The Social Media Takeaway - Louise McDonnell

Imposter Syndrome: How to Overcome Self-Doubt for Career Success

• Louise McDonnell • Season 1 • Episode 30

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In this week's episode of the Social Media Takeaway, I am delighted to be joined by Cara Quinn, a career interview and mindset coach, founder of Stellar Impact and the creator of The Sparkle Cards. In this episode, we discuss practical strategies for overcoming imposter syndrome, including identifying self-doubt, reframing negative thoughts, and building confidence through actionable steps. Cara also introduces her Sparkle Cards, a unique tool designed to help individuals combat self-doubt and boost their confidence daily. 

Guess what? You get to have 20% off on Sparkle Cards if you use my discount code  "SELLONSOCIAL20" only valid until the 28th of August!

Check out Cara’s Sparkle Cards here! 

Whether you’re struggling with imposter syndrome or seeking ways to enhance your self-belief, this episode offers valuable insights to help you thrive in your career.

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Louise McDonnell:

welcome to the social media takeaway. I'm your host, Louise McDonnell, and this is the show for coaches and consultants that want to learn how to use social media as an effective sales tool. If you enjoy the show, please make sure you subscribe. And if you know of any friends or colleagues or even business networking groups that you think would enjoy the show, please do me a favor and share a link with them. Today I'm really delighted to be joined by Cara Quinn. Cara Quinn is a career interview and mindset coach, and she is the founder of Stellar Impact and the creator of The Sparkle Cards, which we will be talking about a little bit later on. You're very welcome to the show, Cara.

Cara Quinn:

Hey Louise, it's so lovely to be here. Thanks for having me. I'm looking forward to our chat.

Louise McDonnell:

Oh, great. Do you want to maybe start by maybe giving us a little bit of your story, please?

Cara Quinn:

Yeah, of course. Okay. So I think my story really, the best way to explain it is that I'm actually a very different person now to who I was before. So it all kind of starts with that turning point. And that's kind of the basis of everything. So if I think back to Who I used to be and tried to explain a little bit about the old Cara, say she was a bit of a drifter. I had just kind of drifted my way through life. I had a decent career, you know, I worked in recruitment nice big fortune 100 company and did well, well enough, wasn't blowing anything out of the water, but I, I did good. But I had no real passions, no real goals, no real excitement, hobbies, even I think behind the scenes, I really lacked confidence. I worried about everything, like Stuff that I used to put myself through in my head was just crazy. Any, any opportunity, anything that come up and I would talk myself out of it and I would just think of all the worst possible outcomes are all the scenarios and things that could go wrong. And I really kept myself in this little bubble where I just kind of, as I say, floated I, I had a very negative mindset as well. I just didn't, didn't believe in myself. Massive imposter syndrome. And I'm sure I know it's a big thing. A lot of people talk about it, but you know, you can put on a facade at work and you can appear to be doing well, but actually beneath the scratch beneath the surface. And I was a wreck, you know, as I got into like meetings or whatever. in the organization I worked and maybe I was with like senior leaders, I had just be quaking in my boots and totally paranoid that, you know, I shouldn't be in this role. If anybody asks me anything, I'm not going to be able to add value or I'm going to end up looking stupid. And so I spent my whole life just panicking and it was just a desperate way to be. But. Essentially that's all played out both in my personal life and in my work life and I hit a rock bottom. I hit a rock bottom and it's your typical midlife crisis, right? 40 turning 40 the reason why is life just wasn't turning out the way I had anticipated. Okay. I thought. And this is a little bit personal, but I thought I'm gonna be like, my only real goal or passion if you were going to think of one was that I'd get married and I'd have a family and have kids and career was just something by the by. It didn't really matter because this was all I was really meant to do was to have this like nuclear family and do what everybody else does but that didn't happen. And so I found myself. Turning 40 was nothing what I expected to have, and I got really, really low and depressed and I really had such bad self-worth. I thought I was useless. I really did. Like I the what I put myself through, I was completely ashamed of myself and what everybody thought of me. I know it was so desperate, but you know, sometimes you've gotta get to that real low point before you realize. Oh, hang on a minute. There's a different way. I had literally no idea. There was another way of being or thinking the stuff I would have talked to myself about, especially after having a few drinks, you know, what I would think of myself was just shocking, but this was the low point. And thankfully I got thrown into the world of personal development, which I had never looked at, never explored. And all of a sudden I've got a book in my hands that's guiding me through. Like, how do you look back at your past experiences? What are your belief systems? Where's all this coming from and how to work through it all. And I'd say like in a weekend, my whole outlook on life changed. Everything changed. I was, I became a completely different person and I couldn't get enough of it. I needed more and more and more. So I started, that just started me on the trajectory of like. What else can I read? What else do I need to learn about? I got into NLP and I just read books and books and books and books and started applying everything I learned into my life and my life just completely changed. Like, all of a sudden, I could like, where I would have worried for things I saw potential. I saw opportunities where I had just put the barriers up and said, no, no, no, I don't do that. Cara sits in the background. Cara doesn't do these things. I was like, well, why not? I am going to do these things. I moved out of a house that was cold, damp, depressing. And I thought it was all I could ever have because I was too scared that. Oh, maybe one day you'll get made redundant and you won't afford a bigger mortgage or just silly things. I started to go, if I'm not going to have the life I wanted, then I need to create the life now for me. So I started to find all my passions and my passion really became about mindset and personal development and just live into your potential because I can't remember if I said there, but my career was actually all in recruitment. And in recruitment, you've got such exposure to see and people, you know, on their career trajectories and what they're doing with life. and I used to interview so many people and I'd see them coming into the room and a lot of them would be internal. And I'd go, hang on a minute, this person is outstanding at their job. They're amazing. Why can they not tell me this in their interview or why, you know, other people not even applying for the job because they didn't think about it. That'd be good enough. I just recognized myself and so the language we use about ourselves and I was hearing it. So once I became aware of it with me. I could then start to see it with everybody around me and I went, Oh, wow, this is major and it's playing out with people that you think have it all sewn up, but actually they don't like these are things that challenge so many people. So that was the, that was where it all kind of started. I went, I loved my job. You know, it was, it was nice for me at the time, but it wasn't enough for me after that I wanted something more and I wanted to bring in my passion, my new passion now that I'd finally found one.

