You’re not an Imposter, You Just Act Like One

You may be familiar with the feeling of doubting your own accomplishments, despite your obvious skills and talents, to the extent that you fear exposure as a fraud. Maybe you don’t believe you deserve the luck or the success. Maybe you think that you’re deceiving others because you don’t feel as if you’re as intelligent as you outwardly portray yourself to be. You’re not alone.

Studies show that as many as 7 out of 10 adults suffer from imposter syndrome at some point in their lives. The original 1978 Clance and Imes study “The Imposter Phenomenon in High Achieving Women: Dynamics and Therapeutic Intervention” focused on women who found it difficult to claim their own success and achievements. Since then, we’ve learned that imposter syndrome can affect anyone. In fact, nearly 70% of us will experience imposter syndrome at least once in our lives. It’s often related to work endeavors, but it can relate to social relationships as well. In this age of social media, it’s easy to feel as if others have it all together while you’re faking it and barely getting by.  

Over time, the pressure of feeling as if you’re on the verge of being found out, or that you don’t belong, can have a significant impact. You might experience anxiety and eventually even depression if the issue isn’t addressed. It can also create a feedback loop that can affect performance. You believe you don’t belong, or you convince yourself you can’t do the job or keep up with friends.  Your mind remains so focused on your perceived shortcomings that the mistakes you believe you will make start to happen, thus confirming your fears.

In professional settings this can affect opportunities and income. While others may negotiate competitively for roles and raises, if you’re convinced that you’re not talented enough you’re not likely to advocate for yourself. Likewise, it can lead to remaining in a job too long, which in turn can affect long-term earning potential and the likelihood of experiencing career burnout.

There are several types of ‘imposters’ and three of the most common are The Perfectionist, The Expert, and The Soloist. You may see yourself in one of them.

The Perfectionist

As a result of the way perfection impacts our sense of achievement, it can often lead to imposter syndrome. A perfectionist might be disappointed if they perceive a task or project to be only 99% perfect, choosing to focus on the flawed 1%. This sort of constant disappointment leads to questioning your own ability, which can result in experiencing imposter syndrome.

The goal is to learn how to accept mistakes or shortcomings and focus on the successes. The 80/20 rule can be helpful in this quest. Focus your energies on completing 80% of any project to the best of your ability. Then outsource the last 20%. This is the percentage of most projects that takes the most time and the period during which perfectionists tend to get bogged down. You can always review the work done by others, but with an objective eye rather than a self-critical one.  

The Expert

If you like to be the most prepared person in any room, you probably spend inordinate amounts of time in research mode. Knowing all the answers can certainly boost your confidence, but always seeking to be the expert can lead to self-doubt and ultimately imposter syndrome. Have you ever found a perfect job ad, but refrained from applying because you don’t meet every single criteria mentioned? Maybe you haven’t contributed to a meeting because the conversation moved slightly away from your prepared knowledge, and you feared you’d give an incomplete answer. Perhaps you’ve been in conversations with friends and refrained to participate for fear that you wouldn’t appear to be an expert on the topic. Contributing only when you feel as if you have all the knowledge sets you up for failure. It’s simply not possible to know everything and you are the only one with that expectation for yourself.

The key here is to understand that is OK to not know everything, and, in fact, being a know-it-all can be annoying to others. Try improvising answers and conversational contributions in low stakes circumstances so that you can begin to develop ideas and solutions even when you don’t have every nuance of a topic embedded in your mind. In professional settings, it’s important to be able to brainstorm and provide potential solutions despite not having all the information. When you think you know all the answers, it’s much more likely for you to miss opportunities to be innovative because you’re confined by the facts as you know them. Some of the most creative and successful ideas have resulted from brainstorming, a process which naturally relies on spontaneity.

The Soloist

Does the idea of asking for help fill you with dread? Do you relish the idea of working longer and harder than everyone else to prove you belong or that you’re the best? If you believe that achieving everything on your own is the only way to go, no matter the costs in time and energy, and that you can’t ask for help because doing so would reveal you to be a fraud, you’re likely plagued with imposter syndrome.

Approaching work and life in this way often results in praise and validation that can become addictive. However, while receiving praise for your hard work may seem like a reasonable trade for putting in the time on your own, it’s not a sustainable model. As a soloist you’ll not only reap the accolades of success alone, but you will also suffer the notoriety of failure, the risk of inevitable burnout and its potential negative impact on your career trajectory.  

The goal is to stop seeking validation for doing everything alone, but that can be easier said than done. To normalize asking for help, remember that no one person can consistently outpace, outwork, or outperform the efforts of a team or group. Consider finding a balance by placing yourself in a leadership role and guiding a team to solve problems and develop solutions. This can not only give you the opportunity to earn the kudos you seek, often on a larger scale than would be possible alone, but to also experience the satisfaction of fostering successful collaboration.

CONCLUSION

Imposter syndrome results when our minds distort reality and lead us to believe negative things about ourselves. In order to override those negative thoughts, it’s important to look at the facts. What is your experience? What are your qualifications? What are your successes? What have you learned?  What should you celebrate?

  It’s also important to look at your failures and opportunities for improvement. Well-rounded reflection can help you be more fact-based in your self-assessment and allow you believe and appreciate your actual aptitude and worthiness. Talking through your thoughts and feelings with a therapist or life coach or even a good friend can help you further examine your thoughts and feelings and provide you with the tools to overcome damaging distortive thinking.