Episode 289: The 2 Biggest Lies People Tell Themselves When They Want to Become a Virtual Assistant

Full Episode Transcription:

Arianna Vernier: Y’all, I’ve been in this world of helping moms and teachers and just women in general jump into the world of virtual assistants for quite a while now. And there are two big lies that I hear a lot of women tell themselves when they want to become a virtual assistant, but they’re just. Holding themselves back. So in this episode, I’m going to share with you what those two biggest lies are. And I hope that if you’re telling yourself one of these that you can find some tools to help you overcome these different lies you might be telling to yourself. So the first lie that I hear a lot of women say to themselves is that I just don’t have any experience. Nobody would hire me to be a virtual assistant for them because I have no experience in this world. Now, I want you to understand that this is simply just imposter syndrome rearing its ugly head. If you don’t know what imposter syndrome is, it’s a psychological pattern where an individual doubts their skills, their talents, their accomplishments, and they have this persistent, internalized fear of being exposed as a fraud.

Arianna Vernier: So that was a lot of words. Essentially, it just makes you feel like a fake, like somebody’s going to figure out that I don’t actually know what the heck I’m even doing. I felt this so much. I know so many of you have so many of my students in the Virtual Assistant Mama Academy have, but if you let it hold you back, you’re not going to accomplish the dreams and the goals that God has placed on your heart. We want you to know that even high level executives, CEOs, celebrities, they all experience these feelings of imposter syndrome. The difference is that they have some tools that help them overcome this imposter syndrome. So I want to give you a couple tangible ways that you can work on overcoming this feeling of imposter syndrome.

Arianna Vernier: Number one is you can tell yourself some positive affirmations. Then these need to be ones that you truly believe, so it can’t be something that you’re like, Oh, I would never do that, or I would never be that kind of person. It has to be something that you truly believe you could become, or you’re working on becoming, or you’re like partially already there, but not quite exactly where you want to be yet. When you write down positive affirmations and you read them consistently, it’s going to help you start to step into actually becoming that person more and more every day. So write down a couple positive affirmations, like five to ten, put them somewhere that you’re going to see them every day and read them. I love having mine in my Bible. You could take them to your bathroom mirror. You could put them on your fridge, put them in your car, whatever works for you. But put it somewhere that you know, you’re going to look at them every day. So you can read it and start to actually believe that you are that person, right?

Arianna Vernier: The second way to combat imposter syndrome is to keep a feel good folder with screenshots of positive emails, texts, projects that you feel like you did a good job on. Keep that all in your phone. And then when you’re feeling a little bit of that imposter syndrome rearing its head, you can then scroll through that folder and it just help. To remind yourself that you are a badass. You know what you’re doing. You’ve done scary things before and you could absolutely do them again, right? The third way to overcome imposter syndrome is just to practice. So if a client or a potential client asks you if you can do a certain task for them, try creating one for yourself first. Go watch some YouTube videos. Google what you’re stinking hard out. Ask for help from your support system to figure it out. As I’ve said before, in the world of virtual assistants, 80 percent of the things that you’re gonna be asked to do, you can figure it out. 80 percent of the things that I’ve done for my clients were things I’d never done before.

Arianna Vernier: I taught kindergarten. I taught 5 and 6 year olds how to read, how to do math, how to stand in line, how to be kind. But, I was able to figure out this world of virtual assistants and I know that you can too. So just Take some time to practice and you’ll be amazed at how quickly your skills and your confidence will grow. So, before you think, oh, I could never do that, I don’t have any experience doing that, I want you to remember that this is just imposter syndrome rearing its ugly head and now you have tools to help you go to war with it. Alright, the second lie that I hear a lot of people tell themselves when they’re considering becoming a virtual assistant is they say, we’ll do it when blank. Maybe it’s, I’ll do it when I’ve paid off my debt. I’ll do it when I finally feel ready. I’ll do it when my kids get older. I’ll do it when I have more time. Y’all, these are all things I’ve told myself about why I couldn’t really quit teaching and work from home. So I am raising my hand right alongside you.

Arianna Vernier: But guess what? You are never going to feel fully ready and there will always be reasons why you think you should stay in your comfort zone. Unfortunately, staying in your comfort zone is not going to help anybody. Not the people we want to serve, not our families, and not ourselves. So I just want you to remember that conditions are never going to be perfect to be the person that you know you can be, the person that you dream of being. You have to step out of your comfort zone. You have to say, today I’m going to take a step, even if it’s a tiny one. out of my comfort zone. You can absolutely do this. I have a big goal to do this every day for myself and I would absolutely love it if you would join me. So I want you to ask yourself, what is one thing you are going to do to take a step, even small, out of your comfort zone today? Come and share it with me in the free Facebook community. I want to hold you accountable. Go to facebook.com/groups/virtualassistantmama or find that link in the show notes and just come and post in there today to hold yourself accountable. And so I can cheer alongside you and share. What is that one thing you’re going to do to take a step out of your comfort zone today? You can do it, Mama. You know that you can. You just have to believe that you can too.