Louise McDonnell:

Tell me, how would you spot, like what are the red flags. So when you were sitting in an interview somebody comes in and you're like, Oh,

Cara Quinn:

There's a lot. There's, body language to start with. That's obvious. But those first impressions, you know, they really do. People can't meet you in the eye and you know, we're looking down or whatever. That's obvious, but actually the language people use and they can be just subtle little words and things that slip out. People rush to tell you what they don't have or what their gaps are rather than. Sell them what they do have, and you can just hear it throughout everything they say, but just probably the, the language in both aspects in terms of how

Louise McDonnell:

Give me an

Cara Quinn:

example. I'm

Louise McDonnell:

intrigued.

Cara Quinn:

So like, if they could start an example going, Oh, I don't, I don't know if this is exactly what you're looking for, but you know, they're already starting assuming they're on the wrong foot. Do you know they're already starting going Oh, I haven't done quite as much as I would like to, but this one time, you know, it always starts. With that or they're not happy when you know they're coming to maybe giving you an example of what they've done and you've got to talk about like something really the impact you've had and the positive and they play it right down and they'll be like, Oh, but you know, and yeah, like it went well or it was okay and so and so helped me or so and people can't take credit for things. There's so many ways it seeps through, but when you're tuned to listen for it, you just know it all comes down to people's self belief.

Louise McDonnell:

And Cara, why do you think it's so prominent? Why do you think it happens? Like why, why is there, why, why do, and people probably don't even realise that they have that issue, like where does it come from?

Cara Quinn:

I think it starts from the minute we're born and everything we experience in life. I think no two people experience life in the same way. Right. So it's all the filters. We make meaning of all our experiences based on our own Past how we're brought up, you know culturally what we've been told about ourselves, what we thought about ourselves at some point, and we look for evidence to prove our own beliefs. So we've just programmed ourselves from the get go and that's why you could have you ever like gone and watched a film or sat in a meeting and come out and had a completely different reaction than somebody you're with and you kind of go. did we just like sit in that same meeting and we focused on two completely different things and it's because the things that are important and you've trained your brain and you've trained your subconscious mind to watch out for certain things in line with what you believe in life about yourself about the world around you. And that's why nobody's reality is the same. So if from the start, you've had little experiences that you've maybe as a child. believe to certain thing about yourself because of a child's brain has maybe thought this and now you're still carrying that through every day because it's a belief you've created. So it could be the small people think you need to have this big trauma that's It's happened to you in life that's really shattered your confidence, it can be the smallest thing that happened at school and someone's laughing about you or saying something silly and you've taken that, but you then look for more and more evidence of it and you believe it and you believe it and you believe it and you're carrying those childhood thoughts right through to the end of the day. Adulthood and it's impacting how you behave all the time.

