The Remedy for Imposter Syndrome

Megan stood before her canvas, paintbrush in hand, but her heart weighed down by the invisible critics who resided in her mind. "You're not an artist," they scoffed. "You're just a doodler with delusions of grandeur." The gallery opening was next week, and all she had to show for it was an empty canvas that might as well have been titled "Portrait of an Imposter."

Her friend Sarah, an aspiring writer grappling with her own blank pages, noticed Megan's struggle. "What's wrong?" Sarah asked, recognizing the paralysis of self-doubt. "It’s as if I’m a fraud," Megan sighed. "I feel like I’m about to be exposed as someone who has no right to hold a paintbrush, let alone have a gallery opening." Sarah smirked, "You do realize you’ve painted murals, right? You've sold pieces. You’re not posing as an artist; you are one. Our minds can be our own worst critics, presenting a distorted reality where our talents are always in question."

Inspired by Sarah's words, Megan dipped her brush into the paint, allowing her movements to silence the cacophony of doubt. She soon realized that her so-called impostor syndrome was rooted in a self-imposed, fictional narrative about her own limitations. It wasn't about whether she was a real artist; it was about breaking free from the false story she'd been telling herself.

The canvas filled up, stroke by stroke, color by color. When Megan finally stepped back, she saw not just a painting but a mirror reflecting back her true self—a talented artist, no impostering required. And somewhere in that reflection, she noticed that her invisible critics had vanished, replaced by a newfound confidence that felt, quite perfectly, like home.

Megan's story is all too common.

Have you ever felt like Megan?

Many times in the past, I certainly have... And we’re not alone. According to?healthline.com, a 2019 review of 62 studies found that up to 82% of us have experienced Imposter Syndrome at some point in our lives.

Think about that staggering statistic...we can't ALL be imposters, can we? What's going on here?? Imposter Syndrome can be simply described as feeling like a fake, phony, or fraud, accompanied by worry that someday you’ll be ‘found out’- that you’re not deserving of the success you’ve experienced in your life.

Imposter Syndrome is rooted in feelings of unworthiness,, lack of self-confidence, plagued and confined by the opinions of others. Ironically, highly successful people are frequent victims, attributing their position, wealth, success, and reputation to ‘dumb luck’ or being in the right place at the right time, or knowing the right people.

It’s like walking a tightrope, knowing that any minute your foot is going to slip and you’ll plummet, all the time feeling like that’s what you deserve, anyway, right?

So how do you get off this high wire act and begin to live a life anchored in deep self-worth?

Here’s the truth- NOTHING will change until your beliefs change. And your beliefs won’t change until your thinking changes.

The vast majority of people live by their feelings (notice how many times I have intentionally used that word here…). While feelings do play an important part in any well-balanced life, they can often be deceptive and misleading, because they are often based on faulty input- our thinking- with an automatic acceptance of that input as fact.

While Megan's story was fictional, the following are real examples:

• You have a boss who appears to play favorites. She must not like or respect you.
• You are sick of all the times you are overlooked, disrespected, and ignored, especially if you are a woman in a man’s world. You might as well accept that this is just the way it is.
• Your spouse/partner/significant other tells you that you aren’t enough just the way you are.
• You believe that you will never find love because of how you look.
• Your business proposals have been rejected over and over again- you must not have anything of value to offer.
• You’re in charge of the business and feel certain that there is no way out of the current financial crunch, after all, so many other businesses are failing out there, too. Why should you be any different?
• You are facing a huge board presentation in a few weeks and know that you are bound to disappoint, and aside from that, you’re terrified. You believe you have no speaking skills, so why in the world did they select you?

Every bullet point above is a real-life Client scenario. Every one of those Clients was operating with a belief system that fueled their uncertainty, their doubt, their feelings of inadequacy.

Yet every one of those Clients also experienced a dramatic shift in those beliefs because they learned to think differently by choosing the input (the thinking) that generates the feelings, that motivate the behaviors, that creates the results.

The solution lies in challenging your belief system- your BS, in being willing to abandon thoughts that don’t serve you, in fact, they do quite the opposite. They are keeping you stuck in Imposter Syndrome when the truth is that you haven’t even begun to step into what’s possible.

The solution lies in starving the negative and feeding the positive, over and over again, until you have created a new, healthy operating system that becomes the fuel for your success.

So ask yourself this question- if 1 year from now you are still in the same place in your life as you are today, is that an outcome you would choose?

You do get to choose, you know.

"You can't go back and change the beginning but you can start where you are and change the ending."

~C.S. Lewis