Impostor syndrome - Understanding it and taking action - Brooke Longmore

Impostor syndrome is becoming more and more common with many clients coming to me for support around this.

Impostor syndrome occurs when an individual fails to believe that their success has been real and legit. People who suffer from impostor syndrome find it really difficult to believe in their own efforts and skills, often believing that someone will expose them as a fraud. This puts people at higher risk of anxiety and overthinking.

Self-doubt, self-sabotage and fearing both success and failure are common with impostor syndrome.

The fear of being exposed can often lead to a person isolating themselves or not taking action at all.

There are many reasons this can occur for people, this article will discuss this in detail and will provide steps you can take to reduce the impact in your life.

Impostor syndrome can occur for some adults who grew up in a family where high achievements were very much praised and rewarded. This may have created an idea that high achievements are something to aim for and when missed it signifies some sort of failure. Now, this will not be the case for everyone who was praised for achievements but, may be the case where children were pushed excessively to achieve high results. The same can be said when parenting was filled with criticism and doubt, leading to an individual believing that their efforts are never enough.

It is a good point to highlight here that many of our thought patterns and beliefs are developed in childhood, some of which do not serve us in our adult years. For example, you may have been led to believe that to earn money you have to work really hard meaning, your money story is of lack which could lead to you under-pricing your services and time.

The large majority of my clients who come on to programmes end up engaging in age regression work. When we start doing some internal digging around challenges they face as adults we find much of the challenge started in the early years. When we are able to recognise this we are able to work with the belief/challenge at its root level to make long lasting changes.

In terms of the person who is facing impostor syndrome as a result of early childhood experiences with parenting it would be good to engage in some form of emotional healing work to unpack the story to build better thought processes around achieving and achievements. In talking therapies we are able to gain a better understanding of how the pattern developed and how it led to impostor syndrome from this, we can then alter the dominant thought pattern to ensure the person feels confident in their achievements and overthinking no longer takes over.

Another trait for impostor syndrome is comparing yourself to others. Social media today allows us to do that every second of every day if we wished. When you are a serial comparer you will always find fault in your actions, outcomes and behaviours eventually as you will recognise differences in what you do and have and what others do and have. When this happens you can often down play your own achievements creating thought processes that become self-sabotaging rather than self-empowering.

For example, someone may watch another very closely in their industry and may start to build a story of this person being better, having more clients and this may lead to an individual not taking any action at all.

The mind can be your best friend or your worst enemy people, you have to take control of it to live a fulfilled life. If you tell yourself a story enough times your mind will begin to believe that story to be true and will look for evidence in of this in the outside world. When we tell a story over and over we are brainwashing the subconscious mind that has no ability to reject the information we feed. The subconscious then drives us to look for what we believe to be true in others. So, if you tell yourself enough that someone is better than you, this is the story you see.

For those with impostor syndrome this is damaging for their future as they may begin to suppress their unique talents and skills which then means the world is losing out on what they have to offer and most of the time it is very good skills that we need.

When I am working with someone who is facing this challenge I urge them to stop looking at others on social media for the duration of our programme to allow us to build up their confidence in their own abilities. By not looking at others it gives us some time to engage in the deep digging work that is needed to draw our their unique skills and talents. I have yet to see someone who has not benefited greatly from this work.

People who suffer from impostor syndrome are hugely at risk of burn out as they may work harder than others to ensure that no one reveals them as a fraud. The thought process of having to work extremely hard to succeed is a cognitive distortion often starting early on in life. A cognitive distortion is simply faulty thinking such as black and white thinking, believing you only succeed if you work really really hard. This is not true as many have succeed today and in the past with a healthy work life balance.

These are just some examples of the challenges those with impostor syndrome face, they are by no means the whole list. Everyone will have their own story and their own personal challenges. The bottom line is with impostor syndrome it is important that you engage in work with a professional that can help you change your thought patterns as impostor syndrome starts in the mind and is held on to with faulty thinking.

If you want to let go of the faulty thinking that creates impostor syndrome the best place to start is with talking therapies.