Impostor Syndrome and How to Fight It

The other week, my boss emailed me on a Friday to schedule in an appraisal for the coming week and my impostor syndrome kicked in.

She had a set of 10 questions for me to look at and I anxiously read them numerous times that same Friday night before I took the full weekend to reflect and type out my answers to her questions. Before I share with you the question that triggered my anxiety, let me give you a brief definition of impostor syndrome to give you an idea on what I’m talking about.

According to Wikipedia, the all-mighty source of everything we need to know about the world,

Impostor syndrome (also known as impostor phenomenon, impostorism, fraud syndrome or the impostor experience) is a psychological pattern in which one doubts one’s accomplishments and has a persistent internalized fear of being exposed as a “fraud”. Despite external evidence of their competence, those experiencing this phenomenon remain convinced that they are frauds, and do not deserve all they have achieved. Individuals with impostorism incorrectly attribute their success to luck, or interpret it as a result of deceiving others into thinking they are more intelligent than they perceive themselves to be. While early research focused on the prevalence among high-achieving women, impostor syndrome has been recognized to affect both men and women equally.

I took the Clance Impostor Test and apparently I have Significant Impostorism, which I think is fairly high not because I think I’m a fraud or I attribute my success to luck but because I can be too hard on myself and sometimes have a tendency to think what I do is never enough, that I can always do more and can do better.

You can take your test here.

Please note that I took the test the same day my impostor syndrome got triggered. I don’t actually always feel this way but there are days that I do and I’m aware it’s a bad habit and it’s something I’m trying to break away from completely.

Now that that’s out of the way, let me share the question that kicked off my impostor syndrome.

1.      What achievement(s) are you most proud of in 2019?

Some people won’t have an issue answering this question. Some people would find this question a breeze. But for someone like me who has a tendency to downplay my success, it took me a while to list down the things that I was most proud of. When I eventually did, I ended up listing 5 achievements I was proud of in work.

I typed it up, printed it and I’m stapling the document in my journal as reference which will hopefully help on days when I have a little self-doubt.

In an article written by Abigail Abrams for Time, she discusses why people experience impostor syndrome.

Why do people experience impostor syndrome? There’s no single answer. Some experts believe it has to do with personality traits—like anxiety or neuroticism—while others focus on family or behavioral causes, Ervin explains. Sometimes childhood memories, such as feeling that your grades were never good enough for your parents or that your siblings outshone you in certain areas, can leave a lasting impact. “People often internalize these ideas: that in order to be loved or be lovable, ‘I need to achieve,’” says Ervin. “It becomes a self-perpetuating cycle.”

Dr. Valerie Young, an internationally-recognized expert on impostor syndrome and author of the award-winning book The Secret Thoughts of Successful Women: Why Capable People Suffer from Impostor Syndrome and How to Thrive in Spite of It found in her decades of research that

People who feel like impostors hold themselves to an unrealistic and unsustainable standard of competence, falling short of this standard evokes shame.

Impostors don’t all experience failure-related shame the same way. And the reason is that they don’t all define competence the same way.

Dr. Valerie Young ran workshops for years and from the rules exercise, it emerged that there are five different Competence Types — each with its own focus:

The Perfectionist

The Perfectionist’s primary focus is on “how” something is done. This includes how the work is conducted and how it turns out. One minor flaw in an otherwise stellar performance or 99 out of 100 equals failure and thus shame.

The Expert

The Expert is the knowledge version of the Perfectionist. Here, the primary concern is on “what” and “how much” you know or can do. Because you expect to know everything, even a minor lack of knowledge denotes failure and shame.

The Soloist

The Soloist cares mostly about “who” completes the task. To make it on the achievement list, it has to be you and you alone. Because you think you need to do and figure out everything on your own, needing help is a sign of failure that evokes shame.

The Natural Genius

The Natural Genius also cares about “how” and “when” accomplishments happen. But for you, competence is measured in terms of ease and speed. The fact that you have to struggle to master a subject or skill or that you’re not able to bang out your masterpiece on the first try equals failure which evokes shame.

The Superwoman/Superman/Super Student

The Superwoman/Superman/Super Student measures competence based on “how many” roles they can both juggle and excel in. Falling short in any role — as a parent, partner, on the home-front, host/hostess, friend, volunteer — all evoke shame because they feel they should be able to handle it all — perfectly and easily.

So how do you fight impostor syndrome?

I’m aware that I’m not qualified to give you advice on this matter when I still go through bouts of it myself so I’ve included Dr. Valerie Young’s original 10 steps here with these two as my personal favourites:

Develop a new script. Your script is that automatic mental tapes that starts playing in situations that trigger your Impostor feelings. When you start a new job or project instead of thinking for example, “Wait till they find out I have no idea what I’m doing,” try thinking, “Everyone who starts something new feels off-base in the beginning. I may not know all the answers but I’m smart enough to find them out.”

Reward yourself. Break the cycle of continually seeking and then dismissing validation outside of yourself by learning to pat yourself on the back.

I’ve listed down my own personal tips below.

Achievements List

I’m also practicing writing down my accomplishments on a page in my diary that I’ve bookmarked so it’s easier for me to flip to it when I need a reminder of my ‘small wins’ to help me internalise my success.

Positive Affirmation

I’ve been training my inner monologue to be kinder when I’m feeling discouraged or anxious. I give myself a pep talk.

“Rochelle, you have got this!”

“You’ve done this before, you can do it again!”

“You’ve got nothing to lose, Rochelle. Just go for it and if you fail, chalk it up as a learning experience.”

Don’t take things personally

I watched Taylor Swift’s Miss Americana documentary on Netflix and I’ve never related to anyone as much in how I deal with rejection. It was the scene where her publicist, Tree Paine breaks the news to her that her album ‘reputation’ didn’t get nominated in the Grammy’s. Anyone with eyes could see that she was upset, almost discouraged over this but she just said, “I need to make a better record. I’m making a better record.”

This is what my inner voice sounds like, obviously replacing ‘record’ with something else.

I’m trying to teach myself not to internalise rejection, to not feel sorry for myself when I’m rejected. Honestly, I’ve been rejected so many times in my life from my career to my love life to my other personal relationships that I should be able to take it with a pinch of salt by now but unfortunately… I’m just a sensitive soul. So I’m teaching myself not to take things personally.

I constantly repeat this mantra after every rejection:

“It’s not you as a person. You just weren’t the right fit. This is ok. You’ll eventually find the right one.”

Fake it until you make it

I was texting my best friend the other week verbalising my anxiety, “What if I’m being delusional and I’m actually not as good as I think I am? What if this is as good as it gets for me?” and she gave me a really good advice.

“Just continue to think you’re faking it cause while you think you’re faking it, you’re actually doing it.”

So there you go. Hope this helps you. Let me know if you’re also a fellow impostor syndrome sufferer and if you recognised yourself in one of the 5 different competence types in the comments below.