Feeling like a fraud

For some time now I have had a recurrent thought that I am a fraud as a Pilates instructor, despite having full and popular classes, because I no longer do my own Pilates practice and because I don’t feel the passion for it that I did previously. I can see that I am equating being good as a teacher with whether or not I am doing Pilates myself and whether or not I’m deeply passionate about it.

The thought has become more prevalent recently as I am about to implement my annual price increase, but by a larger amount than in previous years.

Logically I can see that with 9 years of experience, waiting lists and happy clients that I must be a “good teacher” but I keep thinking that because I’m not myself attending classes or practicing at home that its not ok to have my prices at this level.
I’ve done some thought downloads and came up with the following model.

C: I rarely practice Pilates for myself
T: I’m a fraud
f: Guilt
S: heavy dragging feeling in my body
A: Tell myself that its not ok to be a Pilates teacher who doesn’t practice herself; keep it a secret that I don’t practice it; don’t publicly share my participation in CrossFit, equate my teaching quality to my frequency of practice
R: I feel like I’m a fraud

Perhaps theres a deeper thought running here that because I don’t feel much passion for teaching Pilates anymore, that I don’t deserve to earn money from it.

I attempted to reframe this and came up with some potential intentional thoughts but none seem to hit the mark.

I don’t dislike teaching Pilates, I see it as extremely valuable for people to do, I apply lots of the principles to my day to day life and to how I do CrossFit sessions, but I also feel I’ve evolved and no longer feel the same level of interest or passion.

In other fields of work I can see that skill doesn’t have to equate to doing the work outside of work time – eg my husband is a good accountant despite not even liking working as an accountant and he definitely doesn’t do it in his spare time!

I’d really value some coaching on this, thanks.

 

Answer:

 

You’ve done a wonderful job self-coaching already here, and it seems like you’ve done some work on how what you’re telling yourself isn’t true. What’s coming to me is that you’re evolving – the most natural of human processes.

If you were to see this shift as part of the evolution of your life, does anything shift for you? Can you evolve out of a practice and still be good at teaching it? In what ways is being able to teach well without actually practicing yourself completely normal? It makes me think of my university rowing coach. She was a former rower, and a fabulous coach, but she had ZERO interest in getting in a boat.

What if you just decided your brain is selling you a story you don’t have to listen to and dropped it? Is there a chance that it be that simple to walk away from this?