Overcoming imposter syndrome can determine how successful you eventually are during school and into your career.
As we accomplish more in life, we may start to feel like we haven’t actually accomplished these things by our skill alone. But rather we see our accomplishments more of luck and we don’t feel we deserve to be where we are in life.
This can happen during undergraduate or graduate school, in your career and even in your personal life.
While many of us suffer from imposter syndrome we don’t always understand how we can overcome it. No one is resistant from having these feelings at one point in their life. However, imposter syndrome tends to affect different people in different ways.
Overcoming imposter syndrome can be a burden, but a necessary one to realize your full potential.
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What Is Imposter Syndrome
Imposter syndrome is also referred to as: Imposter phenomenon, imposter experience, fraud syndrome and impostorism.
Imposter syndrome can be defined as a collection of feelings of not earning our accomplishments (inadequacy) despite our evident successes. It’s the feeling of not thinking you don’t deserve to be where you are in life.
Though called imposter syndrome, it should not be called a ‘syndrome’ as this downplays how widespread it really is. An estimated 70% of people experience imposter syndrome.
It can be very comforting to know that others feel the same way as you. Imposter syndrome can be seen as having a pluralistic ignorance mindset.
Pluralistic ignorance is where we each doubt ourselves privately and think we are alone because no one else voices their self-doubts. So we think we feel different from our peers even though they are behaving and experiencing similar feelings as us.
The feelings associated with imposter syndrome are said to be first realized when an individual is around four years old.
It comes from them looking at their parent/older person (a successful human) and not fathoming that they too were once 4 years old and were once incapable of doing ‘grown-up stuff’. This feeling comes from the fact that competent people are nothing like us (at 4 years old). This can further be worsened by having verbally or physically abusive relationships when growing up.
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Feeling Coming From Imposter Syndrome
The feelings that come from experiencing imposter syndrome are because we only look at our flaws without thinking that the next person is doing the same of themselves. This self-doubt and persistent focus on our flaws makes us feel like a fraud. In reality many people you interact with daily are all feeling this same self-doubt.
There can be many feelings that are associated with imposter syndrome. However, the 5 that are most relevant are:
- Self-Doubt
- Uncertainty
- Perfectionism
- Anxious
- “Mehish”
These feelings of fraud can truly hold us back from achieving all that we can and can leave us feeling unfulfilled.
In School and Career
Imposter syndrome can truly affect how we approach our scholastic and professional lives.
It can make someone not want to:
- Apply for jobs
- Apply for programs or positions
- Share great ideas whether in school or work
When something is stopping you from trying to seek out better opportunities for yourself to grow, you know it is becoming detrimental to your development.
If you hear yourself constantly saying things like this in response to your accomplishments:
- I’ve been lucky
- I hope I can pullout another success (because the previous was ‘lucky’)
- Everyone in my class has everything figured out but me
- I snuck in the backdoor
- I don’t know why this program accepted me
Then you know you need to have your mindset changed. Overcoming imposter syndrome can be monumental in helping you to achieve your full potential as a student and in your career and personal life.
Common times imposter syndrome occurs
Knowing some common times when imposter syndrome can arise can help you know when to implement these strategies.
- Starting a new program
- Getting a job
- Getting a promotion
- After receiving an award
- When completing a big project or initiative
- After any big accomplishment in life
There are obviously other times when imposter syndrome can kick in. What’s important is that you realize when it occurs and try to fix it.
Brief History
The term imposter phenomenon was introduced in 1978 in “The Impostor Phenomenon in High Achieving Women: Dynamics and Therapeutic Intervention” by Dr. Pauline Clance & Dr. Suzanne Imes.
They defined it as an internal experience of self-perceived intellectual phoniness.
They began research when a group of high-achieving female students at Georgia State University started to report these feelings to them in individual and group psychotherapy sessions.
Imposter Syndrome was subsequently researched and found it affected people irrespective of:
- Gender
- Race
- Age
- Occupation
- And is especially prevalent in underrepresented and disadvantages groups
The research on imposter syndrome has shown that it can happen to various persons at various times during their career. Having internal self-doubt seems to be an inherit part of human nature. What makes this worse is the world of social media today, where our accomplishments can feel like less than they are worth.
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Strategies For Overcoming Imposter Syndrome
Once you realize that you have have feelings of imposter syndrome, it’ll be important you take steps to overcome it.
1. Shine light out not in
When we only shine the light in we tend to focus on our insecurities. This is when the voice of self-doubt starts to arise in our mind. When we shine the light out onto others, then we become less focused on our insecurities and more on how we can best assist in a given situation. Thus helping us to accomplish more.
You should always aim to shine the light out which will help you to move away from the mindset off self-doubt and lack of self worth. And move it towards using your worth to solve problems and continually trying to do incrementally more.
2. Talk about it
Other’s minds work in the basically same way as ours do. From professors to CEOs to classmates, everyone has these feelings of self-doubt at one point or another.
