Imposter syndrome — Blog posts for self improvement and personal development | Increase confidence and self esteem

The Secret Signs of Self Doubt & How to Stop the Destructive Habits

Self doubt’s a sneaky little snake, isn’t it?

You find yourself struggling to get anything done, failing to find your mojo and feeling like you’re just not doing a good enough job.

I’ll let you in on a little secret: Self doubt is the biggest thing that’s held me back (+ still does sometimes) in my biz.

I can have the clarity, the strategy, the step by step plan, the motivation + all the excitement in the world for what I’m doing but the second there’s a hint of doubt in the air, game over.

I’ll admit, it’s not easy to spot.

There’ve been times where I’ve been stuck in overwhelm, procrasti-scrolling for weeks at a time and then not understanding why I haven’t been achieving the success I want.

Business, Confidence, Imposter syndrome, Mindset work, Overwhelm, Self worth, Self beliefRebecca HawkesFebruary 23, 2023Comment

5 Ways to Increase Your Confidence in 5 Minutes

For years I believed that confidence was only available to the lucky few who’d been born with it.

Growing up, I never felt confident. In groups of people I’d feel shy and nervous, standing up in front of the class left me a nice shade of beetroot and when teachers put me on the spot and expected an answer from me, my voice would crack, palms would sweat and I’d want the ground to swallow me up.

Confidence, Imposter syndrome, Mindset work, Self worthRebecca HawkesOctober 20, 2022Comment

HOW TO GET OUT OF A FUNK, FAST

I find it quite amusing that the day after I got the idea for a blog post about getting out of a funk, I wake up in a funk myself.

When I talk about being in a funk, I mean:

Feeling agitated or irritated
Feeling frustrated or overwhelmed
Struggling to make even the simplest decisions
Having a lack of direction or focus
Losing interest in anything and everything
Not knowing what to do with yourself

And the longer we’re in a funk, the harder it is to see a way out of it.

Here are my tips for getting yourself out of a funk, fast:

Business, Confidence, Imposter syndrome, Mindset work, Self care, Self worthRebecca HawkesJune 30, 2022Comment

9 WAYS TO INCREASE YOUR CONFIDENCE IN LESS THAN 10 MINUTES

We could all do with a boost in confidence from time to time, couldn’t we?

In this blog post, I’m going to share with you 9 simple ways you can increase confidence and self esteem in less than 10 minutes. Because, let’s face it, we often neglect our mindset work because we feel like it’s going to take too long to see results or we have more important things we need to focus on.

But the thing is, when we work on increasing our confidence every day - even for just 5 minutes - we begin to build solid confidence foundations that we can rely on to help us be more productive, be visible online and go after our goals.

Affirmations, Confidence, Imposter syndrome, Journaling, Mindset work, Self belief, Self worthRebecca HawkesApril 14, 2022Comment

HOW TO STOP COMPARING YOURSELF TO OTHERS

We can’t help ourselves, can we?

We open up our social apps (through boredom) and we’re met with feed after feed of shiny, successful, beautiful women smashing all their goals, raking in all the cash and achieving the success you’ve been dreaming of for years.

Part of us wants to feel inspired by their success - if they can do it, surely it’s possible for me too? - but the truth is, seeing other women soar as we’re stuck in struggle leaves us feeling like shit.

So we find ourselves in a pity party, wondering why we’re not good enough and feeling like a failure.

Comparing ourselves to other women creates self doubt and when we’re doubting ourselves, we can’t achieve what we want.

HOW TO USE AFFIRMATIONS TO CHANGE YOUR BELIEFS

Affirmations are all about changing the way you speak to yourself and reprogramming the beliefs you play on repeat.

Beliefs like “I can’t do that”, “I’m not confident enough” and “who would want to listen to me?”.

Instead of repeating these negative phrases - that have now become our beliefs - we swap them for positive phrases or positive affirmations.

For example:

I can’t becomes I can

I’m not confident enough becomes I am confident in everything I do

Who would want to listen to me becomes my audience need to hear what I have to say

But when we’ve created our affirmations, how do we then use them?

Confidence, Mindset work, Self belief, Self worth, Imposter syndrome, Comparing yourselfRebecca HawkesMarch 24, 2022Comment

DON'T LOWER YOUR PRICES, DO THESE 3 THINGS INSTEAD

Pricing stops many social media managers in their tracks.

