and shared their knowledge and resources generously many times over. The importance of who you surround yourself with in the crucial stages of a new beginning (or any time, really) is such that it has its very own chapter later in this book: ‘Building your yay-bourhood’. But people whose support and guidance warrants mentioning early on are the founders of Frank Body, the coffee scrub and skincare sensation that broke the internet and catapulted Aussie businesses onto the global landscape.
Prior to founding Frank Body, three of the founders had started the copywriting and creative agency, Willow & Blake. Nic had been heavily involved in that company early on, leading us to develop a great friendship with those women and the two lads they later developed Frank Body with. In the weeks before we launched our business, I turned to one of the lovely co-founders Jess Hatzis to run our little business idea by her. I wanted to temperature check the structure of our business, as well as the name, logo and launch strategy that we had planned with someone who knew the ropes.
I’d known Jess for a couple of years by this point, and I really admired her business brain, creative vision and humility (which I have continued to admire through our years of friendship). Since the power of a good first impression is universally acknowledged, you’d think I would have pushed our idea to its most optimistic limits and put our very best foot forward when presenting Matcha Maiden to Jess. After all, this was the first external feedback we’d ever had. And yet, reading back through our Facebook conversation years later informs me that my choice first words were that I was working on ‘a mere imaginary distracting time-passer at work’ that probably wouldn’t go much further than a daydream. Not the strongest of openers in hindsight.
Thankfully, I did mention very briefly that we had a great opportunity to be the first to market matcha in this health-focused way, as well as the many wonders and beneficial properties of the powder itself. But the bulk of my message was taken up by
a) apologising for taking up her time;
b) emphasising that I knew this was a ‘terrible idea’ that ‘probably won’t amount to anything’; and
c) retracting all of what I’d said anyway, because it wasn’t worth asking about to begin with.
So strong was the intensity of my impostor syndrome that I was pre-empting our complete failure before we’d started. Now, with a more objective perspective, a bit of maturity and a lot of self-work, I can see those feelings were a natural protection mechanism – which is not, in itself, a bad thing – but, if I’d given too much weight to those feelings, they could have prevented us from starting Matcha Maiden at all.
You’ll have gathered by this point that I did eventually end up emerging from the vicious sea of self-doubt so that we could start the business, and it didn’t crash and burn in its first few days as I had feared. But now you also know how easily we could have scrapped the idea altogether had it not been for Jess’ warm encouragement stopping me from falling over the edge. Much to our surprise, it turned out there were so many other people around the world waiting for someone to close the gap for accessibly and well-marketed matcha. Thanks to them, we somehow sold out of everything including our own personal stash of matcha powder within a mere seven days of launching our online store.
To prove how ill-equipped and unprepared we were for any kind of growth or success, we couldn’t even find the original matcha tea supplier’s details to re-order the product, having never anticipated that we’d need to use them again. And yet, at the time of writing, we’re still here over five years later, several million serves of matcha deep, with warehouses in Australia, the United States and Europe, and supporters including Victoria’s Secret Angels, elite athletes and leaders in the health and wellness industry. As I write this, the ink is barely dry on a new investment partnership opening up a bright-green future ahead. And we almost stopped ourselves ever knowing it was all possible.
Those very early stages of choosing whether to begin at all truly exemplify the theme of this chapter, and still give me the biggest rush to reflect on. It astounds me to think we could have very easily been scared off from trying and never seen how wonderful Matcha Maiden could become or what other opportunities it could lead to. This makes me passionate about helping others recognise and challenge their self-doubt reflex and have a chance at overcoming it. I don’t mean to say thoughts of self-doubt should disappear altogether – I believe they are a healthy indication that I care about what I’m doing and that I haven’t developed a blind spot to my weaknesses or areas for improvement. It’s more that I want to illustrate the dangers of letting those thoughts dictate your decisions at the expense of your dreams. My hope is that you can learn to acknowledge them with a knowing smile, but gently push them aside and get on with things.
Strategies for dallying between ‘this is shit’ and ‘this is great’
To help you face these kinds of inner negative chitchat, I want to share some of the strategies that have proven useful in overcoming, albeit not completely extinguishing, my self-doubt. The undeniable frontrunner of these, for me, is the impact of the company you keep. As I mentioned, this topic of building your support network or, as I like to call it, your ‘yay-bourhood’, gets its very own chapter later, but it warrants mentioning here, too, because a feeble inner voice, no matter how negative or overwhelming, can rarely stand up to an outer expression of positivity and affirmation from those you love and admire. The flip side of this is that an unsure and doubtful voice will strengthen if it finds itself among a choir of other voices reinforcing its negativity.
If Jess had responded to my pitch with scepticism or been disparaging about our idea, this would have fuelled my self-doubt and given it enough weight to change my decision. Matcha Maiden would have been stopped in its tracks on that very day. Instead, her reassuring, encouraging and supportive response helped quieten my fears of failure and tip the balance back towards believing we might actually be onto a good thing.
'A feeble inner voice, no matter how negative or overwhelming, can rarely stand up to an outer expression of positivity and affirmation from those you love and admire.'
