Do you fear friends or colleagues will find out you are not as worthy as they think?
Or you feel your success (irrespective big or small) was a fluke and people will soon find out you are a fraud?
Don’t worry it’s the Impostor Syndrome where you feel like a fraudulent, a pretender, a hoaxer (which you are not).
Table of Contents
What’s Impostor Syndrome? Why is it vicious?
Often spelled as Imposter, feeling an Impostor is incompetence to deal with your imperfections and perform at the highest standards you set for yourself.
It’s like riding high on egomania while enjoying success and then sliding down to fear of being called a cheater or a fraud.
You feel like a loser irrespective how successful you are.
It makes you incapable to focus on your current work, living in obscurity, not opening up to new opportunities.
Rewards and Recognition do more harm than good where you feel you cannot justify your credentials in the upcoming project, and you fear people will know about your incompetence.
The feeling of an Impostor kills creativity where you are constantly self-judging.
You are too hard on yourself overthinking about people’s opinion of you.
It retracts you from the present moment, discharging the concentration, denting your flow, and jolts your personal and professional growth.
The good news is that you are not alone!
Celebrity quotes on Impostor Syndrome:
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
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 Winslet
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 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
My Encounter with Impostor Syndrome
Insightful publications like Lifehack, Pick the Brain, Purpose fairy, Dumb Little Man published my articles.
I received accolades for these, including some of my works published on my blog.
Why am I bragging?
The critic appreciation prod to deliver more, as I began expecting too much out of myself.
I started fearing people’s eyes, thinking about them, all of it abstaining from workflow, diminishing my quality of work, questioning my talent and abilities.
I could not write, unable to get rid of the perfectionist inside me self-judging constantly.
My creativity fired many times, soon to nosedive into a polluted pool of uncertainties.
I could not do love doing most — Expressing my thoughts and emotions.
And that led to Impostor Syndrome where there were dilemmas and ambiguity, causing fear and my lower self cried: People will soon discover my success (no matter how little) is a fluke.
12 Mind Shifts to Overcome Impostor Syndrome
Don’t let humility turn you into people’s puppet
It’s good you are modest and nice to everyone.
But sometimes sensitivity to emotions (a blessing) turns into a vice where you cannot say No to others.
You don’t express your true self thinking A No will break their hearts.
Please stop!
Express your original vulnerability to shrug off the burden of people’s expectations.
Break the silence.
Speak up with honesty and stand up for your feelings.
Remember nude is better than naked?
Surrender your identities and possessions
When one receives rewards, recognition, appraisals, it infuses a sense of pride.
A feeling of superiority creeps often.
And the Ego begins to talk.
Identify and surrender to it before it reaches Obsession, the high that soon tunes into the low of feeling an Impostor.
Be conscious of the self-talks
What you feed in your mind manifests in your actions.
It’s vital to have positive pep talks where your higher self counsels younger-broken self.
And for the unconscious negative self talks, just be aware of it to create a space where it melts into a profound lesson.
Feed into subconsciousness that stupidity doesn’t define you
You are a human who commits mistakes and learns from failures.
A couple of instances where you could not perform your best doesn’t make you a loser.
Stop feeling one!
Henry Ford said, “Failure is only the opportunity to begin again more intelligently.”
Don’t judge your obscurity in thoughts and emotions arising out of burnout
Possible you are mentally, physically, and emotionally drained.
Your mind needs a break from the pattern of monotonous thinking.
Remember just like warm-up before the start of anything is important to create a flow, cool down your happy way is important to break the flow.
Otherwise mind continues to work compulsively.
Take a mind-break and let the boredom to strike, the boredom that urges the mind to spark creativity again.
Stephen King says: It’s a lot easier to fuel creativity through boredom when your phone isn’t running your life.
Recall credentials and achievements
Remind yourself of the efforts you put in the making of who you are.
Take out those souvenirs that remind you of the hard and smart work you have put in.
A bit of advice: Document experiences of reaching the little milestones the way you like ensuring you pull it out from the memory whenever you feel the need to dissolve the impostor in you.
Take people’s judgments as constructive criticism
Just imagine, when you find it difficult to change your own thoughts, how can you expect people to change their thoughts in your favour?
Feel concerned only if they stop commenting or cease offering feedbacks, which means they are disinterested in you.
Otherwise let them freely express whatever they feel of you.
Mind your social media usage
When technology made connecting with people easier and cheaper, we started poking into each other’s personal lives.
And that’s where germinates comparison and competitions dumping garbage in your mind leading to insecurities.
Technology is a boon if you could use it wisely.
Embrace your self-doubts
The challenge with most of us is not that we don’t have answers.
It’s that we cannot address our questions.
This incapacity to express evades clarity which rings like snoozed alarms every time everyplace.
Listen to your inner critic (preferably in your morning Me-time) like your best friend offering advice.
Hidden inside is a Happy Realization.
Practice mindfulness
Highly recommended!
It enables you to recognize the feelings of an Impostor whenever it hits.
You learn the art of being an observer (from a participant) of thoughts allowing it to come and leave.
Mindfulness organizes your mind and lets you identify the cause of feeling an Impostor.
When you identify the cause, you begin unlocking the answers.
Fake it to make it
Act like a professional.
Express some courage!
A modern approach where you act confidently and tell your mind I shall overcome it, even if you have not, until your subconsciousness saves it.
You discover your response gets better to every spell of feeling an impostor.
Flush out your thoughts and emotions in journal
Get back to the traditional approach, the zone which doesn’t have a backspace like the modern-day writing on laptop, tab, and smartphone.
Blindly express whatever comes across your mind.
It clears your mind from relentless thoughts and settles down your anxiety and overwhelm.
Final thoughts
Valerie Young, an expert on Impostor syndrome, says the only difference between someone who experiences impostor syndrome and one who doesn’t is how they respond to challenges. “People who don’t feel like impostors are no more intelligent, or competent, or capable than the rest of us. It’s very good news because it means we just have to learn to think like non-impostors.”
So yes, it’s normal to feel an Impostor (or Imposter).
There’s nothing to feel ashamed.
Whenever it strikes, remember it’s not the people but your self-judgments talking.
Respond to your inner critic positively than to fear people’s opinions you cannot change.
Trust yourself and enjoy the process… good luck!
