What does the Impostor Syndrome feel like?
Have you ever felt like a fraud or a total fake? As if you don’t belong where you are in life and it’s only a matter of time before you make a mistake and show everybody how underqualified, unskilled and stupid you are? This is called Impostor Syndrome.
The impostor syndrome is essentially feeling like an impostor, like you’re a fraud and the whole world is going to find out and you are eventually going to face the consequences, such as being fired and humiliated.
“Feeling like a fraud” is an issue that many wrestle with and I include myself in it. When we feel this way, we think that we are looking and acting as if we know what we’re doing when, in fact, we feel as if we are deceiving everyone about our real capabilities and even our true identities. This is not done voluntarily or on purpose. We simply don’t feel good enough about ourselves. We feel as if we may just about manage to stay afloat, but we seem to live in a constant state of anxiety because our biggest fear is that we will be found out, ridiculed, humiliated, and dismissed.
The truth is you are not alone and, you’d be surprised to find out that some of the most successful people out there also feel this way.
However, although common, it’s important to acknowledge it, understand where it comes from, and learn how to tackle it to prevent it from overwhelming us and stop us from achieving our dreams.
Famous people with Impostor Syndrome
Oaky, so you think you are a fraud. But what if I told you that some of the most famous and respected people in their field, who you probably think are very talented and on top of their game, also suffer at the hand of the very same thoughts? Here are some famous people with Impostor Syndrome:
“I still think people will find out that I’m really not very talented. I’m really not very good. It’s all been a big sham.”
Michelle Pfeifer
“I feel every time I am making a movie, I feel like it’s my first movie. Every time I have the same fear, that I am gonna be fired. And I am not joking, every movie, the first week I always feel that they could fire me.”
Penélope Cruz
“It’s almost like the better I do, the more of my feeling of inadequacy actually increases because I am just going, any moment, somebody’s going to find out I am a total fraud and I don’t deserve any of what I’ve achieved.”
Emma Watson
“I have written eleven books but each time I think, uh oh, they’re going to find out now, I’ve run a game on everybody and they’re going to find me out.”
Maya Angelou
“Why would anyone want to see me again in a movie? And I don’t know how to act anyway so why am I doing this?”
Meryl Streep
“Sometimes I wake up in the morning before going off to a shoot, and I think, I can’t do this. I’m a fraud.”
Kate Winslett
“No matter what we’ve done, there comes a point where you think, ‘How did I get here? When are they going to discover that I am, in fact, a fraud and take everything away from me?’ “
Tom Hanks
“I went to a lot of events this year because of Deadpool, so you get into the tux and try to act like a grown up but to be honest I still feel like a freckled faced kid faking it until I make it.”
Ryan Reynolds
“I still believe that at any time, the ‘no talent’ police will come and arrest me.”
Mike Myers
“I am not a writer. I have been fooling myself and other people.”
John Steinbeck
“I thought everybody would find out, and they’d take the Oscar back. They’d come to my house, knocking on the door, ‘Excuse me, we meant to give that to someone else.’”
Jodie Foster
“The beauty of the impostor syndrome is you vacillate between extreme egomania and a complete feeling of: ‘I’m a fraud! Oh God, they’re on to me! I’m a fraud!’ So, you just try to ride the egomania when it comes and enjoy it, and then slide through the idea of fraud.”
Tina Fey
These, and there’s plenty more, prove that we all deal with the Impostor Syndrome no matter how much successful we think we are.
Pressure to achieve – understanding what causes and triggers the Impostor Syndrome
It is very common to see this syndrome manifest itself in the workplace, but this is not its only habitat as it can be seen in many aspects of one’s life. People often feel that they are not as smart, capable, industrious, dynamic, or deserving as others believe them to be, and that one day they will be exposed for the fraud they are, and then be fired, demoted and dismissed. Because of this many people live a good portion of their lives acting out a false persona, just trying to blend in.
Unfortunately, the consequences of being someone other than who we really are, can lead to anxiety, depression and self-doubt. For some, feeling like a fraud starts early in life as a defensive and protective mechanism against being exposed and hurt. But continuing this behaviour into adult life can deprive us of the important lesson of facing and confronting issues we have been avoiding, hence creating more problems down the line.