How terrifying and strange it is to think that a Facebook conversation of barely a few lines could become a crucial sliding doors moment that would make or break an entire business idea – one that ultimately changed the course of our lives completely. Yet, that’s how delicate the balance between ‘this is a bloody awesome idea’ and ‘this is a sure path to failure and humiliation’ can be. Small things, like a trusted friend’s support at the right moment, can make all the difference.
It turns out that giving Matcha Maiden the chance to flourish not only resulted in one successful business, but also opened up a world of subsequent brand-new beginnings that we might never have known were possible. In another signature midnight-idea-turned-business-opportunity, we opened a now world-renowned, plant-based Melbourne eatery Matcha Mylkbar in 2016 that Chris Hemsworth named his favourite café in Australia (so I can absolutely now retire). Then in 2018, I launched my human interest podcast, Seize the Yay, which is fast becoming a brand of its own that’s drawn millions of downloads tuning in to interviews with inspirational guests such as entrepreneurs Gary Vaynerchuk, Miranda Kerr, Wim Hof, and over a hundred more. In the conception and early planning phases of both projects, that delicate balance of internal confidence was permeated once more by dreaded impostor syndrome, which sent whispers of uncertainty and irrational fears into my already overactive mind. But this time around, I was better equipped to acknowledge and set those feelings aside.
To this point, you’ve been hearing a lot about my experiences, but these themes are also recurring and reflected in the stories of so many others. Recently I found myself quite unexpectedly on the other side of the table (both literally and figuratively) from someone I thought would have no issues with self-doubt. The very clever and prolific Lisa Messenger, author of several books and the founder of Collective Hub, has become a dear friend of mine, and I feel very lucky to have advanced from embarrassingly excitable fangirl to good friends. We caught up for a coffee (or, should I say, matcha) to chat about life when she casually mentioned that she’d been told several times that she should start her own podcast. Though she had considered it briefly, ultimately, she had dismissed the idea and moved on.
I was immediately excited by the idea of Lisa doing a podcast – especially with Collective Hub evolving from a print magazine to a multi-channel digital empire. I agreed wholeheartedly that she would make an engaging and exciting podcast host. I was curious as to why she’d decided against it, and expected to hear a completely acceptable response about her already jam-packed schedule or interest in pursuing other projects. The very last thing I expected to hear from this incredibly talented and entrepreneurial woman was that podcasting was already a highly saturated market, with so many great shows out there to compete with. Lisa explained that she wasn’t sure what she could add to the crowded landscape, let alone figure out how to get started in terms of equipment, design and production.
I immediately set about explaining not only how simple the set-up process is, but also how infinitely valuable it would be to add an audio dimension to her regular delivery of thought-provoking, inspiring content. We ended up in hysterics about the irony of me giving this advice to her; after all, she was the one who taught me (along with many others) that a highly saturated market is the perfect market to disrupt; inundation proves appetite and, because we all add our own distinctive spark to our work, no two ideas are really the same anyway.
This brings up yet another important aspect to the self-doubt dilemma: we are excellent at quelling everyone else’s self-doubt but not our own. You already have every single tool you need to dispel your doubts; you probably exercise them regularly and with ease on behalf of those you love and care about yet forget them completely when it comes to yourself.
Hence why the support of those around you is so important when it comes to something as small as a Facebook conversation or coffee/matcha date, or as big as literally investing in you and your ideas. It follows that you should very carefully choose those you have around you so that, in times of need, you turn to people who will support and not crush your dreams (see chapter 5). It is still important, however, to also develop your own internal strategies to lean on at those moments when big dreams and ideas hang in the balance. As any self-work does, these strategies may take many years to curate and perfect – they have for me – but being aware that it is possible to overcome your internal impostor dialogue is a great first step.
'You already have every single tool you need to dispel your doubts.'
As a side note, while I use my transition into the business world to demonstrate the pervasiveness of self-doubt, that’s not to say it didn’t also affect me in my legal career, too. I skated over the details of the corporate part of my career not because I was consistently confident, but simply because self-doubt affected me less in that world than when I changed careers and industries altogether. I had studied law and undergone work experience for almost seven years to prepare for my job as a lawyer, so while the learning curve was steep, I was not nearly as unprepared and bewildered as I was going into business for myself. Nonetheless, self-doubt was still a big factor for me back then, and when applying for promotions or other opportunities, I turned to books like Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In and Dr Lois Frankel’s Nice Girls Don’t Get the Corner Office to help me push through those feelings of low confidence.
No matter what your work or whether your goal for seizing your yay is personal or professional, the discussion here applies. Above all, cultivating self-awareness and knowing yourself are what will help you move forward. The following strategies are examples of things that have worked for me and those in my network. I encourage you to experiment with these and tweak them to find what works for you.
Strategy 1: Power posing and physical confidence cues
One of the easiest and most effective ways to combat feelings of self-doubt is to redirect your focus and energy towards building confidence. While there are always external realities at play, it is often how we perceive those realities that has the biggest impact on how things turn out. I once believed that we are helpless victims to our feelings and thoughts, and sometimes we are. But, over time, I have learned how much more control we have over our thoughts than we think. We are not powerless to direct them. In fact, building strong pathways and strategies to combat unhelpful thought patterns is crucial.
