There is something about being surrounded by intelligent and talented humans that sends us right back to junior high. Feeling like we don’t fit in and not wanting to be found out in our discomfort.

For many of my female clients, it’s even worse when they are also struggling with their own physical insecurities. Not only do they start to fee like an impostor but they start to see everyone around them as some sort of a Stepford Lawyer. Everyone else is the total package, Elle Woods with the brain of RBG.

When you compare yourself to others, it sets you up for the great cop out.

Believing that others have “it” and we don’t, that we aren’t one of them, justifies our Grand Exit.

Those beliefs allow us to give up on ourselves. To quit before we even try. They completely set you up for failure.

If it were true that you either have “it” or you don’t or you’re one of them or you’re not, then OF COURSE, it would be perfectly logical and justifiable to quit. It wouldn’t make sense to continue. If we were playing monopoly and you didn’t have a board piece, there would be no sense in playing the game. It would make perfect sense to sit it out.

But these are not facts! There is no magical “it”!

There is no biological predisposition for success.

These are things you are choosing to believe. And you are choosing them because they justify your lack of trying. It’s easier to believe you don’t have “it” than to force yourself to keep trying and failing until you succeed.

These beliefs justify failing before you start.

When we believe we just don’t have it, we’re not one of them, it is our brain’s way of keeping us safe and protecting us.

Your brain is wired to keep you safe. In the cave. Away from things that might hurt you (lions, tigers, and judge-y lawyers, oh my!). Your primitive brain does not want you to try new things or put yourself out there. It wants you safe on the couch, hands full of Doritos, guzzling wine, high on dopamine. It wants you to commit to believing you aren’t one of them so you can get your ass back on the couch where the scariest thing you will encounter are re-runs of the Real Housewives of New Jersey.

Lawyers come in all shapes, sizes, backgrounds, educational levels, pedigree, etc. We need lawyers of all kinds because humans are not cookie cutter.

Some clients do not want an Elle Woods-RBG hybrid. They want someone who reminds them of their daughter, their trusted friend, someone they can relate to, someone they deem trustworthy or “normal”.

When you tell yourself, “I’m not one of them,” you are setting your brain on a mission to prove that thought true. It sets your mind on a collision course with everything you have ever done wrong and every area you have ever come up short. It will prove to you, without a doubt, that you my love, do not belong. You gave your brain an assignment (“I don’t belong”) and it’s going to get to work demonstrating the truth of that thought.

Buying into those beliefs blocks your innate ability to see it any other way.

If you commit to opening up to the opposite truth, imagine what your brain could show you. If you can consider “I am learning and struggling just like everyone else…we all have our challenges…perfection is an impossibility…they all went through the same things I’m going through,” imagine what your brain would show you to prove those thoughts.

How would your life change if you carried those possibilities with you?

Instead of fleeing from these people around us who seem to have it all together, what would it be like to engage them, learn from them, be inspired by them? I promise you, the closer you get to those Stepford humans, the less Stepford and more plain human they will become.

Stop putting others on a pedestal.

Stop making yourself less than. You are giving up on yourself so that you don’t have to run the race. That, my friend, is not a pattern you want to become skilled at. That is the recipe for a life un-lived, a life without discomfort.

Impostor syndrome is not a thing. Let me prove it to you.

We’ve come a long way, baby, so why is it that we often struggle recognizing our own value?

It’s easy to overlook your value in the legal world – it’s like being in junior high and everyone seems to be smarter, prettier, wealthier, and just generally BETTER than you.

So many of your colleagues will be well-traveled, highly educated at the best schools and private universities, they’re wealthy, well-dressed, well-spoken and have loads more experience than you do. When you spend your day thinking about your colleagues that way and admiring their accomplishments, eventually those “observations” of others turn inward to self-judgment. 

When we find ourselves feeling less than and comparing ourselves to those around us we must stop and recalibrate lest we run ourselves into a nervous breakdown.

Re-calibrating means, sorting our the facts from our nasty little thoughts. Are they really better educated than you? All law schools have those at the top and those at the bottom. Just because someone went to a “better” law school than you, it doesn’t necessarily follow that they are smarter or better than you.

Those are just stories you are telling yourself in your head.

Being a great attorney is so much more than the fancy degree. We all know lawyers from the greatest law schools in the nation who were terrible with people, get lost in the details, or were terrible public speakers. We all have our assets — don’t overvalue the degree and ignore the rest.

Of course they will have more experience than you!

Aside from your cohort group, nearly everyone else at the firm will have more experience than you. The secretaries and paralegals will know more about practicing law than you. Do not turn this simple fact into something negative. Do not go down the spiral of shoulds — I should have gotten a better internship last summer, I should have taken the corporate tax class, I should have done moot court, blah, blah, blah, get over it.

These are all ways to deflect what is really going on — you are thinking that they are better than you and you are jealous of their experiences. That’s it. Nothing magical here.

Very human nature-y of you.

Recognize those thoughts and emotions and instead consider how fortunate you are to be surrounded by their experience and knowledge so that you can learn from the best. You are on the same team. Do not forget that.

Need support deciphering the lies you are telling yourself? Sign up for a FREE mini-session. Get the mess out of your head and get back to work!

And then my favorite little cherry on top,

So FREAKING what?

So what?! So what if they are better dressed and look the part more than you do in your discount store suit and knockoff purse? Who cares? Why do you care?

Force yourself to ask why these little differences matter. What are you making it mean?

Then force yourself to really look at the positive aspects of your life. If you are going to beat yourself up, at least give equal air time to an examination of your positive attributes.

You did graduate law school, after all. Did you even stop to consider how that might be someone else’s dream?

And you are living it.

Don’t take someone else’s dream for granted.

As I’ve said, there is no right way to “do” life; neither one of you are doing it wrong.

The problem is simply that you are focusing on what you perceive to be the negative aspects of where you are and how you are experiencing life and you aren’t giving yourself space to examine why your approach to life is perfect for you.

Give yourself room to acknowledge and recognize that you are doing it right FOR YOURSELF. No one else. And they are doing it right for themselves. Period.

Everything else is just useless noise. 

The reason it is so essential to ask yourself “so what” about all these nasty little comparisons you have crafted is because it forces you to really examine why you are subscribing to those thoughts. It forces you to ask — are those criticisms or observations serving you?

Sure, you might believe they are true and some of them might be based in facts (her purse IS a designer purse and yours is from Target) but how is that observation serving you? What are you gaining from carrying around that thought. What type of other lovely thoughts emerge from that one? My guess is those self-criticisms are simply spawning more loveliness in your head.

Why would you ever choose to start that chain reaction?

If it is not serving you, let it go. Even if it’s factual, who cares? Why bother dwelling on it? It’s making you feel terrible and it’s not getting you anywhere.

Release it and move on.

There is so much to learn from your legal practice and so many ways to grow. Do not sidestep that growth by treating yourself as “different” from your colleagues. Embrace your unique value, take an inventory of your accomplishments, and do not get caught up in the comparison game.

Use that energy to better your career rather than belittle it.