“Who am I to stand up in front of a room full of people and do this?”
I hear some version of that question from almost every celebrant I train. Usually it arrives quietly, partway through the course, often just after someone has written something genuinely exceptional. And it’s almost always said by the people who are going to be brilliant at this work.
So let’s talk about imposter mindset, and why I’m careful about what we call it.
Why I say mindset, not syndrome
You’ll have heard the phrase “imposter syndrome” a hundred times. I don’t use it, and I’d gently encourage you not to either.
A syndrome sounds like something you have. Something fixed, something medical, that happens to you and that you simply have to live with. That framing quietly takes the power away from you.
A mindset is different. It’s a pattern of thinking. Patterns are learned, which means they can be noticed, questioned and changed. When I talk about imposter mindset, I’m not dismissing how real the feeling is. I’m saying you have more say over it than the word “syndrome” suggests.
What imposter mindset sounds like in celebrancy
For new celebrants, imposter mindset tends to show up in a few familiar ways:
- “I’ve never done a funeral. What if I get it wrong in front of a grieving family?”
- “There are celebrants round here who’ve been doing this for twenty years. Why would anyone book me?”
- “I’m not a natural public speaker.”
- “I can’t charge that much yet. I’m only just starting.”
That last one matters. Imposter mindset doesn’t just make you feel uncomfortable. It shows up in your pricing, in how you describe yourself on your website, in whether you follow up on an enquiry or let it go. It can quietly shape your whole practice if you let it.
What the feeling is actually telling you
Here’s something I’ve noticed in nearly thirty years of coaching people. The people who feel like imposters are rarely the ones who should worry. That nagging voice is usually a sign that you care about getting it right and understand what’s at stake.
The celebrants who concern me are the ones who never feel a flicker of doubt. Standing beside a family on one of the worst days of their lives should feel like a responsibility. That feeling isn’t evidence you don’t belong. Often, it’s evidence that you do.
Five things that genuinely help
- 1. Separate competence from confidence. Confidence often lags behind competence by quite a long way. You can be fully trained, capable and well prepared and still feel wobbly. Wait for confidence to arrive first and you’ll wait a very long time.
- 2. Look at the evidence, not the feeling. Keep a record of what people say after your ceremonies. Thank-you cards, messages, the funeral director who rang to say the family were touched. When the voice says you’re not good enough, you’ll have something real to answer it with.
- 3. Remember what you’re bringing with you. Most people come to celebrancy with years of experience behind them. Teaching, nursing, management, caring for family. You haven’t started from scratch. You’ve started from everything you’ve already lived.
- 4. Prepare, then let go of perfect. Thorough preparation is your best friend. Perfection is not. Families don’t remember a slightly stumbled word. They remember whether the ceremony felt like the person.
- 5. Talk about it. Imposter mindset thrives in silence. Every experienced celebrant I know has felt this. Saying it out loud to a peer, a mentor or your trainer takes much of the sting out of it.
It doesn’t disappear, and that’s fine
I won’t pretend the feeling vanishes after your first ceremony, or your fiftieth. It still visits experienced celebrants before a particularly significant service. The difference is that you learn to recognise it, nod at it, and carry on anyway.
That’s not faking it. That’s what courage actually looks like in this work.
If this sounds familiar
If you’re considering celebrancy and the “who am I to do this?” voice is holding you back, my free guide, Transitioning to a Celebrant Career, is a good place to start. And if you’d like to talk it through, an Informed Decision Session gives us thirty minutes to look at where you are and what’s really getting in the way.
If you’re already practising and this is still showing up in your pricing or your marketing, it’s exactly the kind of thing I work on in one-to-one coaching.
Warmly,
Dinah
She/Her