One of the coolest strategies I regularly use is one I only recently stumbled across. It’s based on the impact of our physical behaviours and body language on our internal mental and emotional state. There are some wonderful physical cues you can turn to when you find yourself in the clutches of impostor syndrome. Back in 2016, when we were just two years into Matcha Maiden and still feeling very new, I was booked for my very first speaking gig at The Wellness Festival, put on by Colour & Coconuts in front of an audience of 500 people. This was positively enormous to me at the time (still is, in fact) as I’d never spoken to an audience for longer than five or ten minutes, let alone for an hour, which was the slot I was given on this occasion. I remember feeling manifoldly more intimidated and nervous because the line-up I was joining included women I had been admiring and fangirling over since we had started the business (if not well before): model Rachael Finch; Melissa Ambrosini, author of Mastering Your Mean Girl (the inner critic or voice of self-doubt being the ‘mean girl’); Lisa Messenger; Julie Stevanja of athleisure disrupter Stylerunner; and Carla Oates of The Beauty Chef. I have absolutely no game face, so I made no secret of how nervous and awkward I was feeling about taking the stage when I met these wonderful women in the wings.
I will always remember getting the loveliest pep talk from Rachael, who has been a huge support throughout this whole journey. She talked to me about how nerves were completely normal and how we had been chosen to speak because we had something valuable to say. Then, just before I went on, Julie took me aside to introduce me to the beauty of the power pose, which I had never heard of before then. We stood there together for several minutes, hands on hips, shoulders pulled back and legs planted solidly shoulder-length apart like tree trunks, allowing the pose to work its magic on our confidence. I have resorted to the power pose backstage many times since then to calm the nerves and restore my confidence before a big event and think of Julie every time.
The power pose Julie and I discussed is the brainchild of Amy Cuddy, a professor at Harvard University who studies body language and the impact it has on your hormones. She talked about power posing in her TED talk, and about the psychology behind our physical body language and internal confidence. To briefly summarise, Amy’s team’s research looks at ‘high power’ and ‘lower power’ poses and the impact those poses have on certain hormones in our body. Low-power poses are quite closed off and guarded; they tend to be the positions we default to when we’re feeling uncertain or unsure of our abilities – hunched over, arms across our bodies and physically shrinking into the space. High-power poses, in contrast, are more open, physically expansive and relaxed. These have been shown to increase feelings of power and confidence – you’re physically taking more space in the room and asserting yourself.
The most well-known of these, and the one Julie so generously introduced me to, is called the ‘Wonder Woman pose’. You do it by standing tall with your legs slightly apart, throwing your chest out, popping your chin up and placing your hands on your hips. Of course, this isn’t a magical catch-all solution that will instantly instil miracle abilities and confidence in you by itself. It is, however, a valuable tool in the toolbox that can have a positive impact on your confidence levels.
There are many other researchers out there looking at the close links between our physical behaviours and the way they cue our emotions (as well as how others perceive us). Like many scientific papers, Amy’s study has been hotly debated, particularly her original claims that power poses increased testosterone levels in the person posing by 20 per cent while decreasing the stress-hormone, cortisol, levels by 25 per cent. Amy has since published new findings, however, offering ample evidence that expansive postures can, in fact, make people feel more powerful by providing little ‘self-nudges’ to produce psychological and behavioural improvements in the moment. I won’t get too science-y on you, but I mention power posing and other non-verbal cues because they can be an important strategy to help you feel more confident and boost self-esteem in those pivotal moments where you might otherwise crumble with self-doubt.
Through trial and error, you may find your own, completely different physical behaviours to help combat the impostor syndrome and instil confidence – one size does not fit all in the case of self-doubt quashing, confidence-building cues. One of my favourite real-life examples of using physical behaviour to enhance confidence is Lisa Messenger’s pre-game strategy for speaking. She’s a seriously impressive entrepreneur who can whip out a solemn game face when needed, but I absolutely love what a crazy cat she is at heart. While I’m off in a corner taking things very seriously and power posing myself into being ready to deliver a talk, Lisa is off in her corner, dancing away to a deep house playlist before every single speaking gig – more my pre-game ritual for the gym than combating self-doubt. This works so well for her that she’s even released her own deep house track for shits and giggles.
Some of you might turn to energy-releasing activities like a short run, or even venture into the quirky or superstitious. Author and speaker Tony Robbins starts his presentation mornings in a freezing cold pool, while NBA star LeBron James throws chalk dust in the air before each big game and there are countless other examples among the world’s best and brightest. If something works to help you feel more confident, who cares what it looks like or how ‘weird’ it might seem objectively? It’s worth investing some time and energy into investigating the behavioural and environmental factors you can tweak to help improve or focus your mindset.
Though I hadn’t encountered the power pose before Julie introduced it to me, I was already fascinated with the relationship between our physical behaviours and confidence during my corporate career. I mentioned the book Nice Girls Don’t Get the Corner Office earlier, and it probably speaks to how much softer I was back then that Mum gifted me this book when I started at the firm to prepare me for the tougher environment (I’m a serial confrontation-avoider and self-proclaimed lover of the ‘fluffy’ and ‘huggy’). Our physical behaviours don’t just cue internal confidence, they also project outwardly, influencing the way others respond to us, which can also provide an internal confidence boost.
