Running your own business comes with a fair share of doubt and stress. Will you succeed or will you fail? Will you always be struggling for money? Will you let your friends, family and employees down? These are all common thoughts that run through the mind of pretty much every entrepreneur and business owner.

Another problem is that a large number of people running their own business suffer from what is called Imposter Syndrome. It’s that nagging doubt that sits at the back of your mind when you’re in a room with other entrepreneurs, and you feel like you’re not meant to be there, that any second someone will point at you and shout ‘they don’t really know what they’re doing!’

It’s always common, especially when comparing yourself to other business owners, to feel like they’re doing it better than you, that they have their process more established, that they utilise social media better than you. The truth is these doubts all stem from a fear of success, an unwillingness to embrace the success you have.

In Australia, we all grow up to make sure we don’t brag, that we don’t appear like we are better than anyone else, which is why business owners are so hesitant to embrace their own success. Living like this is not healthy and can lead you to a path where you passively impact your success and your business, damage relationships and fall into states of depression and anxiety.

I am not immune to this feeling, and I have developed ways to work through it to ensure I embrace my successes.

Stick to Just the Facts, Mate

Make sure that you are looking at the reality of the world around you and not some construct that you’ve created. Be brutally honest with yourself and ask hard questions. What are the facts about the situation? Do you think your success is luck? Was that failure really your fault?

If you have staff, engage in a conversation with them about your management style. What’s the feedback from them? If they give you good feedback, accept it. Don’t assume that they’re hiding their negative opinions from you.

Use the feedback formula, ‘What did I do well, and what could I do differently?’ to get balanced feedback. But ensure you don’t ignore the positive feedback for the negative.

From here, create a positive feedback file. Whenever someone pays you a compliment or gives you good feedback, pop it into this file. This way, when you’re doubting yourself, you can dip back into this file to remind yourself that you really are good at what you do.

Knock Perfectionism on its Head

You can make mistakes, you are a human being after all. A lot of business owners who suffer from Imposter Syndrome do so because they know their field so well. This gives them the ability to hone in on the areas of their field that they don’t know, which could be a recent industry change or a new piece of technology.

But perfection is impossible. It’s an unattainable goal. You can work on managing your perfectionism problem by taking it easy on yourself, be realistic about the consequences of failure, and perhaps even making the odd (small) deliberate mistake, and then seeing what happens. Did the world end? (Hint: no, it didn’t!)

Take Care of You!

Looking after your basic self-care needs is crucial for getting on top of Impostor Syndrome. When we’re hungry, tired, or in poor health, we’re more susceptible to listening to the unhelpful thoughts that swirl around inside our heads.

Step back and look at yourself. Are you taking care of yourself? This could include eating, sleeping, not exercising, overusing stimulants like coffee, and not getting enough time alone or time with others. There will be times that you do this, especially if you’re successful; however, if you don’t look out for this and take a step back then you can get yourself into some serious problems.

Be Realistic about Your Competitors

We tend to compare our own thoughts – the deepest, darkest thoughts and feelings about what we ‘know’ about ourselves – with what we see of other people. The fact is, everyone you come across is holding up a mask to who they really are inside, comparing yourself to what you see, and trying to match it is going to cause you problems.

When we do this, we are not really doing ourselves justice. You could compare yourself to a competitor’s success based on their turnover of occupancy and their revenue, but the reality is they may treat their staff terribly. Or you might look at another competitor’s social media accounts and be amazed at the interaction you see, but they pay for likes and comments on Facebook.

You’re better off comparing yourself to someone else’s business and considering everything they have and do and then comparing this, honestly, to your own business – you will find that you probably stack up evenly when all things are considered.

Decide to Thrive

There’s a great TEDx talk by Tanya Geisler that reminds us that we can, indeed, decide to thrive. Ariana Huffington’s book, Thrive, talks about her ‘obnoxious roommate’ in her head, and how she’s managed to ensure that she makes her an ‘occasional guest appearances,’ to live a life that matters.

Whatever you call your inner critic, you don’t have to be held prisoner by what is just another set of unhelpful thoughts – of which we will have many every day, and most of which we manage to ignore. But some of us give far too much time to our inner critic.

We don’t choose most of the thoughts in our heads; they just show up – but because we don’t choose them, we can decide not to take them seriously. We don’t have to consider our inner critic a voice of truth.

Instead, tune in to your direct experience of life, rather than your mind’s running commentary, and empower yourself to move your life forward in the direction you choose.