Louise McDonnell:

Oh God, but isn't it good to know that like there is health out there. Now I know that you have, you, you really followed through and you wanted to create, you know, because obviously all of it, a lot of this is intangible. It's a conversation with so many, it's training with so many, it's coaching with so many, but you wanted to make something that people could actually Hold on to, and to help them change their mindset, tell us about these wonderful sparkle cards.

Cara Quinn:

Right. Oh my god, I love them so much. So these are my brand new cards. They are my absolute passion project. And it came about, well, came about for a couple of reasons. First of all, I've done a lot of work in mindset and that was great. That gave me the courage. To leave my job, right? And I went, okay, I can do this. I can take this risk. Risk averse car is going. I can make this happen. I'm asking you think you've got it all sewn up because you know, some of these tools, but actually you're constantly being tested the old habits, the old thought patterns that they have, and they were deeply embedded with me. They keep coming up time and time again. Yes, I get better, but there's so many different tools and resources that I need to remember to pull on that's gonna help me in every situation. And here as an entrepreneur, I came into it so flipping naive that this is gonna be, yes, I've been called to do this. I've found my passion, and everything's gonna be hunky dory from now on in. Well, it's not. You still gotta, you still gotta work at it. You still got to have resilience and have the tools to keep, keep moving forward. And I find obviously so many different tools through all the work I've done, but also I'm coaching people. As much as I coach and I coach people and I run workshops for corporate organizations as well to help their employees find a growth mindset and overcome self doubt. And I became aware that yes, I can give them tools in the moment and I can give them a few exercises to do and they might go away and do that once and that's great. Or come back to me and have their homework done, but that's not going to change how they think overnight. There's no one tool or technique that's going to fix somebody's mindset and rewire their brain for success, right? So it's like, they need, everybody needs to just have a variety of quick, easy tools that they can kind of embed into life. Every day, and that way it just becomes natural and practice and they're like, Oh, I know how I can help myself rather than, you know, a workshop learning something and then forgetting about it a couple of days later. But the reason why it actually popped into my head was because I was trying to. I was going through a tough time myself going where's my next class. Where's my next money coming from? I have no paycheck anymore. And I was trying to calm my mind and thought, I'm going to, I'm going to meditate. I'm going to sit still, I'm going to breathe. I'm going to just try and relax and meditate. And as I did, I just kept getting all these ideas about confidence, just like bursting into my head. And I was like, Oh, I can't meditate very well. I can't stop thinking. And then I went, I just need to go to my laptop. And I just brainstormed out. There's like a hundred and something ideas about building confidence. And then I went, Oh, I know how I can use this. and so it became sparkle

Louise McDonnell:

and they're gorgeous. So these, just for anyone who's not watching us we, these are beautiful cards, like the quality of them is absolutely gorgeous. So if that's the first thing you notice and they feel so lovely, but do you want to talk us through what they are?

Cara Quinn:

Cause they are, yes. I haven't even done that yet. So Sparkle, they're basically 52 cards. They're empowering action orientated prompts that you can just build into your everyday life that will help you overcome self doubt, build confidence, deal with whatever challenges that you've got coming up. So on one side, They are beautifully designed and illustrated as like a quick reminder of the tool that you want to practice. And then on the other side, there's more like deeper content to actually explain how to apply the tool into your life. And so the thinking is, you know, if you just need a bit of motivation or a bit of inspiration, you can. Pick a card each day, or you can work through them methodically, whatever works for you. Learn them, use them properly, embed them into your life and use them consistently. And your outlook will start to change because essentially this is what I've done. I just didn't have the card deck at the time.

Louise McDonnell:

Brilliant. I really like it. And what a lovely gift.

Cara Quinn:

Oh, like a hundred percent. Everybody I've shown them to go, I know exactly who needs this. Cause we all, we all know people who struggle with confidence and self doubt. So everybody's got somebody in their life. That's like, I'd love to be able to give these to this person. And yeah, I'm definitely hearing a lot of feedback like that as well. For a gift.