I highly recommend reading this book – it’s full of fascinating examples and pointers. For example, nothing irks me more or reveals insecurity than a limp handshake, but I’m equally put off by an overly confident introductory shoulder dislocation. Reading this book taught me not to sit meekly at boardroom tables with my hands folded underneath, but rather to lean forward with my forearms on the table in order to be more actively part of the discourse. The book covers all sorts of small details and behaviours including how speaking at a higher-than-natural pitch might make you come off as less serious, or how using only your nickname might lead to people underestimating your authority. It’s so easy to underestimate the impact of even the smallest behavioural cues.
Visual cues to inspire your inner yay
You might discover that your confidence-boosting prompts come not so much from physical activities but from tweaks to your environment. I personally find visual cues and affirmations to be extremely helpful for guiding my thinking in the right direction. I have always been a great lover of plastering impactful motivational quotes around my home and desk as a sort of safety net to spark positive thinking in case I lose track throughout the day. You might already know that I’ve even gone so far as to publish a Seize the Yay flip book filled with motivational quotes and positive affirmations to perch wherever you need them most (because there are only so many Post-it notes you can go through).
In her book Happy, Healthy, Strong, the delightful Rachael Finch describes how she uses positive affirmations before going on camera or in other vulnerable situations to bring back the confidence and positivity she needs. She describes self-belief and confidence so beautifully as being like building a house: it takes dedicated time and effort, and involves lots of different elements, which help contribute to making it an overall home and keeping you safe. If you’re not into wall art, you might find other techniques or environmental factors like mood boards or a playlist uplifting and reassuring. Whatever cues make you feel stronger and more resilient in the face of self-doubt, embrace them as wholly as you can and as often as you need.
Strategy 2: Journal through the fears
In some scenarios, it makes sense to dash to the bathroom and whip out a two-minute power pose before you head into a meeting or jump on stage. In other situations, a quieter, gentler approach might be more suitable, particularly outside the context of real-time events or moments in time, such as the longer-term endeavour of starting a business. Many of us are aware of how important it is to carefully consider how we speak to others around us, but too often we forget to monitor how we speak to ourselves – after all, you might actually be listening. Self-dialogue can be another incredibly important tool in quelling the destructive whispers of impostor syndrome, and one of my favourite ways to do this is with a journal.
Like the power pose, journalling was a strategy I only discovered a few years after starting Matcha Maiden (although that never stopped me accumulating piles of beautiful journals to save for a rainy day). While it would have been great to have had the clarity and focus a good writing session can provide in the early days of our business, I’ve wasted no time catching up since then and now lean heavily on my journal not only in business but also as a tool for managing my mental health.
Journalling is a well-recognised, fantastic and powerful tool for any kind of self-work, but it’s particularly good for boosting self-confidence. While it might seem a little odd to sit in front of a mirror and have a full-blown conversation with yourself out loud (although each to their own, I wouldn’t begrudge you if that worked well for you), turning to a journal to download and help reorientate all your thoughts or talk yourself around to a positive mindset is probably an easier and somewhat less awkward option for most of us.
'Self-dialogue can be another incredibly important tool in quelling the destructive whispers of impostor syndrome.'
A great proponent of the power of journalling, unsurprisingly, is Kristina Karlsson, founder of Swedish stationery brand Kikki.K. I’ve had the pleasure of spending time with Kristina on several occasions, including one of my very first podcast episodes, and I’ve heard her speak about how putting pen to paper at 3 am one night led her to the idea for Kikki.K. Kristina grew up on a small farm in rural Sweden but moved to Australia in her early twenties with her partner, Paul. They were living pay cheque to pay cheque at the time and she was overwhelmed with adjusting to a new country, language and culture. She also had no idea what she wanted to do with her life. In the middle of the night, she was awoken several times by this disorienting question, so Paul suggested she write down some of the things that were important to her as a starting point – to help her get some direction.
Kristina now refers to this as her ‘3 am list’, and views the process of writing all her hopes and dreams down, and casting aside all limiting thoughts and beliefs as a profoundly pivotal moment in her life. With no university degree, training, experience or money to start the business, Kristina grew the dreams on her 3 am list into a global stationery empire with over 100 stores all over the world and 250+ stockists covering 147+ countries. Like many international retail businesses, Kristina’s business has had its share of challenges and ups and downs, and through the toughest of times she credits her daily journalling with keeping her balanced, positive and focused. Her daily morning routine includes three pages of conscious writing, pouring out everything she is thinking and feeling. She says this helps her explore how fears or risks might be keeping her stuck, as well as helping her work through ways to move forward. Her book, Your Dream Life Starts Here, includes a section called ‘The Power of Putting Pen to Paper’, and a companion Kikki.K Dream Life Journal with worksheets and journalling space accompanies the corresponding chapters of the book.
For some of you, a similar approach to Kristina’s might help you get some distance and perspective from feelings of self-doubt, and help you observe and sort through them rather than being swept up completely. Writing things down helps us see them from a new, more objective perspective than when they’re left bubbling around unchallenged in your head. For me, this has been useful not only when dissecting feelings of self-doubt, but also during crippling bouts of disorienting anxiety. Sometimes, what might seem hugely scary or overwhelming in your mind is nowhere near as scary once you’ve made it real by writing it down on paper and confronting it head-on.
