The Impostor Syndrome
Have you ever felt like you don’t really deserve the compliment or the award you received, the praise, heck, even the raise you got or the status you hold at work?
Michelle Obama, Jodie Foster, Emma Watson, Sheryl Sandberg, Meryl Streep, all have publicly admitted feeling like frauds, at one point or another in their careers, and they are just a handful of the many highly successful women that have shared with the world their fears of being found out and exposed as being less than what others think of them!!!
This faulty feeling of not measuring up is commonly known as the Impostor Syndrome.
The term Impostor Syndrome was first coined by clinical psychologists Pauline Clance and Suzanne Imes back in 1978.
It can be a mere fleeting, or a more lasting feeling of phoniness in people who believe that they are not intelligent, capable or creative despite opposing evidence.
Upbringing, personality and culture appear to play a major role in spurring Impostor feelings: family dynamics, such as sibling rivalry, personality traits, such as anxiety or neuroticism and cultural factors, such as institutionalised discrimination seem to play a significant role in the appearance of the Impostor.
Impostor Syndrome is a psychological phenomenon reflecting a belief that one is an inadequate and incompetent failure, despite evidence that indicates that one is highly skilled, and quite successful.
More like an experience, rather than an actual syndrome, originally it was theorized that it uniquely affected high achieving women, especially in male-dominated work environments. However more recent research suggests that an estimated 70% of the population, irrespective of gender, race, color, or other factor, experience impostor moments at some point in their lives.
Impostor Syndrome can apply to anyone, from any walk of life, who simply “isn’t able to internalize and own their successes” according to psychologist Audrey Ervin (source).
So, it’s highly improbable that you have never, ever momentarily felt like a fraud.
Heck, if Nobel prizewinning author John Steinbeck (in his 1938 diary he wrote “I am not a writer. I’ve been fooling myself and other people,”) and Pulitzer prizewinner author Maya Angelou (after publishing her 11th book, she was quoted “Uh-oh, they’re going to find out now. I’ve run a game on everybody”) felt it, chances are you’ve felt it at one point in your life too!
I know, I have. Multiple times. Still do. Like when I show up in the social media world with my blog posts or, most recently, when I delivered for the very first time a 2 hour workshop to an audience of almost one-hundred, highly qualified professional women!
I vividly remember the first time I experienced impostor feelings almost over 18 years ago (although back then I was totally unaware what I was experiencing): I had just nailed my first salary negotiation, upon graduating from my MBA studies, and had succeeded in securing a pretty high salary! My initial excitement and pride were pretty soon crushed by an overwhelming fear that I would soon be found out as not deserving such a generous salary and most likely be soon fired. The fact that I was working in a male dominated work industry only made my fears escalate and subsequently drove me to overachievement!
According to Dr. Valerie Young, an expert on the subject, there are 5 types of Impostor Syndrome as identified in her book “The Secret Thoughts of Successful Women: Why Capable People Suffer from the Impostor Syndrome and How to Thrive in Spite of it” (2011). Do any of these sound familiar to you?
The Perfectionist
You can tell if this is you if you set unrealistically high expectations for yourself, and even if you meet 99% of your goals, that ONE SMALL MISTAKE makes you question your competence, BIG TIME!
2. Superhero
You feel the need to succeed in ALL aspects of life and you push yourself harder than everyone else around you to prove that you are not an impostor.
3. Natural Genius
This is you if you are used to skills coming easy to you, so when something calls for putting in extra effort and hard work to master it, then that is proof that you are an impostor!
4. Soloist
If you need to ask for help, then doing so definitely means you are an impostor and a fraud. You really do believe that you should be able to do everything on your own!
5. Expert
You simply MUST know ALL there is to know before taking on an assignment, committing to a project, speaking up in a meeting, even accepting a job offer! You tie your self-worth with knowing it all!
Full disclosure: my Impostor shows up, first and foremost, as a Perfectionist, closely followed by the Superhero and the Expert! Heavy stuff, right?
So, what can you do to face up to the Impostor when it shows up?
If there is one thing I have I learned in my coaching journey is the turnaround power of questions and questioning.
Start small with these simple, yet powerful questions, addressed to yourself:
How does thinking the thought of a Perfectionist, Superhero, Expert, etc) help or hinder me?
How do such thoughts help me grow and move forward with my life/goals/plans/dreams?
Realise my potential?
Next, challenge your Impostor by consciously choosing to address it from a different angle. Reframing is a cognitive behavioural technique that allows you to view a situation from a different perspective,.
For the Perfectionist:
view mistakes as part of the learning process
For the Superhero:
seek internal versus external validation.
For the Natural Genius:
view yourself as a Work-In-Progress.
For the Soloist:
ask for help, even if you firmly believe you don’t need it - at the very least, you will experience feelings of connection!
For the Expert:
practice just-in-time learning.
Work to overcome your fears, instead of falling in your Impostor’s trap and getting stuck there indefinitely.
Acknowledge that is it perfectly normal to momentarily feel like a fraud when you are learning something new and challenging, or entering unchartered territories.
I will probably never stop having impostor moments, and that is perfectly (love the pun here!) OK.
Becoming aware of how the Impostor shows up is the first step, followed by acknowledging that it signals that something meaningful and important to me is present.
As long as you are growing, learning, and stepping out of your comfort zone into your growth zone, let the Impostor have its moment(s).
Just make sure you keep on moving forward.
It, too, shall pass!
You’ve got this. Trust yourself. I trust you!