How Successful People Can Overcome Imposter Syndrome

Do you have the crippling belief that your accomplishments are more a product of luck or fraud than skill? 

Do you have a hard time believing that you are the talented person others say you are? 

Do you regularly cancel meetings or engagements last minute? 

Do you chronically overwork because you fear that everything will fall apart if you don’t and you’ll be exposed for being inept? 

Do you chronically procrastinate? 

Do you prefer to fly under the radar? Or never start and therefore never finish your ideas? 

Do you self sabotage with substance abuse? 

Do you believe that you don’t deserve success? 

Do you feel like you’re always trying to outrun the “no talent police”? 

Why Capable People Suffer from Imposter Syndrome

All of these symptoms and more are symptoms of Imposter Syndrome. 70% of all people suffer from it, we self-sabotage because of it and we may not even be conscious of it. It is an international, cross-cultural phenomenon and both men and women suffer from it. On my Mind Your Business podcast, I recently interviewed Dr. Valerie Young who is a specialist on the topic and I found both the interview and her book so incredibly enlightening regarding my own setbacks and those of my friends, family and colleagues. Dr. Young has a gift for saying things succinctly and she said, “If you were raised by humans, statistically you have a far greater chance of having Imposter Syndrome.” 

Imposter Syndrome can manifest in so many different ways. Personally, despite my achievements, because I come from a small town, because I grew up with no money, because I didn’t have a high school diploma, I was always terrified of speaking engagements or big meetings because I thought I’d be exposed for being ‘dumb.’ When I won awards for my hard work, I came up with all different sorts of creative excuses as to why they weren’t valid. So much of my social conditioning had made me internalize the ideas that being uneducated made me dumb, or that my blonde hair and blue eyes gave me things I didn’t deserve. It took me a long time to really believe that my accomplishments were because of the fact that I work my butt off. A lot of our feelings of unworthiness stem from toxic social messages we internalized as we grew up.

Literally all situations can breed this epidemic. Students having their work constantly being critiqued (“I don’t know why I got an A when I’m not actually smart”), or people who are the first of their generation to go to university (“Does my family think I think I’m better than they are?”), or people who are self-employed feel it due to not having enough external feedback or people in academia or medicine never feeling ‘smart enough’ due to being in an environment of highly educated people where the premium is being Very Smart. People in the creative fields - music, acting, writing - especially suffer because their work is going to be subjectively critiqued by large audiences of people. Celebrities like Tina Fey, Tom Hanks, Michelle Obama, Maya Angelou have all talked about imposter feelings. 

The common core reason for imposter syndrome has to do with shame. It has to do with having unrealistic, unobtainable notions about what it means to be successful, confident or worthwhile, it means that we have set our internal bar impossibly high. We hit that bar sometimes but if we don’t hit it 24/7, we feel shame and we feel like an imposter, like hitting it was just a fluke. Self-sabotaging behaviours are all means to avoid the shame the accompanies Imposter Syndrome. Let’s say you’ve been offered a meeting with a dream client and rather than preparing all week you wait until an hour before - that way if you don’t get it you’ll be disappointed but you won’t be ashamed. We are hard-wired to avoid things we’re scared of. 

Managing Imposter Syndrome Thoughts

Dr. Young says that the point is not to fully get rid of Imposter Syndrome entirely, but to understand it and know how to deal with it when it arrives. The first step is to be conscious of your thoughts and recognize when they are due to a feeling of Imposter Syndrome. Once you are conscious of these self-sabotaging thoughts, give yourself 30 seconds to reframe them. It’s not about feeling differently, it’s about thinking differently. For example, the body doesn’t know the difference between excitement and nervousness so next time you are nervous, tell yourself that you’re excited. Or when you feel stupid to say “I feel stupid” rather than “I am stupid.” Do this as a constant practice. The third step is to keep charging forward despite how nervous you may feel. 

Imposter Syndrome doesn’t only affect individuals, it affects organizations. If 70% (!) of people are not functioning to the best of their ability because of feelings of Imposter Syndrome, then the whole organization suffers. Dr. Young suggested something I thought was brilliant: companies, universities and schools should introduce initiation workshops to help new employees and students understand and work through their own Imposter Syndrome - it will only be good for the individuals and for the company as a whole. 

For more information, I highly recommend my latest podcast with Dr Young here.