By journalling and exploring how we honestly feel in a safe space, away from what others might think about what we’re saying, we can face up to those fears and evaluate them with more clarity. In the case of self-doubt, this process often helps us realise that those fears are irrational and over-exaggerated. As in Kristina’s case, this then makes it easier to start identifying areas we are getting stuck, as well as turning our minds to possible ways to move through them. Sometimes, the process itself is cathartic too; getting doubtful, unhelpful feelings all out of your system and onto paper helps you acknowledge and then move past them.
Focus on the yays, not the nays
If journalling about your fears and doubts doesn’t appeal to you, then you may benefit from writing down the things you are confident about. For some, the benefit might come from writing down your goals and the things that you are confident about in order to get closer to them. You might not be so easily able to remember your strengths and all the reasons you are, in fact, equipped for what you’re about to embark on in your mind – where things undoubtedly get messy and carried away – but writing them down can help you stay focused on them. It can be a great way of realising that your doubts make up a much smaller piece of the pie than you initially believed.
I’m sure I’m not alone in having spent far too much time criticising myself and identifying areas I wanted to improve in while spending very little time turning the tables and committing to writing down the things I’d done well or was good at. If I had spent a little more time on this kind of affirming journalling before we started Matcha Maiden, I would have been able to see that my existing skill set and strengths, as well as Nic’s, were actually quite relevant to the process of getting a business off the ground. I would have seen that we weren’t nearly as unqualified or unprepared as we thought we were, even if we weren’t directly qualified or experienced. Highlighting your skills and abilities in this concrete way, rather than focusing repeatedly on areas you’re lacking, can give you a huge confidence boost and reassurance when you need it most.
There is, in fact, scientific data on the benefit of committing your goals to writing and positively visualising them coming to life. A goal-setting study by Gail Matthews PhD from the Dominican University of California found that people were up to 42 per cent more likely to achieve their goals if they wrote them down – that’s huge! From a practical viewpoint, goal-oriented journalling encourages you to whittle down the lofty, vague expressions of the goals swimming around in your mind into a clearly defined, properly articulated written expression. From a scientific viewpoint, this process increases the chances of you pushing through the disruptive feelings of self-doubt and fear to make that goal happen.
Writing down a goal and, even better, creating a process map or ‘mind map’ of how you’re going to achieve it or visualising its implementation, encourages and guides your brain into cooperating with the plan. It also introduces elements of tangibility, measurability and accountability into the exercise, which you don’t have when your goals are left unexpressed. Writing down your vision makes it easier to set out the concrete steps you need to take next, and harder to walk away from when you’re feeling uncertain or unmotivated. There is a permanence or seriousness to seeing your goals on paper that doesn’t apply the same way to ideas that you haven’t yet articulated outside your own thinking space.
Some people might say that there are better ways to journal than others, but there’s no universally accepted technique for this process of downloading things from your mind. You might find that it’s not so much the individual entries that are helpful to you but rather the comparison between several – showing how far you’ve come in a certain time, proving your self-growth and giving you milestones to celebrate. You might find that journalling simply helps relieve the stress and tension caused by bottling up feelings you feel you can’t express elsewhere. After all, it’s harder to stay positive and motivated when you’re stressed out and emotionally or physically exhausted.
Like everything on your way to yay, the strategies that work for you will be deeply personal and involve a bit of trial and error. I have experimented with lots of different lengths, durations, pens, pages, line distance, colours and everything else you could think of to work out exactly what helps my mind-mapping process the most. Journalling might make your impostor syndrome worse or it might not do much at all, but it could also lead to a breakthrough and become a vital tool in your confidence toolbox. Next time you’re having trouble orientating your thoughts or feelings, try putting pen to paper and seeing what happens.
Workshop your worst-case scenario
This strategy is very personal and anecdotal, but it’s one I find most useful when facing self-doubt, and that’s to talk a situation through to its worst-case scenario. A big component of self-doubt or impostor syndrome is fear: fear of failure, fear of looking silly, fear of rejection by others. Confronting that fear head-on strips it of its power. Whether it be something you write about in your journal or something you discuss physically with a trusted friend or family member, I find that actually talking about or writing down the things that could go wrong makes them far less intimidating and overwhelming. I feel the same way about horror movies; the build-up of suspense and terror is all-consuming until you catch a glimpse of the monster. Then you can process what it is only to realise it’s not nearly as bad as you thought when you let your mind get carried away.
This approach doesn’t necessarily work in cases where the risks involved are quite substantial, so I don’t recommend it if you’re embarking on something that involves a huge financial investment or a similarly sizeable risk, as it will only highlight that there is a lot at stake and that things could go quite badly. In those cases, I suggest seeking the assistance of a professional who can run you through those scenarios with an experienced and realistic eye. That said, in many cases, the worst possible outcome isn’t nearly as terrible as we think and this process helps me reflect on whether my self-doubt is rational, and based on real risk, or simply a protective mechanism that pops up when I do something new or outside the comfort zone. Usually I end up convinced that there’s nothing to rationally fear at all and that nothing awful or life-shattering is going to result from my decision, even if things don’t go well.
