Fraud to Fearless: Six Ways I’m Tackling My Impostor Syndrome
I feel like a fraud. I feel like I am going to be found out. Found out for what, I’m not quite sure, but it’s a true sense of impending doom. This is what impostor syndrome feels like: the degree of self doubt, where you constantly believe you’re not good enough. Also, no matter what the evidence, I am convinced that everyone else succeeds at things because they’re geniuses, sat atop golden pedestals — but any success I have? Just luck.
I’ve always felt like an outsider, as a girl who didn’t fit in any particular group — I was bullied at school, which didn’t help that view, but it pre-existed that period of my life. It is as though it was ingrained in me from birth.
My impostor syndrome lost me two high-paying jobs. I was surrounded by people I was convinced were better than me, more skilled with spreadsheets, more versed in the nuances of the business than I was. I ignored my accountancy exam successes, offers of wage rises to retain me, being head hunted, and so on. All I could hear in my head was that I wasn’t good enough, and everyone would soon find out and I’d lose my job. I turned that thought into a self-fulfilling prophecy because, ultimately, I quit those jobs.
Nowadays, I work for myself, which makes things easier, but the impostor syndrome is still very much present. I’m in a mastermind group, and I look around there and question whether I belong, believing that everyone else has more to offer than I do. Impostor syndrome walks hand in hand with my perfectionist streak and a masochistic desire to compare myself to others.
“I have written eleven books, but each time I think, ‘Uh oh, they’re going to find out now. I’ve run a game on everybody, and they’re going to find me out.’” Maya Angelou
Diversity and equality may seem strange points to raise alongside impostor syndrome, but recent attempts to establish obligatory numbers of women on company boards for example, strike me as a practice that may spread the contagion of impostor syndrome. The more women who begin to believe that they’re only in a senior position to ‘make up the numbers’, the higher the potential levels of impostor syndrome. And what happens with impostor syndrome? It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy and we end up performing less well than we otherwise would have. I am a feminist, but I don’t want to see more women suffering and ruining their careers like I did, through the scourge of impostor syndrome.
“I feel compelled to think of myself as an involuntary swindler. The exaggerated esteem in which my life’s work is held makes me very ill at ease.” Albert Einstein
Here are the six things I’m doing to try and calm my impostor syndrome:
1. Hard Evidence — For me, I’ve got accounting certificates, testimonials from my podcast, and comments from Facebook groups that indicate I know what I’m talking about, that I do fit in. I also wrote a list of all the skills that I have, and this is something else that I can look to in order to remind myself of my talents.
2. Seek Opinions of Others — This isn’t about asking close friends, but about people who we know will be unbiased in their judgements about what your strengths are. It’s important to seek objectivity, when the impostor syndrome record is non-stop in our heads!
3. Visualise Success — If I’m doing something new and I’m not convinced I’ll be any good, or feel like a fraud before I’ve even started it, I vividly imagine how success would look and feel. By believing in success, I can help myself trust that there is no foregone conclusion that I’m going to not be good enough.
4. Don’t Focus on Highlight Reels — I know how tough this one is, but if we can avoid constantly comparing ourselves to others, we reduce the power of impostor syndrome. I attempt to remind myself that the things I see people sharing on social media are highlight reels: few people share all of their slip-ups, issues, or moments of their own impostor syndrome!
5. See Mistakes as Human — Just because you’ve slipped-up, it doesn’t make you a fraud. This is something that I am working on remembering because it’s easy to view an apparent failure as evidence of us being an impostor, but we all make mistakes.
6. Take Action – If we don’t know whether we can do something or not, merely thinking we’d fail, it’s our duty to take action. Without action, we have no proof of whether we’re capable of something or not, and action is how we get the proof that shows us we’re not fraudulent beings.
Impostor syndrome can be devastating, and it has been for me throughout my life. I hope that you’ll be able to start using some of these tips to begin your recovery and journey from feeling fraudulent to fearless.