Many people who feel like impostors grew up in families that placed a big emphasis on achievement. This is especially true when parents send mixed messages, for example, alternating between over-praising and criticising. Some children feel pressured into being that persona their parents want them to be, leaving them to choose between being their true self or remain someone they are not in order to continue to receive the approval of their parents and be cared for.
Sometimes, the fear of being who we really are is strongly affected by our peers. As we grow, we learn what to do and say in order to be accepted and being accepted is a big part of human life. Unfortunately, if we never seek to discover who we really are and how we really feel, we may find ourselves trapped in what others want or need us to be and losing our true identity. In these cases, our false identity or persona prevails over our true personality.
The impostor phenomenon is also quite common among people who are embarking on a new endeavour, for example graduate students who, although well-equipped with bags of knowledge, may feel ill prepared for the real world and their professional development.
Some other times, feeling like a fraud comes even when there are few or no outside influences putting pressure on us to be someone we are not. In this case the Impostor Syndrome is the result of our own imaginings, perhaps generated by low self-esteem, feeling unappreciated as we are, and/or not hearing enough from others about what we consider to be our strong attributes that make us shine.
Aside for the pressure from others or ourselves, there is also societal pressures and it is easy to see how, in a society that puts a lot of pressure into being worthy with mixed messages on its values, one can lose self-worthiness.
But even when we expand our analysis by moving away from the individual and on to ethnic groups, we can still see deep traces of impostor feelings. A 2013 study by researchers at the University of Texas in Austin surveyed ethnic-minority college students and found that Asian-Americans were more likely than African-Americans or Latino-Americans to experience impostor feelings. Interestingly, the researchers also found that impostor feelings more strongly predicted mental health problems than did stress related to one’s minority status (Journal of Multicultural Counseling and Development, 2013).
It can sometimes feel comforting to explain and blame why we are where we are because someone or something happened to us, however it’s important to empower ourselves by understanding that we are responsible for our failures but also for our successes and this is why, as Dr. Joe Dispenza explains, it’s so important to learn to switch our attitude from being the victim to being the creator.
We all have to start somewhere…even Mr Darwin!
I am not a fan of guided tours but an unexpected gift brought me to go along to one at the Museum of Zoology in Cambridge, England. Here, I learned a few incredibly curious, funny and inspiring facts about Mr Darwin, arguably one of the cleverest people ever. Charles Darwin, apparently a funny man who had a passion for beetles, enrolled at Edinburgh University hoping to become a physician like his father, but soon abandoned the idea because he couldn’t stand the sight of blood. So, he decided to study divinity instead and become a rural cleric which, he thought, would fit with his hobby of being a naturalist just fine.
However, as we know, life took him elsewhere! When Captain of HMS Beagle, Robert FitzRoy, was about to embark on a survey expedition to South America, he was afraid of the stress and loneliness of such a voyage (the previous captain of the ship did commit suicide!). So FitzRoy asked his superiors for a well-educated and scientific gentleman companion to come along as an unpaid naturalist whom he could treat as an equal. It was then that the professors at Cambridge recommended a twenty-two years old Charles Darwin for the trip. Darwin and FitzRoy hit it well from the start and he was chosen for the voyage, but later Darwin found out that he almost didn’t get the job… and the reason was something to do with his nose! But the most fascinating fun fact on Mr Darwin that I took away with me, was that he was incredibly excited but not particularly good at labelling nor knowledgeable (the first time he saw an octopus he thought no one in the world had seen one before!). He had some expertise in geology, beetle collecting and dissecting marine invertebrates, but in all other areas he was a novice and yet he collected specimens for expert appraisal and went on to contribute hugely to the knowledge of evolution we have today. So, it’s true: we all start from somewhere.