In other cases, this process can highlight areas for me where I can actually act to reduce the possibility of things going badly. Potential problems I might not have otherwise considered come up when doing this and being able to troubleshoot this way instils more confidence in me that now we are equipped for things to work out as we plan. For me, this exercise constitutes a big part of my journalling when working on my confidence levels. If I’m feeling stuck, or crippled by worry or lack of self-belief, I will sit down for a few hours and really investigate what my fear is based on and try to dissect it to make it less overwhelming.
It can provide you with the perspective you need to put your impostor syndrome in context and see it as an emotional reflex rather than the truth about your abilities. If the worst-case scenario isn’t really that terrible, then everything that goes according to plan (or better) counts as a fabulous bonus. You can even flip the conversation into what I’ve heard referred to as ‘reverse paranoia’, which is when you start focusing on all the reasons why you could end up with your best-case scenario. Again, it’s just a mental exercise of putting things in a ‘yay-frame’ in a way that’s helpful rather than destructive. I continue to be reminded about how happiness is much less about how things are and much more about how we see them.
In the case of Matcha Maiden, as we were going to be stuck with the stock we’d purchased either way, there wasn’t ultimately going to be a financial impact if we failed to sell any product at all. The net result of putting Matcha Maiden out there was that not a single tangible thing would change, unless it were a positive change and, hence, a bonus. When Nic and I workshopped Matcha Maiden together, the only potential negative result we could identify is that we might feel a little silly having put ourselves out there with this grand business idea that didn’t ever work. We look silly most of the time anyway, so that was no biggie at all.
'I continue to be reminded about how happiness is much less about how things are and much more about how we see them.'
In general, I think many of us grossly overestimate the amount of attention others are paying to the finer details of our lives. Even if we do look silly to a few people for a few moments in time, is that really such a big deal in the grand scheme of things? If a small dent to our pride was the very worst that could happen, we weren’t risking much at all, and any small success we had in selling even one bag would be a wonderful bonus, let alone if the business eventually took off and did well. Once we put that into perspective, suddenly the whole thing didn’t seem so scary, risky or impossible, and a rush of confidence came back in.
Of course, six months later, after our fledgling business took off we had to talk through a new worst-case scenario as I weighed up whether to walk away from a stable income and steady career to take a financial risk on a business idea that had no guarantee of growing big enough to replace my wage. By that time, however, we had given the business (and ourselves) some time to at least prove it could generate some profits and grow to a point where it wasn’t as financially scary to make the jump. This time, if things didn’t work out and the business was a flop, we’d be down the cash that we had already spent (no small sum, but also not a devastating loss in the grand scheme of life) and I’d have to go back to a job as a lawyer. By this point in my legal career, I’d established a good reputation and some great relationships, and I knew I could either apply to the same firm again or find work at a similar one. It was no longer mid-GFC, and I was past the entry-level graduate stage where thousands of candidates were vying for very limited positions. So, again, the biggest risk we faced was a small dent in our pride and a few months of our lives.
I have come back to this strategy of talking things through over and over. Since becoming better at managing impostor syndrome, I’ve become a serial starter of new things. When launching our café and my podcast saw me return to the throes of doubting myself, I turned again to this strategy to help me get a realistic grip on my creeping doubts that I was unworthy and unlikely to be able to pull it off. As with Matcha Maiden, I had no technical experience in hospitality or in podcasting, so journalling to write down all the relevant skills I had was not going to be helpful or confidence-boosting in these particular situations. What was helpful, however, was meaningfully exploring the worst-case scenarios and realising they wouldn’t signal the end of the world.
From a nuts and bolts perspective, Matcha Mylkbar was intended as more of a pop-up eatery to begin with, so, along with our business partners, Nic and I did most of the physical fit-out ourselves and we only needed a modest investment to get it off the ground. Similarly, the Seize the Yay podcast was relatively low stakes: it began as a non-monetary creative hobby to legitimise my desire to chat for hours with interesting people, and the only investment required was the purchase of some entry-level equipment that could be easily on-sold if I chose not to continue with it. Allowing myself to explore all the possible outcomes of these projects helped me to get a true measure of the worst-possible situation and weigh it up against the best-possible outcome to make informed decisions accordingly. Rather than acting on the impostor syndrome and deciding against beginning at all, talking down the risks and playing up the potential benefits of giving these projects a go helped allay my fears and bolster my confidence levels.
Flipping things on their head and further pushing that into a ‘reverse paranoia’ exercise also encouraged me to focus my energy and attention on the practical things I could do to increase the chances of success, such as consulting with mentors or upskilling in certain areas, rather than getting bogged down or paralysed by self-doubt and doing nothing at all. A highly effective way to arm yourself against doubting your abilities is to do whatever you can to practically improve them. Self-doubt makes it very difficult to get perspective on these kinds of priorities in the moment. But if you can learn how to acknowledge it then push it aside, you can focus on what you need to do to get closer to your best-case scenario.
Strategy 3: (Neuro)plastic surgery and underthinking
When it comes to mindset, someone I have learned so much from is Shelley Laslett. She’s a neuroscience coach, CEO and co-founder of Vitae, a start-up adviser, strategist, social scientist and many other things. Shelley and I met, of all places, in sunny Fiji when we were speakers at the Nurture Her immersive business retreat (another example of a place I could never have dreamed I’d get to work in). I was blown away by her keynote speech on the neuroscience of leadership.