Louise McDonnell:

Yeah. What a lovely gift, even for yourself or for somebody else or for your employees or even for like, if you have teenagers in the house and that, like they're. you know, they, they struggle as well. So I think, yeah, to, to tell them, yeah, you're brilliant. You're fantastic. You know,

Cara Quinn:

totally. I mean, these are the sorts of things I always look back and go, did we never get at school? Now, I think maybe there's much more of this than there used to be when I was growing up, but I literally had no idea there was another way of thinking or being all these tools existed that can help you. So I think it's so important to get as many different Resources out there that are going to help people. And obviously people resonate with and use going forward.

Louise McDonnell:

Exactly. Exactly. Okay. So for anybody who's listening in here we're going to give you the links of how you can go find those cards. But like if somebody wanted to buy them, where would they find them?

Cara Quinn:

They will be found on my website. So that is stellarimpact. co. uk.

Louise McDonnell:

Fantastic. Okay. Now, do you want to share a few tips for someone struggling with low confidence? So for somebody, anyone that's listened in here and you read this story resonates with you and you just feel like you need to do something about your own self belief system or your confidence. Cara, share a few tips with us. What's a few things people can do?

Cara Quinn:

I think the first thing, right? So obviously there's loads'cause there's 52 different techniques in the deck, but if I were to boil 'em down to a handful of ones to get started with, that will really make a difference. The first one for me is like, just stop believing everything you tell yourself. Let's start to actually notice what thoughts we're having. What are the stories? So if you're paying attention to how you feel and you're feeling rubbish about something that's generally come on from something you're telling yourself and we often tell ourselves stories that are based in assumptions, beliefs, past experiences. So, you know, for example, if I had a sales pitch. I was going to, I could be tormenting myself with stories like, Oh gosh, so and so is going to be so much better than me. I'm no good at this sort of thing. I'm going to get brain freeze. I'm not going to remember what to say. People that I can't sell, whatever it is. Right. And these are all the kinds of stories that are not helping how you feel. And they're certainly not going to help how you perform and act. So start to get conscious about what you're thinking and go, Whoa, Question it. Is this actually, write them all down. Is this actually true? Is this a fact? You know, am I no good at XYZ? And ask yourself, can I 100 percent say this is a fact? And then start to go, is this just coming from Some old belief I've had or like a past experience and you're generalizing it that you think that's going to happen all the way. And once you've identified that, that actually this isn't true, kind of releases its power over you, right? So that's like, okay, great. From there though. That's good that you've done that, but there's more to build on. So then what you want to do is go, well, okay, to build confidence, I need to start to think about how even if that worst case scenario came up, how do I know I could handle it? How do I know if I could deal with a situation? Step two, like let's look and go, okay, what have I overcome in life? Look at all the challenges that I've overcome. What skills and strengths did that require me to have to do that? I've got those. I've got that resilience. I've overcome everything I've ever had. Look at your achievements. See what you've done. See what you've, see all your wins. We never stop to take a look at, well, I say never. But often we don't really recognize all the things that we've done in life that we should be really proud and reflect on. So doing that reflective exercise of, you know, our achievements, our strengths, our skills. All of a sudden you're starting to build confidence to go, we've already released this as nonsense what we've told ourself, but actually I've got a unique skillset that's really good and it's me, authentically me. I don't need to compare myself to anyone else. So that's good. Then you can start to get practical and think, okay. What can I do to prepare or prevent this awful thing from happening that you've told yourself? And that's about taking control. So you know you've got skills, what, what are the actual things? can I practice my pitch? Can I get advice from mentors? Can I go learn a skill? What are all the actual tangible things and start to apply them? And that way you're taking control, you're taking action. And you're moving in the direction of controlling all those fears, knowing that you've got the strengths to see it through. So those are the things that are key. Then, then it's actually like I mentioned earlier, start to watch for your language. And watch for your body language, both of those together, you know, often if you start to just track the things that you say, we, we disempower ourselves so many times, you know, by putting ourselves down, even if we're joking, our subconscious mind is still listening and believing and you can laugh it off, but you're just reinforcing that old thought pattern and negative belief about yourself. So only let yourself say positive things about you. And not go down the old stories because that just reaffirms them and then just like the obviously hold yourself like you want to be seen and what does a confident person look like to you visualize that person visualize who you want to become and start to act that and speak up. Finally I would just say, have a toolkit. For things that will help reenergize you, because those are all very clear, tangible steps to take to help like reframe, reframe, you know, what you're thinking and all of that stuff. Believing in yourself, but often if you are in a situation where you're just feeling rough and awful, you can't go down a real logical route like that. You just actually need to unplug, let yourself, you know, get away from it. So what are the things that help you in any moment of distress? Is it getting out for a nice walk or a run or doing some yoga or, you know, listening to music, whatever it might be. You find out what tools work for you to bring you back and then have those at any time at hand that, you know, you've got them. And I think those are some of the key ones anyway, I would

