Don’t be a fool! 6 tips for getting over the imposter syndrome

Don’t believe everything you think. Thoughts are just that – thoughts.”~Allan Lokos, author and founder of the Community Meditation Center.

Though April Fool’s Day has come and gone, you may be struggling with overcoming the imposter syndrome. And there is nothing that can make you feel more like a fool than believing you are not good enough to be doing what you are doing, wherever you are doing it. Although “imposter syndrome” is not a term recognized in the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) like social anxiety, it is still widely recognized as “real” because it is truly debilitating.

The imposter syndrome (also referred to as “impostorism, fraud syndrome, or the imposter experience, or the imposter phenomenon) is a psychological pattern of an individual doubting themselves despite their actual accomplishments, combined with a fear of being exposed as a “fraud” or a “phony.” When the imposter syndrome asserts itself, even extremely successful people attribute their accomplishments to luck rather than to ability.

If this describes you, you are not alone. I’ve certainly suffered from this phenomenon plenty in my own life. I’ve had to work at believing in my own abilities. Here are a few of the things I’ve told myself: “I can’t fail…too many people would say, ‘I told you so.’” “I feel like a fake. I don’t know as much about this topic as they think I do.” “I just got lucky. I was in the right place at the right time.” Take it from me: you should not fool yourself into believing that what you think is what is true. It’s often not.

Origin of the term imposter syndrome

The imposter syndrome was first described by Suzanne Imes, PhD, and Pauline Rose Clance, PhD, in their 1978 article “The Imposter Phenomenon in High Achieving Women: Dynamics and Therapeutic Intervention,” when they believed that only women suffered from this form of anxiety. Since that time, it has been recognized that whether male or female, as many as 40% of high-achievers are likely to suffer from the fear of being a fraud, unable to internalize and accept their own success. The reasons for this have been explored in a great deal of scholarly literature since the publication of the original article.

Dr. Valerie Young, now an expert on this topic, recounts the story of being in graduate school in 1982 and hearing a classmate read aloud from the Imes and Clance article. She felt like the article was speaking directly to her. Valerie Young and her colleague, Lee Anne Bell, then created a workshop in 2001 to overcome imposter syndrome, and over 80,000 people have attended it to date. They realized you could not “share your way out of imposter syndrome.” You must take concrete steps to overcome it.

In 2011, after years of working on this topic, Young published The Secret Thoughts of Successful Women: Why Capable People Suffer from the Impostor Syndrome and How to Thrive in Spite of It. In the book, she lists “Seven perfectly good reasons why you may feel like an imposter”:

You were raised by humans (too much approval or not enough approval).
You are a student.
You work in an organizational culture that feeds self-doubt.
You work alone.
You work in a creative field: “The very nature of creative work makes those who do it vulnerable to feeling inadequate, especially if you are not formally trained.”
You are a stranger in a strange land (geography, class, gender, etc.): “You feel it is an accident that you are where you are.”
You feel you represent your entire social group (e.g., black women, gay men, disabled youth).

Now what?

To get over the imposter syndrome, you must begin by reframing your beliefs. Below are six tips as a place to start. For a longer explanation and actual worksheets to help you work through this issue, see Scaling the Ivory Tower: You Academic Job Search Workbook. You may also want to go to my YouTube channel for a meditative visualization to help you overcome imposterism.

Recognize you are not alone. It helps to notice that very bright people often suffer these feelings of being a fake because as they go up the academic or corporate ladder, they are more likely to be moving in circles of people as intelligent and capable as they are. When you are measuring yourself against the best and the brightest in the room, it’s not hard to imagine it’s been a mistake for you to get there. Avoid comparing yourself to other people.
Remind yourself of what you have already done to become successful. You didn’t get where you are because somebody felt bad for you and gave out a sympathy card to success. It may be important to notice that differing in any way from the majority of your peers by race, gender, sexual orientation, physical disability or some other characteristic, can amplify the sense of being a fraud. It’s not your responsibility to represent a whole class of people. Make a list of the concrete things you have actually accomplished, whether it is finishing school, writing a book, running a marathon, raising children, getting promoted at work because you met a difficult goal.
Let go of perfectionism. The impostor phenomenon and perfectionism often go hand in hand. Someone suffering from the imposter syndrome might procrastinate due to fear of failure, or spend so much time working and reworking something, spending far more time than necessary on a task. Recognize your own expertise. Learn to notice when you’ve done enough and let it go. Celebrate when you have done a good job, and recognize that nobody’s prefect, er, perfect.
Find people who support you. Mentors come in all sizes and shapes. Find someone who has been there ahead of you. Talk to them about your doubts and let them help you understand these are irrational. You have to change your thinking. Reframe your capabilities to what you can do, and do well. Recognize that any time you engage in a new endeavor, you will likely feel a bit like an outsider and an imposter until you feel like you’ve gotten the hang of things. Treat experience like the experiment it is.
Focus on adding value. Fear can keep you from doing the things you can do. Think about concrete actions you can take to help someone else, like being a mentor, editing an article for a friend, listening to a rehearsal for a talk, assist in organizing a conference panel, or find a partner for new research directions where you enhance each other’s work. When you focus on what you can do for other people, you automatically stop obsessing about yourself.
Keep a sense of humor. It helps to keep things in perspective. Humor lets you bond with other people in the same situation, and of course, increases endorphins. Here’s a wonderful epigram about imposter syndrome for academics: “Grad school—where half the people suffer from imposter syndrome and the other half don’t know what the hell they are doing.”

Surprisingly, the imposter syndrome can actually be your friend helping you understand what you have to offer, as long as you do not let it paralyze you. Now, go out there and take on the world! You’ve got this.

Tags: attitude, happiness