Your Imposter Syndrome Is A Good Thing

At some point or another, some of us have struggled with a feeling - the feeling of being a fraud. The feeling that we don't really know what we're doing. That we're faking our way through life and at any moment someone is going to call us out. That tomorrow morning at 8:30 am, someone will publish a vilifying exposé revealing that we have been hoodwinking everyone we've met (this sentence is here so I could use the word "hoodwinking").

It's often identified as imposter syndrome. Neither of those words bring positive emotions to mind. Syndrome - symptoms that characterize an abnormality or condition. Imposter - a fraud, a con, a person that claims to be someone they're not.

It's easy to see why this "condition" can have a debilitating effect. But I'm here to argue that struggling with imposter syndrome is a good thing, and it all start with how we learn new things.

You Think You Know What You Don't Know

The answer lies in a framework that describes the journey we go on when learning new skills. The arc goes through four stages ranging between varying levels of competence and consciousness.

Consciousness is being aware. Competence is the ability to do something successfully.

Let's get started.

Stage one: Unconscious Incompetence.

This describes a lot of people. According to the Dunning-Kruger effect, this is where you feel the most confident. You can do no wrong.

Imagine a beginner entrepreneur. They create a new product and they can't bring themselves to believe that they need to do any marketing. "No, this product sells itself. People will come."

In a case like this, you aren't aware of how much you don’t know. In fact, you aren't very good at whatever it is that you're trying to do. But confidence - you have it in truckloads.

Stage two: Conscious Incompetence.

Hopefully you move into stage two. Sometimes you need a rude awakening, a stony ground that you fall on (there might be another expression for this). But other times you'll just get a slight nudge. This is where imposter syndrome starts. Your eyes are finally opened. And you realize that what you knew, or better yet, thought you knew, wasn’t even a drop in the bucket. You now know that you don’t know.

Our friend, the entrepreneur, has read a book on marketing and now realizes they don’t know squat. They realize that the reality they thought existed was all in their mind. After getting hit by that sobering truth, they come across something called copywriting. It seems interesting enough, so they start reading more about it.

The good thing here is you have direction. You begin to see the unknowns that were previously hidden to you. At least now you can start to fill in the gaps.

It's Starting To Click

Stage three: Conscious Competence.

It took a while, but you now know a lot more than you did before. Hey, you might even be good at what you do. But it still requires a lot of effort. It doesn’t come quite naturally as yet. You realize that there are persons who understand the subject way more than you do. You might even be keenly aware of what you don’t know, but this time you are actively working to develop deeper expertise in a narrower field.

After a few months or years of reading books on copywriting, or perhaps taking a course, our entrepreneur can create compelling copy. Not only that, but they can teach others. Creating good work takes a bit longer than they would like, but at the end of the day, it's good work.

Imposter syndrome still lurks because your confidence isn’t at the level where you started. Knowing that there is a lot that you haven’t even discovered yet can keep you overwhelmed or even stop you from taking action.

What you need here is some reassurance. Save any communications from your clients telling you how good a job you've done. Go over work that you did in the first few weeks. If you're cringing, it means you've made progress. If you haven't started sharing and teaching what you've learned, now is a good time to do so. By teaching, not only are you helping others to progress, but you're also cementing the knowledge in your own mind.

I don't know the exact quote or who said it but, "If you teach 10 people something, each of them learns it once, you learn it 10 times."

Stage four: Unconscious Competence.

If you stick with it, you get to the elusive stage four. You’re now considered a subject-matter expert. You can explain concepts simply to beginners while being able to switch and share deep insights with peers. You truly understand the material and could even talk about it in your sleep.

After some time, you might even wonder how persons don't understand what you're talking about. It's baffling that they can't do it. Just try! Silly people.

At this point, our entrepreneur might start to develop a point of view on how they approach copywriting. They're very familiar with what most persons do, and they've found a process that gets them results every time. Who knows, they might even write a book revolutionizing the industry.

At this point you’re confident again, but not in the same way. There’s an added level of humility. Confident that you know what you’re doing but humble enough to consider other points of view.

Is There A Point To This?

Yes, just wait a second. Ugh.

The point is... Only persons in the first (and sometimes fourth) stage don’t have imposter syndrome.

The first is driven by unwarranted confidence, and the fourth by actual expertise. So if you’re struggling with imposter syndrome, just know that you’re on the right journey. You either need to continue learning or continue implementing. But your imposter syndrome is a good thing.