Peace & Prosperity Podcast
In the Peace & Prosperity Podcast, Jason Phillips, licensed therapist and life coach, shares personal experiences that force you to think deeply about your values, beliefs, and behaviors to ensure you achieve peace, happiness, and success in your life.
Peace & Prosperity Podcast
Trapped by Success: How To Break the 4 Ps of Imposter Syndrome - Episode #85
The Peace & Prosperity Podcast is a bi-weekly conversation with Jason Phillips, LCSW, licensed therapist and confidence expert in Raleigh, NC, discussing all things related to self-love and self-confidence, and how we can improve ourselves personally and professionally.
Ever feel like you're doing everything right but still stuck in self-doubt? In this episode, Jason breaks down the “Four Ps of Imposter Syndrome” – people-pleasing, procrastination, paralysis, and perfectionism – and how they silently sabotage high achievers. Drawing from both personal experience and clinical insight, Jason offers practical tools to help you break these cycles and reclaim your confidence. If you’re tired of running on empty, this conversation is your invitation to pause, breathe, and reset.
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All right, we are rolling and we are back with another episode of the Peace and Prosperity Podcast. I'm your host, jason Phillips, licensed therapist, confidence expert, and today we're going to be talking about the four Ps of imposter syndrome and how this might be showing up and impacting your anxiety. So you're probably thinking, all right, jason, what are these four Ps and is this something that I can relate to? So the reason why we're having this conversation is because I'm noticing, especially with my high achievers, you all like to strive to be the best in every single category and every single aspect of your life, without always kind of taking knowledge how much pressure that is. Have you ever sat back and thought it's a lot for me to show up consistently, take care of everybody, sometimes put my needs to the side and still be okay over and over and over? So it's okay, you can probably do it every now and then, but to consistently neglect your needs and consistently try to take care of everybody else, over time it gets to be exhausting. And these are some of the ways it can really show up for you.
Speaker 1:The first P is people pleasing. You will take care of everybody else because you feel like, well, if I'm taking care of them. They're going to take care of me. Or maybe your needs weren't met. Earlier in life, you've been conditioned to take care of everybody else, feeling like, well, this is what I have to do. To take care of everybody else, feeling like, well, this is what I have to do.
Speaker 1:Maybe growing up, your parents made sure that you were the oldest, so you had to take care of your sibling. Or your parents made sure you were respectful, but also that you put your needs last and other people's needs first. I'm thinking because I'm the oldest in my household. I was the oldest growing up in my house and I can remember being told like hey, don't worry about your sister, or that was the constant theme of making sure that I did not put myself first. So I can remember, growing up, being the oldest in the house with my siblings. It was constantly reinforced that I need to take care of my sister, which I didn't mind it, but it put me into a mode of people pleasing and not really thinking about what do I need or what do I want out of a situation, because I'm so used to making sure other people are good. So this could be you even in your adult life where, yes, you have wants, yes, you have desires, but they're so far at the bottom because, innately, you think about everyone and what else they need. It's cool, but it's not something that's sustainable. So if you find yourself being a people pleaser, let's take inventory of it and do something about it.
Speaker 1:The second P of imposter syndrome that could be showing up for you is procrastination. Yes, I had to say it, because we will think about things that we need to get done. It's like, oh, I have this long to-do list, I need to run these errands, or I need to get these things done at work, or I want to do this for myself, but there's so much that we want to do. We end up doing absolutely nothing because just the thought of getting started is too much. We get exhausted before we even start moving. So in our mind, yeah, you know, when I get off work, I'm going to knock out all of these things. Or when the weekend comes, I'm going to make sure I check off all of these boxes. You have it mapped out.
Speaker 1:It's almost like you can see yourself finishing these things, but good old procrastination slips in and when you start to get going, you're like you know what? I don't. I don't know if I had the energy, or you really don't have the energy physically, your body's like nope, hey, hey, wait. I wanted to get all of these things done. There's like this battle in your mind because you just knew you were going to crush it. You knew you were going to get so far ahead or catch back up. But something gets in the way and it truly does get in the way, where you don't have that energy anymore. It's like all of that energy and motivation that you have is zapped. So now, because you don't have that motivation, your energy is gone. You start to beat yourself up thinking wow, here I go again, saying that I'm going to do something and not following through. So procrastination can turn into man. Now I'm anxious because I didn't do what I said I was going to do. I'm worried. Are people going to think that I'm not as great as I am? Do I? I didn't do what I said I was going to do. I'm worried. Are people going to think that I'm not as great as I am? Do I not feel as great as I thought I was? Am I not who I said I was going to be, or who I am?