We stayed in touch afterwards, and I was lucky enough to have her as a guest on my podcast. We spent an hour diving deeper into the topic of rewiring neural pathways to improve confidence, performance and happiness, and the discussion blew my mind. Her version of upskilling to keep self-doubt and worst-case scenarios at bay involves completing a masters of neuroscience to add to her other qualifications. But even at her level, she brushes this off as knowing nothing compared to the ‘real scientists’.
Shelley refers to the above forms of self-dialogue and self-investigation as presenting the opportunity to perform ‘(neuro)plastic surgery’ on ourselves and rewire unhelpful thoughts and perceptions. She describes her coaching work as helping others get from where they are to where they want to be, but she reminds her clients that they are their own brain surgeons with the control and metaphorical scalpel in their hands. What patterns of thinking can we cut and hack? What processes and negative thoughts or stories we’ve been telling ourselves can we completely scrap from our thinking? After all, nothing and nobody can make us feel anything internally without us first giving it or them our permission. And, luckily, we have a ‘braking system’ thanks to our prefontal cortex to change the way we respond to those factors.
The crux of the techniques that Shelley teaches is that we need to be able to think about our own thoughts and reflect on them. She taught me the term for this: metacognition. Metacognition is generally separated into two different steps: firstly, thinking about our thoughts (e.g. I am experiencing self-doubt). Secondly, regulating those thoughts or cognitive processes (e.g. This is an unproductive thought that I won’t let go any further).
Again, without getting too science-y, one of the most exciting emerging areas of brain research is that of neuroplasticity. Basically, our brains are like plastic and our brain cells which form connections, called synapses, create pathways and these continuously change throughout our lives. These connections can reorganise themselves in response to new situations or changes in our environment. Through thinking differently, you can actually train your brain to weaken negative pathways and create new and preferred ones at any time. It’s worth some further research if you’re interested in that kind of thing.
The good news is that you’re not stuck with the ways of thinking that you’re born with. In fact, you can rewire the thought patterns that aren’t serving you at any time in your life. Next time you feel completely stuck or disadvantaged by old, crippling ways of thinking, remember that you are completely able to rewire these negative pathways and leave self-doubt behind. As I’ve mentioned, the goal is not to never feel self-doubt or inadequacy again – overconfidence comes with its own set of problems – but rather to know how to respond to them swiftly and effectively when they do pop by to say hello. Once you understand your thought processes as something you can mould to your benefit, you have so much more capacity for achieving your greatest potential.
In terms of how you actually change a neural pathway, there are many technical scientific examples of neuroplasticity, like the adult brain recovering after a stroke. For our purposes though, there are simpler day-to-day practices that can help reshape your thought patterns that I’ve found extremely useful in managing self-doubt, catastrophising and even anxiety. Two widely accepted ways to rewire the brain’s emotional responses are through mindful meditation and cognitive behavioural therapy, both of which I practise regularly, both independently as well as with a therapist. But even just practising awareness and metacognition to break habitual thought patterns – acknowledging the thought, evaluating whether it’s helpful or harmful and deciding how you want to respond – rather than surrendering to those thoughts can prevent you from spiralling into despair and fear of failure.
'Once you understand your thought processes as something you can mould to your benefit, you have so much more capacity for achieving your greatest potential.'
For example, a concern that plagued me at the beginning of Matcha Maiden was my lack of qualifications or training for the business journey we were embarking upon, and how dire the consequences of that could be. When those doubts returned as we prepared to launch Matcha Mylkbar, I had the skill set to interrupt those fears as soon as they arrived, and counter them. I reminded myself that I hadn’t needed those qualifications to grow Matcha Maiden into a success and learning on the go had served us just fine. Years later, when it came to starting the podcast, my lack of two clues to rub together about audio editing or production barely registered as a blip on the radar (or at least not a big one). I felt the doubts enter and exit my brain barely minutes apart because I had trained myself to acknowledge, then push unhelpful feelings away – and this technique had done wonders for my confidence. Like anything, you get better with practise, so get into that neuroplastic surgery and watch yourself thrive!
Less thinking, more doing
While it is common, perhaps even inevitable, to spend a lot of time thinking and overthinking things before getting started on a new idea or project, there is something to be said for not only cutting out negative thought patterns or thinking through them, but rather skipping them altogether. In fact, this can be a winning strategy in itself to combat the dangers of the impostor syndrome: make a speedy decision and course-correct as you go.
As I mentioned earlier, naivety can actually work in your favour when you first start something new; if you don’t know too much about what lies ahead, there’s less that can scare you away. The founder and global CEO of Business Chicks, Emma Isaacs (one of my greatest role models and friends), wrote a whole book, called Winging It, about the powerful tool that underthinking can be, especially for helpless overthinkers like myself.
As Emma mentions in relation to her personal life, let alone her business journey, some of the best decisions of her life are the fastest ones she’s made. She moved in with her husband, Rowan, after dating for less than a month, they were engaged after six months, married the next year and she was pregnant with their first child three months after that. Emma also bought her company, Business Chicks, on the spot at the very same event where it was announced that the (then-fledgling) networking group was going to close unless someone was interested in taking it over. Rather than give any creeping feelings of self-doubt airtime, or overthink something she knew had incredible potential, she listened to the persistent voice in her head saying, You’d be mad not to do this, and went ahead anyway.
