The number one career limiter and how to overcome it

So, what is the biggest thing that prevents so many careers from blossoming and driving forward? Holding talented people back from reaching their true potential.

Here’s a clue: it’s not behaving badly at the Christmas party, it's not being unable to crack the politics, it's not screwing up a high-profile project, and it's not taking career breaks to have a family.

Nope, in my experience, all these things may have made a difference in some circumstances but the biggest threat to reaching your potential is not being able to keep your imposter syndrome under control.

Unmanaged, imposter syndrome, creeps in and makes poor career decisions. Decisions like not to speak up in a Board meeting, not to step forward to lead that special high-profile project,?not to go for the promotion, not to fight for the pay rise or title change that you utterly deserve, and bit by bit, it limits careers. In fact, imposter syndrome doesn’t care how successful or senior you are, how intelligent, well educated or qualified you are. It doesn't care what race, gender, religion, sexual preference or class you are. Apparently, imposter syndrome affects 70% of people at some point, although I would suggest that realistically it probably impacts closer to 100%. Traditionally it was often believed to be something that women faced more than men, however in my experience this was simply a case of women being given more opportunities to show their vulnerability and open up to talking honestly about it. When given the same non-judgmental environments men are often just as impacted by imposter syndrome, in fact Albert Einstein famously doubted his intelligence!

What is Imposter Syndrome and how can you tackle it?

Imposter syndrome is commonly associated with feelings of self-doubt, the feeling that you’re not competent, or intelligent, or 'good enough'. People challenged by it might refer to feeling like they’re 'faking it' or that they’ll be ‘found out’, or will brush off their success as luck. The problem with these feelings of self-doubt is that, left unmanaged, they can spiral into quite debilitating cycles that leak into external behaviour and thinking, and this is where those feelings interfere with career progression.

Whilst, there isn’t a silver bullet cure, it’s well worth trying to understand your imposter so you can recognise it and counter balance the behaviour it tries to encourage.

Understanding your Imposter

According to Dr Valarie Young, there are five ways imposter syndrome shows up, you may recognise one more than others:

1. The Expert
2. The Perfectionist
3. The Soloist
4. The Natural Genius
5. The Superhero

The Expert

You expect to know everything and feel ashamed when you don’t

?Tell-tale signs

• You use minimising language like ‘I think…’ or ‘I’m no expert, but….’
• You believe your work must be flawless all the time
• You believe you’ve failed if you struggle to master something
• You feel that praise is just people being nice
• You avoid applying for a job unless you meet every requirement

?Advice & Tips?

• Compare like for like - avoid unequal comparisons with people who have more experience in a role: it’s natural they will know more
• Mentor junior colleagues or volunteer to engage your inner expert - your experience and knowledge will be useful to those who are further down the ladder

The Perfectionist

You set impossibly high standards for yourself and beat yourself up when you don’t reach them.

Tell-tale signs

• You’re often called a perfectionist
• You micro-manage projects / tasks to ensure they meet your perfect standards
• You set yourself unobtainable goals and overwork to try to achieve them
• You believe your work must be flawless all of the time
• You expect yourself to achieve 100% every time, or you feel like you’ve failed?

Advice & Tips?

• Push yourself to act before you’re ready – it’s important to realise that there will never be a ‘perfect time’
• Embrace the mantra that progress beats perfection – recognise that honing your talent is more important than expecting yourself to be an automatic expert
• Document your accomplishments to see how well you are actually doing – track your progress so you don’t feel you are failing if you don’t reach the unachievable goals you set yourself

The Soloist

You believe work must be accomplished alone and refuse to take credit if you receive any kind of assistance

Tell-tale signs

• You feel like you must figure things out on your own
• You feel like you have to do everything yourself or you’ve failed
• You feel like asking for help is a sign of weakness
• You feel ashamed when you can’t cope

Advice & Tips?

• Talk about your experiences with people you trust – keeping your feelings to yourself can make them overwhelming. Talking about it can help you find a solution
• Purposefully seek out opportunities to work on projects with other people – witnessing the great range of skills of others will open your eyes to the benefits of collaboration
• Make a list of people you have learned from – this helps to recognise that skills are passed down from others and not just created internally

The Natural Genius

You tell yourself that everything must be handled with ease, otherwise it’s not ‘natural talent’

Tell-tale signs

• You feel like you must figure things out on your own
• You judge yourself on ease and speed, because you believe that if you were really good at what you were doing, you’d be fast and find it easy
• You feel like your success must be down to outside factors, like good contacts, when you find something hard

Advice & Tips?

• Appreciate that great achievement requires lifelong learning – natural ability is only the seed of success, you won’t achieve much without a strong work ethic
• Identify specific skills that you can improve over time – admit that you should work on those skills to ensure you are building on your talents
• Break tasks into smaller, more achievable chunks – a major task taken as one block can seem insurmountable, whereas creating smaller sub-tasks makes it more manageable

The Superhero

You feel you should be able to excel at every role you take on in your life

Tell-tale signs

• You feel a failure if you can’t do it all
• You often over work because not coping is a sign of weakness
• You struggle to delegate to others
• You believe you’re only in the position you are because of luck

Advice & Tips?

• Reframe failure as a learning opportunity - use failure as an opportunity to discover how to improve rather than as a reason to be hard on yourself
• Seek out an experienced mentor – 70% of people have at some time experienced imposter syndrome, so share your feelings with someone who has experienced it to see how they overcame it
• Remind yourself that constructive criticism is not personal – take feedback as a positive opportunity to grow rather than an implication that you’re not good enough

And finally….

Imagine reaching fifty and looking back at your career only to realise just how many times the decisions and choices you made were governed by an imposter and that you hadn’t been faking it all along, that you often were the expert in the room, that you were perhaps even more capable of that promotion than the person who got it. Wouldn’t you be gutted? What would you do?

Here’s what I’d do, I’d write an article and post it on LinkedIn so that others didn’t make the same mistake as me and beg them not to wait until they’re fifty to figure it out. So please (in a begging voice) go for that promotion, step forward for that project, speak up in that meeting. You are worth it, you’re only faking it as much as anyone else in the room and if you fail, it’ll be OK there’ll be another success along shortly.