The Imposter Syndrome Why does it happen and how to overcome it?
What is Imposter syndrome?
The feeling of inadequacy in spite of evident success.
What this means is, we feel like at any point in time we will be called out that we no one knows how we were able to reach this level, we don’t deserve this. We are not good enough, in spite of clear evidences supporting that we have achieved a lot of things.
Based on a Harvard article, ~70% people in the world tackle with imposter syndrome at some point in their life. So if we are feeling inadequate, take some solace that nearly everyone has faced or is facing what we are facing. Even highly successful folks like Maya Angelou, Mike Myers have openly mentioned they feeling like an imposter.
Why does it happen
When we start anything, majority of the times we will not publish good results. A lot of people get discouraged that they are not good at that thing and stop. If we continue to work at time, there will be a time that we will feel that we have produced something amazing, but that in a larger scheme of things will only be that one good piece. So, while we recognise our potential others might still see that the large portion of bad work that we have done over the time. A lot of people give up at this stage as well.
The best case scenario, is we continue to practice your craft over a long period of time. During this the good to bad work piece ratio starts to shift towards the good. One fine day we finally get rewarded for doing a good job since the good to bad ratio has moved largely towards the good.
Here comes the cliff, from your point of view.. While we are happy that we have been acknowledged for our good work we also realise that we have been making bad pieces of work for years and years and there is only some time like the earlier times, other people will realise that too.
How to solve it
Short term solve:
Have a goal for what “good enough” would look like to you. If we don’t yet feel qualified enough to give a talk to your industry on a subject, what would make we feel qualified? What do we need to learn or experience to make we feel that way? Imposter syndrome may well strike when we reach that level too but at least we have something objective to measure it against.
Long term solve (with reliable & tangible evidences)
When you feel like an imposter answer these questions with all honesty
- What do you feel?
- What need isn’t being met?
- What are we secretly afraid of and why?
- What’s really going on?
- Deep down what do we believe about yourself?
Once we have answers for all the 5 questions. We will have some understanding of why is it that we are feeling the way we are feeling. Now, the fifth question is important, that is the deep down rooted problem that we need to solve.
Let’s take my example, I have come up with “I don’t deserve success”
Here you take a notebook and everyday at the start of the day, you write the opposite of that belief and add a because in the end, this tunes your brain to find instances for the statement. Then you go about doing your daily job. Your brain will constantly be searching for the reason of that ‘because’.
“I deserve success because…”
Once you end the day, come back to the notebook/journal and fill it the reasons that you found that day.. daily for a year. At the end of the year you will have a minimum of 365 evidences why you are
Why does this work?
This works because..
- You are teaching your brain to think in a positive way rather than negative
- You behavior will change because you want to fill out the reasons at the end of the day (This might feel like cheating, but that is just an initial phase)
- You are acknowledging that your thinking is not fixed. It can change and it can be a good place to be in.
Note: This post is heavily influenced and inspired by Campbell Walker AKA “Struthless”. Please check him out. He makes banger videos that hit your brain and your mind
What were the scenarios where you experienced an imposter syndrome and how did you cope with it?
~P