It’s far too easy to look at others and think they have it all worked out while failing to see their struggles, battles and fears. Take Cher, for example. Cher first became famous as the husband-wife duo ‘Sonny & Cher’. Sonny originally wanted to market Cher as a solo act (which of course she eventually nailed!), however, she suffered from such bad stage fright that she felt unable to perform unless he was on the stage with her. This saw him join her on stage to sing the harmonies, and she would mask her anxiety by looking at him during the performance. Cher, now seventy-four went on to have an enormously successful solo artist and actress career (both film and Broadway) but when she was seventy-two she famously admitted to having stage fright by saying “I always have had stage fright; not enough to not to do it but always enough that causes a certain amount of turmoil.” It may come as a surprise to learn that pop icon Cher is terrified of taking to the stage but she is not alone as many other celebrities have confessed similar fear.
I find these stories truly inspiring because it’s so easy to doubt ourselves and even feel a fraud at our job, especially when comparing ourselves to others. It’s only when people open up about their weaknesses and doubts that we quickly realise we are all in same boat! Greatness is an extremely complicated word because layered with so many battles, doubts, chances, tumbles, rises and successes. If you look at them individually, they are not greatness but together they make a hell of a great cake!
The Moneyball phenomenon: embrace it! You are not alone and it’s ok to be and think differently
I think it’s particularly interesting to look at the Impostor Syndrome and take some time to reflect on being and thinking differently as well.
Here’s a thought: is it possible that our thinking differently may make us feel out of place, inept, stupid and essentially a fraud from time to time? Ever felt like you could not bring yourself to speak up at a meeting because everyone seemed to agree on something and you were the only one to think differently only to discover, later on, that your thinking was not so much out of place? Ever beaten yourself up because your style is different, only to find out that you can still do what others do, just your own way, which may actually be more unique? And isn’t that very thinking differently and out of the box that lead historic figures to achieve unimaginable things and average Joe’s to become real gamechangers by surprising the world with breakthrough concepts?
The film “Moneyball”, based on Michael Lewis’s 2003 nonfiction bestselling book “Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game” is an account of the low-budget Oakland Athletics baseball team’s 2002 season. The story is about the attempts of their visionary general manager Billy Beane, played by Brad Pitt, with the help of an amateur baseball theorist, to assemble a competitive team. Billy Beane used analytics and statistics to better estimate the ‘true market value’ of baseball players and successfully assembled a baseball team on a lean budget by employing computer-generated analysis to acquire new players. This is the story of a man who dared to think out of the box, who dared to challenge and discharge old wisdom in the face of much criticism and aversion. Beane realized that stolen bases, RBIs (Runs Batted In), and batting average were 19th century stats. He found that stats such as on base percentage and slugging percentage were undervalued by other MLB (Major League Baseball) teams and used this philosophy to maximize the organization’s return on investment. This is an inspiring underdog story that took ‘big market teams’ such as the Yankees, Mets, Red Sox, and Dodgers by storm! Beane’s gamechanger method has had a considerable impact on a multiple of MLB (Major League Baseball) organizations and pushed teams such as the Mets, Yankees, Padres, Cardinals, Red Sox, Nationals, Diamondbacks, and Blue Jays to subsequently hire full-time sabermetric analysts.
This is only one of the wonderful and inspiring underdog stories out there. Think of all the breakthrough artists, musicians, painters and poets who embraced their differences, defeated their Impostor Syndrome and achieved their dreams! It is now time to defeat your Impostor Syndrome!
12 Steps on how to stop the Impostor Syndrome
If you recognize yourself in the description of the impostor phenomenon, then here’s some tips on how to face it and defeat it!
- Acknowledge when the Impostor Syndrome has landed!
It’s totally human and natural to feel this way from time to time. Chuck Jones, creator of “Pepe le Pew” and “Wile E. Coyote” said that fear is an important factor of any creative work. Acknowledge the beast has landed, salute it and more on to the next steps!
- Talk to someone you trust and who’s opinion you value
Talking and sharing our fears with someone supportive and encouraging can help us recognize and identify impostor feelings. It can also hugely help to put things into prospective when we are feeling too gloom to see clearly. Top tip: choose someone you are conformable enough to cry and laugh out loud with – it’s liberating!
