Dealing with Imposter Syndrome

What is Imposter Syndrome? 

Nearly 70% of people experience Impostor Syndrome. It is particularly common among women and people from minority populations.  

The term was defined by clinical psychologists Pauline Clance and Suzanne Imes in 1978, when they found that despite having adequate external evidence of accomplishments, people with imposter syndrome remained convinced that they didn’t deserve the success that they had. They felt like an imposter by not being qualified and/or capable of performing efficiently in that role. Building up self-confidence and self-esteem can help, however the source of feeling like an imposter could come more from the way we are conditioned to think about how things are supposed to be.  
 
If you feel that you don’t “look like” the person who should do that role, you are more likely to feel like an imposter. It is a real feeling based on shared perceptions that we have about what something or someone is “supposed” to look like – it can come from our early conditioning, our assumptions and our biases.  

In“The Secret Thoughts of Successful Women: Why Capable People Suffer from the IMPOSTER SYNDROME and How to Thrive in Spite of It” 
Dr Valerie Young (2011) - internationally-recognized expert on Impostor Syndromewrites that everyone has a personal definition of competence that can be explained by specific sub-groups: 

While you may feel as though you fit into more than one of these subgroups, the majority of us can identify with at least one of them. Looking at these descriptions, it seems reasonable that something like this has been around since the beginning of human history. It’s also understandable that these issues would be magnified in the stressful world we live in today. 

Why It’s Harder Today Than Ever 
Social-media has allowed us to connect with the world around us in ways that we couldhave never imagined just a couple decades ago, but it’s also created a host of new problems. One of the biggest complaints many people have, especially in this age of “influencers,” is that our online lives can seem shallow and fake. When we only showcase our best moments, it can give the impression that our lives are better than they actually are. This, of course, can feed into feelings associated with imposter syndrome. 

Know How You Respond to Stress 

People can respond to the anxiety of imposter syndrome in one of two ways: either through striving for perfectionism by overworking; or by taking avoiding action to keep themselves safe, rarely speaking up or seeking out new challenges.  

Get a sense of how you respond to stress, are you an over-worker or an avoider? If you over-work, learn to be more assertive and state what your needs are rather than saying yes to everything.  

If you are an avoider and you want to start voicing your opinion more, make a promise to yourself to speak up in the first 15 minutes of a meeting so that you short-circuit your natural tendency to hold back.  

Practice staying calm. Breathe normally, look the person in the eye, keep your face relaxed and speak in a normal voice. Practice breathing techniques in order to stay calm.  

Speak slowly with a relaxed and clear voice. When we feel anxious and under pressure our bodies enter into fight, flight or freeze mode. The ways in which our bodies respond include the release of stress hormones into the bloodstream and a reduction in the ability to process complex thoughts – not a helpful situation when you want to be assertive!  

Finding a technique that enables you to remain calm whilst under pressure is vital, and what works for you will be as individual as your personality. There is no 'one size fits all' approach but some popular techniques include: 

Breathing exercises can help you effectively handle anxiety. Breathing is connected to, and influences, all aspects of the mind and body. Research has shown that inhaling for 5 seconds and exhaling for 5 seconds five times per minute prompts the body’s mechanism for reducing anxiety into action. This technique enables you to manage difficult situations and respond assertively. 

Personal Resilience & Self-Awareness 

Resilience is….The Art of Bouncing Back 
Resilience relies on different skills and draws on various sources of help, including rational thinking skills, physical and mental health, and your relationships with those around you. 

Resilience is not necessarily about overcoming huge challenges; each of us faces plenty of challenges on a daily basis for which we must draw on our reserves of resilience. 

Self-Awareness is about knowing what you value in life as well as knowing what can ‘push your buttons’ and derail you. It is the ability to recognise and understand your moods, emotions, drives, and how they all affect others. 

Self-Awareness is: 

Sometimes people do or say something and then reflect on the situation afterwards.  
This can be good to do, but Self-Reflection itself will not make you Self-Aware. 
Learning to cope with difficult emotions like self-doubt will help you increase your mental strength. Studies show that people who ignore negative emotions experience more distress and can engage in destructive behaviours. Identifying and labelling feelings will combat the stressful feelings that arise with impostor syndrome. Expand your emotional vocabulary so that you can better deal with anxiety and worry when it arises. Simply labelling your inner experience is apowerful way to keep insecurity from ruling you. 

Just as you create internal experiences that result in feelings of fear or anxiety, so can you begin to assign new meanings and interpretations to events.  We feel emotions in direct response to the thoughts we create in our minds.  These thoughts lead us to have powerful emotional reactions to the meanings that we assign to events.  You don’t have to be powerless to have overwhelming emotions.   

What about all the thoughts that go through our mind, including those related to work? A lot of these thoughts will generate emotions which will then again affect our body etc.…