By sharing how you are feeling with colleagues or friends, then it will be more likely that they will also share their similar feelings. Then you will realize that you are not alone in feeling this way and it is just an internal “bias” we all share from one time to another.
This can also help to have a hype person that when these feelings of self-doubt creep in, they can talk to you about how great you are. Don’t just take in this circumstance, but also be a hype person for your friend as well. This will truly help both of you connect better while also helping to create feelings of adequacy.
3. Own It
You need to be able to own who you are. We need to shift from our deficiencies to our abilities that we are good at. Too often we focus on what we don’t have or what we aren’t doing, but forget about all the great things we are doing. You really need to own yourself – take credit for the things you do. Remember all the small things you’ve accomplished to get you where you are today.
When you begin to own yourself then you’ll start figuring out what you truly want in all aspects of life. Which will enable you to go after what you actually want. Insecurity from lack of ownership in ourself has made us not push and try for all the opportunities in life. Don’t let the lack of self ownership of your success hamper you from future successes.
Own yourself. Know what you want. And go after it.
4. Have a compliment/hype file
Another way to overcome imposter syndrome is to have a personal hype file for yourself. This file will contain compliments that people give to you which could be professional and character based. Also include all the thank you’s you’ve receive in this file.
Whenever you feel self-doubt creeping in, you can go to this document to find relief. It will help to ground you in the reality that you are doing great things and are adequate for where and what you are doing. This file can be a digital or paper file depending on your preference.
5. Humanize the world
We often get wrapped up in our own world and forget about the other humans out there. We focus on our self-doubt and fail to realize everyone in their most basic sense is just like us. Every person has self-doubt at one time or another. We all have thoughts of uncertainty, anxiety, and inadequacy.
When you are finally able to realize that you aren’t the only one feeling the way you do in terms of self-doubt and fraudulence, then there will be nothing in the way of your success, fulfillment and happiness.
6. Create a Mantra
A mantra is a word or phrase that is repeated to aid in concentration. You can create a mantra that assist you to get out of the mindset of self-doubt.
Here are a couple of examples of mantras to overcome imposter syndrome:
- “I am great and deserve to be in this position”
- “Why the hell would they not want me?”
- “Shut that self-doubt out, I am amazing at what I do”
These mantras can be used when entering into certain situations to ensure that your mindset gets you out of feeling like a fraud. Your mind tends to hold onto false pretenses, so having this mantra will train your mind that you are great and lessen your self-doubt.
Alternatively, you can start to have motivational self-talk conversations with yourself about the self-doubt. Research shows that motivational self-talk in the 3rd person can help you to feel less anxiety. So why not give yourself a 3rd person pep-talk.
7. Track your successes & stumbles
Lastly, when it comes to overcoming imposter syndrome, you should start to track your successes and stumbles. Track successes and the mistakes you made along the way. When you look back on this (maybe at a yearly life review), you realize that none of your mistakes ruined you but they did make you get stronger.
This will help so you can recall all the successes (no matter how small) that occurred throughout the year. This will surely help you to not dwell on the self-doubt that can happen during a year. Alternatively, this will show all the mistakes that you made.
You should aim to learn from both the success and the mistakes that were made.
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Successful Persons and Imposter Syndrome
Though you and I might feel like frauds from time to time, it’s a lot harder to think of successful people in this sense. However, successful people have actually felt this way even when they are at the top of their games.
It can be reassuring that even the most successful people out there having feelings of inadequacy from time to time. Here are a few examples of successful people that have openly expressed feelings of imposter syndrome.
Maya Angelou
After writing 11 books and winning many prestigious awards, Maya Angelou still doubted that she really earned her accomplishments.
“I’ve run a game on everybody, and they’re going to find me out.”
Maya Angelou
Albert Einstein
Even Albert Einstein known as one of the most brilliant minds to ever walk this earth, had self-doubt about his abilities. He would describe himself as an involuntary swindler.
He didn’t believe that his work should have gotten as much attention as it received.
Emma Watson
Acclaimed actress, Emma Watson has also experienced feeling like an imposter. It’s incredibly shocking to look outward and realize that successful others are feeling like you are.
“When I was younger, I just did it. I just acted. It was just there. So now when I receive recognition for my acting, I feel incredibly uncomfortable. I tend to turn in on myself. I feel like an impostor. It was just something I did.”
Emma Watson
Conclusion on Overcoming Imposter Syndrome
Overcoming imposter syndrome is a necessary evil we will all have to face at some point in our life. We have to stop looking at our inwards flaws and self-doubts and realize that these feelings are generally universal.
The feelings of fraud can prevent you from truly achieving all that you are meant to be. This relates to us all in school, in our careers and personal lives.
When we are able to overcome imposter syndrome then we will be able to truly believe in our abilities. Which will help you to reach your highest potential and feel success, fulfillment and happiness.
This article gives you practice strategies to use to overcome imposter syndrome as it creeps into your life.
How have you dealt with this feeling?