- Treat your reaction as if you were a little kid
If you can’t call a friend, family or mentor then proceed to have a quiet and honest chat with yourself. Respond to yourself as though you are responding to a little kid or a good friend or family member crying over the same issues and thoughts that you are having. You’d treat that person with compassion and care, right? So, grant yourself the same.
- Stop comparing yourself to others
It will only make you feel ugly and less worthy! Life is not a race. We all start at different starting points. “Sometimes you’re ahead, sometimes you’re behind. The race is long and in the end, it’s only with yourself” – Baz Luhrmann, “Everybody’s Free”. Live your life! And if you are asking yourself why should you have authority in whatever is your field of knowledge, remember this: having a podium does not equal to knowing your stuff! You have your style, do it your way. The world is big and it needs different flavours for all the different people out there. Don’t rob the world of your uniqueness.
- Remind yourself that no one is perfect
Stop focusing on perfection. Doing it and trying your best is good enough. Don’t be too hard on yourself and celebrate your hard work.
- Everyone makes mistakes
Making a mistake does not make you a fraud. Perhaps you had a freaky mindless moment or you may need further training, but you are not a fraud. Even the best in their fields make mistakes and sometimes big mistakes. Behind some of the most successful people there are epic fails! The fails are also our makers! We learn from them. If someone made no mistakes it would mean they had a crystal ball and I’ve got news for you: crystal balls do not exist! “Only those who are asleep make no mistakes.” – Ingvar Kamprad, founder of IKEA.
- Accept and recognize your successes and expertise. You belong here!
Often, we feel like frauds because we are ‘unable to internalize our successes’. When you feel impostor feelings are back, take time to visualize your successes and remind yourself that, as evidence shows, you have proven yourself before. On a low self-esteem day, I once confessed to my friend with much shame and embarrassment that I knew I was useless at my professional occupation, and that I was kept on by the company as a charity case. My friend, who years before had also been my boss at the same organization, reminded me that no-one gets kept on a job in one of the most competitive multinational mass media conglomerates out of pity for fifteen years! Get prospective from someone who knows you well and whom you trust. It’s easy to tell yourself there’s plenty people out there that can do this better than you, the truth is, you are the one doing it and you have your own style and way and that is why you were chosen for it.
- Keep a file of people saying nice things about you
These can be e-mails from friends, families, supporters or letters that you may have received. For each of my jobs I have kept a folder containing compliments from colleagues on my good work. I revert to browsing thru those e-mails whenever I feel I am sabotaging myself into thinking I am no better than a paper weight!
- Remember your abilities
Be realistic by remembering and recognizing what you have done well in the past and remind yourself that needing an improvement is not failure but development.
- Qualifications, Credentials and CEOs…blah blah blah…
Let me get straight to the point here: qualifications are good and if you want to be an expert in your field you will need to build on your knowledge and experience. However, be aware of all those CEOs, Founders and Experts sprouting at every corner like flowers at spring time. Nowadays you can call yourself whatever you like and, as most start-ups would tell you, becoming a CEO can be as easy as opening a packet of crisps. You heard it on step four already “Stop comparing yourself to others” and do your best. And, have fun with it! What’s the point if you don’t enjoy it?
- Focus on value and what’s important to you
If you worry about what everyone will think you will never reach your full potential. “I can’t give you a sure-fire for success, but I can give you a formula for failure: try to please everybody all the time.” – Herbert Bayard Swope, American editor and journalist; first recipient of the Pulitzer Prize.
- Be yourself
Acting you are someone else may be fun for a while…but in the long run, it’s a job and ultimately not one leading you to a red carpet to be proud of. Don’t let your life pass by you without having being true to yourself! What a shame that would be!
The Impostor Syndrome Challenge
Do you think you suffer from the Impostor Syndrome from time to time? If so, what do you do to defeat it? Or have you defeated it yet?
Maybe you have your own technique to stop it on its tracks. If so, why not share it here so others can also benefit from it?
Or maybe you haven’t defeated it yet and that has stopped you from doing and achieving something because you are afraid you are a fraud. If so, why not share your story here and find out, not only how the putting of that into writing makes you feel, but also see what others may have to say?
The best way to tackle a problem is to act upon it. So, make this your staring point!
