OK admit it, have you ever felt like you don’t belong? Have you ever thought that your friends or colleagues are going to ‘find you out’, that you don’t actually deserve your job and accomplishments?
If so, you’re not alone. An estimated 70% of people experience these impostor feelings at some point in their lives, according to an article published in the International Journal of Behavioral Science. Impostor syndrome (the technical term) affects all kinds of people from all walks of life.
What is impostor syndrome?
According to the dictionary definition, imposter syndrome is “the persistent inability to believe that one’s success is deserved or has been legitimately achieved as a result of one’s own efforts or skills.’
It’s that innate belief that you’ve only succeeded due to luck, and not because of your knowledge, ability or hard work. The concept of imposter syndrome was first identified by psychologists Pauline Rose Clance and Suzanne Imes in 1978. Studies have shown that both men and women experience impostor feelings and according to psychologist Audrey Ervin it can apply to anyone “who isn’t able to internalise and own their successes”.
Why do people experience impostor syndrome?
It’s hard to give a straight answer – some say it is nature, some blame it on nurture. Even the experts can’t agree. Some believe it is due to personality traits—like anxiety or neuroticism—while others believe it’s due to your upbringing or behaviours such as perfectionism or the need to be the expert. Childhood inadequacies have also been stated as a possible cause i.e. feeling like the less intelligent or capable sibling or feeling that you were never good enough for your parents. For some, achievement and success are equated with being lovable and this forms a vicious circle of trying to achieve more success to receive more attention and love.
How do we overcome it?
As it’s a feeling and not a physical limitation, we can overcome it, but it will take some effort. Valerie Young, Ed.D. is an internationally-recognised expert on impostor syndrome and author of the award-winning book The Secret Thoughts of Successful Women: Why Capable People Suffer from Impostor Syndrome and How to Thrive in Spite of It. Having spoken to over 500,000 people on the subject, she recognised that the only way to stop feeling like an impostor is to stop thinking like an impostor!
Using her work and research she has come up with 10 ways we can overcome imposter syndrome:
- Break the silence. Shame keeps a lot of people from “fessing up” about their fraudulent feelings. Knowing there’s a name for these feelings and that you are not alone can be tremendously freeing.
- Separate feelings from fact. There are times you’ll feel stupid. It happens to everyone from time to time. Realise that just because you may feel stupid, doesn’t mean you are.
- Recognise when you should feel fraudulent. If you’re one of the first or the few women or a minority in your field or workplace, it’s only natural you’d sometimes feel like you don’t totally fit in. Instead of taking your self-doubt as a sign of your ineptness, recognise that it might be a normal response to being an outsider.
- Accentuate the positive. Perfectionism can indicate a healthy drive to excel. The trick is to not obsess over everything being just so. Do a great job when it matters most, without persevering over routine tasks. Forgive yourself when the inevitable mistake happens.
- Develop a new response to failure and mistake making. Henry Ford once said, “Failure is only the opportunity to begin again more intelligently.” Instead of beating yourself up for being human and blowing the big project, do what professional athletes do and glean the learning value from the mistake and move on.
- Right the rules. If you’ve been operating under misguided rules like, “I should always know the answer,” or “Never ask for help” start asserting your rights. Recognise that you have just as much right as the next person to be wrong, have an off-day, or ask for assistance.
- Develop a new script. Your script is that automatic mental tapes that starts playing in situations that trigger your Impostor feelings. When you start a new job or project instead of thinking for example, “Wait till they find out I have no idea what I’m doing,” try thinking, “Everyone who starts something new feels off-base in the beginning. I may not know all the answers but I’m smart enough to find them out.”
- Visualise success. Do what professional athletes do. Spend time beforehand picturing yourself making a successful presentation or calmly posing your question in class. It sure beats picturing impending disaster and will help with performance-related stress.
- Reward yourself. Break the cycle of continually seeking °© and then dismissing °© validation outside of yourself by learning to pat yourself on the back.
- Fake it ‘til you make it. Now and then we all have to fly by the seat of our pants. Instead of considering “winging it” as proof of your ineptness, learn to do what many high achievers do and view it as a skill. The point of the worn-out phrase, fake it till you make it, still stands: Don’t wait until you feel confident to start putting yourself out there. Courage comes from taking risks. Change your behaviour first and allow your confidence to build.
You can learn more about her and her work at ImpostorSyndrome.com
To summarise
By Googling the words ‘imposter syndrome’ today, I generated 4,510,000 results! It’s clear that many of us are struggling with this. However, by learning from the experts and following the 10 steps above, there’s hope that we can start to see ourselves as everyone else does.
