Do I have Impostor Syndrome?

I need to confess that I'm a fan of TEDx and a heavy consumer of their content. Recently, I listened to the?talk of Mike Cannon-Brookes , the co-founder of the software company Atlassian. Mike confessed he suffered from the impostor syndrome and felt like he did not know what he was doing most days.

He makes me think because I feel the same too often, to be honest with you. Lucky enough, 70% of people think this way at one time or another, according to a?review article ?published in the?International Journal of Behavioral Science .?

What is impostor syndrome??

It's a feeling or idea that our success is by being lucky or blessed but not because of our talent, education, qualifications, education, and experience.?Individuals with the syndrome are constantly worried about being discovered by others.?

I learned that some signals of experiencing an impostor syndrome include things like the following:?

• Agonizing over even the most minor mistakes or flaws in our work.
• Attributing our success to luck or outside factors such as a team effort where you got the visibility.?
• Sacrificing our well-being to get more jobs done.
• Being extremally sensitive to even constructive criticism.
• Downplaying our expertise, even in areas where we are more skilled than others.
• Searching for people that may figure out that we aren't as competent as we seem even. Feeling like we will inevitably be found out as a fraud at any time.

According to the subject matter experts, there are two types of "impostors":

• The "perfectionist" is never satisfied and always feels that their work could improve. This type of person usually tends to fixate on flaws or mistakes instead of focusing on their strengths.?
• The "expert" who is always trying to learn more is never satisfied with their level of understanding, expects themselves to know everything, and can feel ashamed when they don't.

In my case, I could be both situations across my professional experience.

Is there a "cure"?

What a question; I don't have an idea because I genuinely don't know. However, I want to share my thoughts about my own behaviors.?

My first suggestion is to recognize the impostor's signals to overcome the related feelings with a positive attitude. When we acknowledge our thoughts and put them in perspective, our minds usually get in order. In other words, we need to focus on the facts.?

We also need to try to handle our feelings with the evidence. Again, we need to focus on facts to overcome undesired feelings.?

As a firm believer in mentoring relationships, we need to share our feeling with our mentor (or, why not with your mentee). By discussing them, we can get other people's opinions and perhaps the validation of how far we are from reality. A mentor is for sure a source of positive motivation. However, we need to let it go once we get the validation to avoid being in a continuous carousel.?

Engaging with my three last managers helped me reduce the effects of impostor syndrome. We must improve our skills via active learning, keep practicing, teaching/sharing with others what we learned, or do job shadowing (to gain valuable professional experience). A great way to do that is to ask your manager or mentor for advice since she/he will give us practical advice and support. I'm sure that we will be better positioned to fight the "little voices" inside our heads by doing this.?

Lastly, something that works for me is to focus on setting clear job expectations and metrics for success. Then, we must ensure we have frequent checkpoints, including others' perspectives, to understand how they're doing.?

Last comment

I want to finish this post by clarifying that I don't think I have impostor syndrome; I never discuss it with a doctor or subject matter expert. I'm sharing my thoughts and suggestions on this with respect and empathy.?

Being aware of this syndrome and follow-up the mentioned suggestions can accelerate our professional development and drive personal growth. On the other hand, as managers, we also need to identify team members with similar signals or feelings to help them overcome them.?

For more information about impostor syndrome, please review the work of?Dr. Pauline Rose , author of?The Impostor Phenomenon .?She is the real expert here. I do also recommend checking her?test .