Imposter Syndrome Myths

You're here because you have already achieved some outer success and got to your current executive leadership position. But growth doesn't have to stop here. There is a thrill and satisfaction in challenging yourself, stretching and seeing how much you can achieve. Have an impact and make a contribution.

The talents, skills and tools that have got you to this point will not necessarily take you further. Or the approaches you've used to achieve this success may have been expensive in terms of time, energy, stress and effect on your relationship. You need new or upgraded power tools to make sure you can sustain or advance your position more easily.

The High-Performance Executive Newsletter introduces these tools, so that you can level up, as video-gamers would say. It draws on many areas of solid research into high-performance in business, including neuroscience, psychology, physiology, trauma therapy and flow-state study.

The three essential areas for high performance are neuro-regulation (to get and stay calm), clear the negative self-talk and the beliefs that create them (including imposter syndrome), and create new success habits.

This week we're looking at imposter syndrome – a major barrier to high-performance.

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Three Myths about Imposter Syndrome

Imposter syndrome has been getting far more attention in the last five years, and rightly so.

It has a significant impact on your performance, affecting over 70% of high-achievers.

Imposter syndrome creates enormous stress, slowing down or holding back careers.

It also creates self-doubt, damages personal relationships and contributes to exhaustion and burnout.

Imposter syndrome is secretly feeling like a fraud, when you're not, and the fear of being found out.?

But despite this media attention, imposter syndrome is frequently misunderstood.

The 'help' many articles offer is not helpful and sometimes even makes things worse.

Here are the three biggest myths about imposter syndrome and what's really going on.

Myth 1: 'Imposter syndrome is a personality trait'

Many people with imposter syndrome think it's a personal flaw or weakness of theirs.

They think it is part of their identity, which is untrue.

Two problems arise from thinking imposter syndrome is your personality or identity:

First, if you think it is you, then you don't even realise that it is a problem that can be solved.

You think you have to suffer through, leading to self-judgement and feeling hopeless.

You also don't look for a solution to imposter syndrome because you think it's you.

Secondly, you think that nobody else has imposter syndrome.

All of the successful people that you compare yourself to don't seem to struggle with this internal battle.

You think it's just you and that it's your fault.

You don't tell anybody because you think it's a sign of weakness.

And so you keep it a secret because you don't want anyone else to see your' flaw.'

But if everybody's keeping it a secret, then everybody continues to think that it's just them.

A belief, not a trait

The reality of imposter syndrome is that it is a collection of symptoms – behaviours such as perfectionism, over-preparing, procrastination, deflecting praise, hiding opinions, and not going for promotions. Plus the feeling that you're not quite good enough, despite your all your success.

These symptoms and thoughts are all driven by one underlying, unconscious belief about your worth: that your worth is conditional and depends on what you do.

However a belief is simply an internal model of the world, a conclusion drawn from long ago that most people are unaware of.

Your thoughts and actions come out of this belief, but identity-level beliefs like this can be changed.

You are not your beliefs, and so imposter syndrome is not who you ae.

Myth 2: 'Imposter syndrome affects more women than men'

Early research into imposter syndrome found that 70% of women experienced imposter syndrome vs 40% of men. But in the mid-nineties, research was done where the survey was absolutely confidential.

And then the numbers of men and women came out equally.

The earlier surveys had captured men's reluctance to talk about it and reveal what they thought was a weakness.

It's a society thing revealing more about how men and women are socially trained differently regarding their feelings, weakness and self-doubt.

The reality is that imposter syndrome affects at least?70% of high-achievers regardless of their gender.

My client numbers echo the distribution of men and women in senior leadership roles.

Every year I talk to hundreds of executives, one-to-one about their imposter syndrome. I see no difference between the experience of imposter syndrome in men and women.

The myth that more women experience imposter syndrome than men is damaging to everyone.

It makes women think that there's something fundamentally wrong with being a woman.

And it makes men keep imposter syndrome even more of a secret because it makes them feel even more isolated and out of place.

Myth 3: Imposter syndrome is a lack of confidence

?The final myth is the false idea that imposter syndrome is a confidence issue.

I see many coaches trying to resolve imposter syndrome by boosting confidence.

But imposter syndrome is fundamentally not a confidence issue.

The reason that people think that it's a confidence issue is because it feels like a loss of confidence. This feeds into myth 1, that imposter syndrome is a personal flaw and part of who you are.

But high-achievers with imposter syndrome know logically that they are capable and competent. You don't need tools to make you more confident, you need to change the belief that creates negative self-talk in the first place.

Addressing imposter syndrome

We have two options to address imposter syndrome: live with it or get rid of it.

You can dial down the severity of imposter syndrome by managing the typical trigger situation; a combination of high challenge and low support.

As a high-performer, you won't want to lower your goals and aspirations (a positive challenge) but any toxic situations should be dealt with as soon as possible.

You should also increase your levels of support as best you can and manage your nervous system to keep calm (neuro-regulation).

These will give you some relief, however the driving belief is still in place, and so imposter syndrome with keep coming back.

To eliminate imposter syndrome you have to change the belief that underlies imposter syndrome. The unconscious belief in our worth that our worth depends on what we do.

That belief is the fuel to the fire of imposter syndrome. When you take away the fuel, the flames die out.

When you change that belief, then all of the imposter syndrome symptoms dissolve, and you have full access to your authenticity and potential.

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What I’ve loved (re-read!) this week:

Focus by Daniel Goleman

Daniel Goleman takes wide-ranging look at focus, attention and peak performance. Its scope includes leadership, education neuroscience and business.

This is one of my all-time favourite books, so many page corners turned down and the dust jacket is worn out and gone!

It's relevant here because imposter syndrome is hugely distracting, and Focus explains how to increase your attention and why that's important.

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An action step you can do today…

Your experience of imposter syndrome

People can have very different experiences of imposter syndrome, and it impacts your thinking, your physiological stress and your actions.

The short video below is a summary of typical symptoms, some of which you may not have recognised as imposter syndrome. Take a look - and remember that it's not you.

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Growth Opportunity

I'm looking for five executives who want to eliminate their imposter syndrome in the next 8 weeks, and to become the calm, confident, authentic, high-performer they know they can be.

For this you must;

- have 3-4 hours per week available

- be open and coachable one-to-one

- be ready for a big positive change for 2022

If this is you and the time is now, message me directly for details

https://www.dhirubhai.net/in/tara-halliday-phd/

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We'll cover more on imposter syndrome in future issues.

Do subscribe and share!

I’m Dr Tara Halliday, Imposter Syndrome Specialist.

I’ve been a holistic therapist and high-performance coach for over 21 years.

I'm the creator of the Inner Success for Execs programme - the fastest and best solution to imposter syndrome.

My book, Unmasking: The Coach’s Guide to Imposter Syndrome was an Amazon #1 bestseller in 2018.

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Check out the Inner Success for Execs programme for fast 'up levelling' of your internal leadership tools.

https://www.completesuccess.co.uk

Think you may have imposter syndrome? Take this free quiz to find out:

https://bit.ly/ImpostorQuiz

Want to fast-track and have a chat about your inner success, book a quick 15-minute call here:

https://bit.ly/callTara

Have an excellent, refreshing and recharging weekend!

Tara

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