You may spend a few weeks increasing your confidence, finally feel like you can increase your price and then no one signs up within the first week.

So you instantly want to lower your prices back down.

Here’s the thing, it’s going to take you just as much time, energy and effort to sign a new client at £200 per platform as it would £600 per platform. And my guess is, you’d much rather a handful of higher paying clients than armfuls of lower paying clients that just about cover your bills…

So before you think about dropping your price just to hear a yes, do these 3 things instead.

Business, Social media manager, Pricing, Self worth, Imposter syndrome, ConfidenceRebecca HawkesFebruary 4, 2021Comment

11 COMMON PRICING QUESTIONS FROM SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGERS, ANSWERED

I recently asked my Instagram community what their biggest struggles were when it came to pricing their services as a social media manager and in this blog post, I’ll be answering their questions and a few of the most common ones I get as a Pricing Coach.

Let’s dive straight in:

I’m not sure what the ‘right’ price point is

This is such a common question and I’m sure one every single social media manager has asked at some point in their journey.

The truth is, the only ‘right’ price point is the one that supports you and your needs.

There’s no magic, universal price that all social media managers should be charging.

Your price comes from two things:

Business, Social media manager, Pricing, Self worth, Imposter syndromeRebecca HawkesJanuary 28, 2021Comment

3 PROBLEMS A NEW SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGER FACES & HOW TO OVERCOME THEM

When I became a social media manager I soon found that instead of the laidback, 4 hour work day I was expecting, I had a handful of full time clients, a head full of anxiety and a heart full of regret.

When you start a business, you fear that you won’t make enough money to pay your bills so you accept offers that you shouldn’t. You take on more work for less money because you feel like you’re supposed to say yes to everyone that wants to work with you.

Pricing, Self worth, Social media manager, Imposter syndrome, Confidence, Business, Finding clientsRebecca HawkesJanuary 4, 2021Comment

HOW I WENT FROM CHARGING £37.50 TO £400 PER PLATFORM AS A SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGER

In February 2017, I launched my business as a social media manager and a few weeks later, one of my friends got in touch about me launching and managing a Twitter and Pinterest account for her business.

In my excitement to have my first official paying client and wanting to give my friend a good deal (mates rates and all that), I charged just £75 a month to manage BOTH platforms.

What’s even worse than charging peanuts for a shit tonne of work is that I actually gave her a whole month FREE because imposter syndrome got in my head, telling me I hadn’t done enough.

The truth was, I’d found it so easy to set up and optimise both accounts, I didn’t feel like I could call it work. How could I charge for something that came so easy for me?

Confidence, Self worth, Imposter syndrome, Business, Pricing, Social media managerRebecca HawkesOctober 22, 2020Comment

WHO AM I TO BE SUCCESSFUL?: HOW TO OVERCOME THE LIMITING BELIEFS THAT HOLD US BACK FROM THE SUCCESS WE DESERVE

If you’re an entrepreneur, chances are this has happened to you.

You thought of an idea - either a new business or a new service/product within that business - got lost in a whirlwind of passion, excitement and enthusiasm for how you’d bring it to life.

You spent hours mapping things out, creating a task list for all the steps you needed to take and had an excitable conversation with someone you love (who still doesn’t really ‘get’ what you do) about this awesome thing.

You couldn’t sleep, you forgot to eat - you were so engrossed in making your dream come to life.

But then you stopped.

You woke up one morning feeling less excited, less passionate.

Doubts started to creep in.

What ifs started to show up.

Overwhelm hit you like a ten tonne truck.

TACKLE IMPOSTER SYNDROME IN 10 SIMPLE STEPS

Imposter syndrome is common amongst social media managers and can be a huge reason for why we’re not signing the clients we want, showing up online or charging our worth.

When I started my business as a social media manager in 2017, I’d never heard of imposter syndrome.

But I was experiencing a lot of self doubt, thoughts of ‘who am I to be doing this?’, worrying constantly that the (great) results I was getting for clients weren’t good enough and when I was finding things simple and easy to do, I felt like a fraud.

Imposter syndrome, Confidence, Business, Affirmations, Journaling, Mindset work, Self care, Self worth, Social media managerRebecca HawkesNovember 4, 2019Comment