Speaker 1:There's all of these thoughts and questions that we have, we start to second guess ourselves because we were tired, we needed a break, but we deem it to be we're just procrastinating. And then that cycle will show up over and over in different spaces and different places. So that's the second. First, we will start people pleasing. Second, we will start to procrastinate. Third, we will get into paralysis. Y'all have heard the saying before analysis paralysis where you don't do anything because you just feel like I don't know what to do right, like you get like a brain freeze, or should we say a life freeze, where we can't move. It's like I don't even know where to start. I'm so overwhelmed because if I do something, it's got to be great. I can't half-ass anything. If I can't give it my all, I'm not going to do it.
Speaker 1:So there's these thoughts that we have, these beliefs about how we need to show up, this innate pressure we're putting on ourselves, and now we get stuck, and this stuck feeling can last, you know, a couple of days, or it could last months. You can even find yourself feeling stuck for years, where your life is not going the way you think it should be going. So again, you're feeling more stressed out, more depressed, more unlike yourself, and you're like what is going on with me? These are some of the thoughts you're having. I know how much I used to be able to do. I know I'm really good at this thing, or at least I used to be. So what's up with me now? How come I can't get moving on anything?
Speaker 1:And once this paralysis takes over, you become fearful that this is going to be your new normal. So the thought that you had now becomes a really significant fear. Like I can't let this be me At this time. If you're like okay, jason, you definitely talking to me I want you to one breathe, because you probably have just been spinning your wheels, you've been wrecking your brain about how to get started, where you can't even just be in the moment and look at all the things that you have going on all around you. So I want you to take a pause and just kind of take a step back before you try to throw another intervention or throw another strategy at your situation. Then after that, assess what do I really want? What do I need to really do next, before I just start going in this direction? And giving yourself that pause sometimes will let you just kind of reset on your own before you need to seek out professional support.
Speaker 1:And then so we talked about paralysis. We said paralysis, so we talked about the first P people pleasing. We talked about procrastination paralysis. And then, last, we have perfectionism. Now this is the one a lot of us can relate to. I definitely can relate to it. I mean, as early as being a young boy, wanting my clothes to look a certain way or wanting my homework to look a certain way.
Speaker 1:Even when it comes to recording content, there are times where I'm like you know what? You just got to get it done. I remember when I first started to record different videos and put things out on social media, it would take me a zillion tries to get started. I mean, it's like it had to be the right information, the right setting. It had to be the right information, the right setting. All of these things had to be right. But what was most important was delivering the message. See, I got caught up in making it about me. When it's not about me, it's about making sure that you get what you need.
Speaker 1:So, when it comes to perfectionism, if you struggle with this, think about what is driving that need to be perfect? Are you putting something that should be? You know you're trying to give something to somebody or to you know your family, your team, your workers, your job. You're a giver at heart, but you get caught up in some of the details which have more to do with you than it is to do with the people that you're helping. Or maybe you are doing something for yourself, but you get caught up in the minutia of it so you never really get rolling. Or when you do something, you pick it apart. It's like you. You tear yourself down with so much negative self-talk or negative energy because it didn't go as exactly as you wanted it to like, exactly as planned.
Speaker 1:Y'all that perfectionism is something that I think most of us can struggle with or we have dealt with at some point in our lives. But again, when we think about what is the purpose, what am I doing this for? And most of us, we are kind, hearthearted people and we want to help others. So it's not about us, but we make it about us and that stifles our progress. That gets us in our own head and our feelings and it holds us back from knowing our self-worth, from acting on the things that we truly want to do and just relaxing and being our best selves.
Speaker 1:When it comes to imposter syndrome, when it comes to anxiety, it is something that can totally take over if we allow it. So I want you to be more mindful of how you're showing up and if you are showing up, are you being your true, authentic self or are you letting some of these things get in the way of the process? All right, y'all, as always, be blessed. Be great Peace.
Speaker 1:Thank you all for listening to another episode of the Peace and Prosperity Podcast. Again, if you are feeling like, hey, I'm experiencing high functioning anxiety, don't beat yourself up about it. It is okay. We all experience anxiety from time to time and I gave you a couple of things that you can do on your own, but don't hesitate to reach out to a professional to better manage what you're going through. Okay, and and lastly, make sure, if you have not like share, subscribe to the podcast and send this out to a friend, and if you want to hear certain episodes or have certain conversations, let me know. You can shoot me a DM or just leave a review and I will definitely follow up. All right, y'all, be blessed, peace.