In her book, she explains, ‘If I think about the times when I’ve taken too long to make decisions on things I’ve really wanted to do, the main reason was fear. Fear of not having enough money. Fear that I was not good enough. Fear that I’d fail. When I finally pushed through the fear and committed to the choice I knew deep down I wanted to make, none of these things proved true.’ Since then, Emma has grown Business Chicks into a hugely successful global movement uniting women around the world and creating the largest and most influential network for women in Australia. This organisation has connected thousands of women, raised over $12 million for charity and brought some of the world’s best and brightest minds to Australia including Brené Brown, Gloria Steinem, Elizabeth Gilbert, Jamie Oliver, Arianna Huffington, Seth Godin, Sophia Amoruso and Nigella Lawson.
One of the incredible events on the jam-packed Business Chicks schedule is an annual retreat to Necker Island, Sir Richard Branson’s private island in the Caribbean – such is the influence and network Emma has been able to build. I was flabbergasted but thrilled to be invited to join the 2019 cohort. A week before our wedding, I spent a transformative, perspective-shifting, life-changing seven days with 20 other women and Sir Richard. Stories of the bachelorette party they threw me will come in detail later.
Among the many highlights for me was hearing Laura Brown, the inimitable editor-in-chief of InStyle magazine, speak to us about her journey. Her own way to yay into Manhattan’s elite began humbly on a New South Wales dairy farm. Laura is, among many other things, another huge proponent of the art of underthinking. In an article for Thrive Global, she says ‘Overthinking, to me, is fatal. It is an express pass to self-doubt. Have you ever heard anyone say, “I overthought it, and it came out great!” You haven’t, because it doesn’t.’ She echoed these thoughts when we chatted for my podcast, and truer words were never spoken.
Having started out as a lawyer, overthinking has been one of the hardest patterns for me to break since becoming an entrepreneur. All of my training focused on attention to detail, covering absolutely all bases, and leaving no stone unturned when it came to things that could go wrong down the track. That made it incredibly hard to get things done when I first realised how fast-paced and agile small businesses need to be and held up many crucial decisions in the expansion of Matcha Maiden. But I have gradually learned to flip the underthinking switch and act before I have time to delve into all the possible scenarios.
I’m a personality of great extremes: I’m either overthinking or not thinking at all. This gradual transition has absolutely confirmed Laura’s declaration that overthinking never made anything better. Yes, you absolutely should do some thinking about what you’re about to embark on, but only enough that you can start. The rest can be fixed and updated as you go.
Another thing I noticed very early on about myself when it came to overthinking – something I suspect many of you may share – was a persistent need to ‘poll’ decisions before I’d make them. If I felt particularly struck down by self-doubt, my default move was to ask as many people around me what they thought in order to break my internal deadlock. Coming back to Nice Girls Don’t Get the Corner Office, a major theme of Dr Frankel’s book is that the people around you and the impact they have on your mindset is crucial, but not to the extent that it should prevent you from making clear and timely decisions. Another great learning I took away from her book was the difference between ‘participative decision making’ and the inability to act without knowing what everyone else thinks and whether they approve. You don’t want to let the pendulum swing too far in the opposite direction and live the lone wolf life to the exclusion of valuable input and advice. However, part of underthinking involves being able to move forward without a full questionnaire being submitted to your trusted sources.
'If I felt particularly struck down by self-doubt, my default move was to ask as many people around me what they thought in order to break my internal deadlock.'
If you dare venture a step further down the underthinking, spontaneous decision-making pathway, someone who always brings me right back down to earth when I’ve been swept away by the self-doubt fairies is Mark Manson. You’ve likely heard of his New York Times best-selling book, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck – not to be confused with Sarah Knight’s best-selling and equally impactful The Life-Changing Magic of Not Giving a F**k. (Clearly, we’re onto something here.) Manson’s book can lighten even the dreariest of impostor-syndrome-infested moods thanks to his blunt, profanity-filled reminders that life’s too short to agonise and overthink everything. It has a lot of F-bombs, but his point is clear: there is a very subtle and vitally important art in learning how to focus and prioritise your thoughts effectively. Sometimes, you have to be able to care less about the things that will hold you back from your ultimate yay. It’s all about nailing the perfect fuck distribution.
Manson describes how most of us will know someone who, at one time or another, gave no fucks and then went on to accomplish major things in their life. These, as he calls them, ‘moments of non-fuckery’ are the moments that most define our lives – they are the spontaneous switches in careers or starting brand-new businesses. Manson distinguishes underthinking from indifference or apathy; for him, it’s about choosing not to get bogged down in feelings or emotions that don’t serve you. With every interaction in life we are choosing, and we are responsible for the consequences of those choices. So, he’s another great proponent for less thinking, more ripping of the bandaid and doing the big, scary thing. And while, of course, I don’t mean that you should go completely rogue and not think at all, there is clearly something to be said for just getting things done, which leads beautifully into our next chapter on the art of just getting started.