Louise McDonnell:

I think that's really good. I'm actually just listening to you and I suppose stop listening to people who, who put you down as well. I presume that's another one. Like, if there's somebody who, is Expressing their negative mindset on you. Don't listen to them, I suppose.

Cara Quinn:

Yes, a hundred percent. Trust yourself. I think, I think it all comes down to trusting yourself and your own skills. Actually, there's a card in there to your point called clean out the negativity. I think that's the other thing. Like, what are we taking in every day? Whether it's other people's views about ourselves, those people that bring you down or are a negative influence on you, as well as like, that could be the social media accounts that bring you down, going through, reading comments of trolls. Like, how does that make you feel? If it's not making you feel good, There's no benefit to it. Just get rid, clean it out, fill your, fill your area, fill your input, fill it all with like things that are gonna make you feel empowered and good and positive and happy.

Louise McDonnell:

Yeah. So, so follow social media accounts that are going to empower you and I suppose even to look at your own social media content to make sure that, you know, you're reinforcing the positive things about yourself as well. And as you said, I think that's a really good point because you do hear people joke a little bit because I think, I don't know if it's an Irish thing that, you know, you don't want to be, you can't really get ahead of your station and, you know, so, you know, you have to, you have to stop thinking like that. Because that's, it's not going to serve you. So watch out for that as well. Yeah, I think. And so when people come to you for coaching, is it that they have like something coming up and they just want to prepare for it or is it, you know, it's a, there's like, or there's something that repeats and that they need to just get better at how it works.

Cara Quinn:

Yeah, it can be a whole range of things. So some people will come just saying, you know Like they can be really like senior in their careers or like outwardly looking like they're doing fab but going kind of like I mentioned that I was in work and going underneath I'm feeling rubbish about meetings feeling rubbish about presenting. I just need to find a new way of being confident or some people just want more direction to help find their passion and. To know how to go and get it that they can believe that they can do it. So there can be those steps where it takes a bit of time to really identifying the goals, identifying the dream, knowing why I think knowing why is a massive thing because we've essentially wired our brains, our whole lives to think and be the way we are. So if we've done that in a way that puts us down, it's very, very hard to change it. And it's it can be, and it can be uncomfortable to make that change. So you've got to know why you want to do it. If you don't, the motivation's not there. So you've got to really think about why it's important to you, how your life is going to be different when you start to. Dismantle all those old thought patterns and, and think of a new way of being so, yeah, we work through a lot of stuff like that. And then we do the tools and techniques to build out that way and how they're going to get there. Sometimes it's people just want a total change in direction and careers. Sometimes people just come for a specific interview, or, you know, like they've gone, help me out with this, and it will be the practical aspects as well as the confidence building and things like that.

Louise McDonnell:

Oh, that's really good. Well, Cara, so how do people find out more about you? And where do they find you on your socials?

Cara Quinn:

LinkedIn. I am Cara Quinn coach on LinkedIn. My business page is called Stellar Impact and that's the same on LinkedIn. On Instagram it's stellar. impact. And yes, there are the two that I use most on my website is stellarimpact. co. uk

Louise McDonnell:

Brilliant. Well, I want to wish you every success with your new Sparkle cards. I think that if for anyone who's tuned in that even just wants to, you know, just to give themselves a taste or to get started, they're lovely. They're, you know, they're lovely and they're really going to help you. And then if you need any more help, reach out to Cara, cause she's a sparkler as well. Thanks so much Cara.

Cara Quinn:

Oh, thank you so much, Louise, and I really appreciate the opportunity to come on and chat to you about it. It's so lovely to connect again.

Louise McDonnell:

So lovely too. Take care.

Cara Quinn:

Thank you. Thanks Louise.