Have you ever felt like an imposter in your daily life?

Do you consistently disbelieve in yourself and your skills, talents, and accomplishments?

Do you feel that you are not as competent as you appear to be, and this makes you very uncomfortable?

Is there a continuous fear lurking in the corner about you being exposed at any given moment as a fraud?

Some examples are: feeling like you are lying or overexaggerating symptoms to your doctor about being sick.

Maybe you got that dissociated feeling during a job interview that you’re not doing well, and you can’t help but ask yourself: “Who am I to be qualified for this job?”

Maybe you’re thinking about starting that new side gig, a new project or a new hobby but feel so anxious about pulling it off and think to yourself: “But I don’t have any skills. I must be perfect.” Or “People will think I’m a fraud because I am pretending to be someone I’m not.”

Well, join the club.

I’ve been there, and I’m still dealing with it.

BUT, I am here to tell you that it is POSSIBLE to overcome it, and that you don’t have to believe what your brain tells you all the time.

What is this uncomfortable feeling?

It can be defined as imposter syndrome, which is a persistent self-belief that your well-earned success is only because of conditions outside of yourself rather than your own skills, hard work, intelligence, or abilities.

Despite it being called a syndrome, you cannot get officially diagnosed with it.

Even if others compliment you on your own work, you still say it is due to good timing, luck, the help of a colleague, and so on.

Most of the time, you feel like an imposter when you’re going through new transitions or changes in life, such as getting a new job.

 

Main signs that you’re dealing with imposter syndrome

- Setting very high, almost unattainable goals and feeling disappointed when you don’t live up to them

- Every new opportunity brings you immense anxiety and makes you overthink

- Overcomparing yourself to other people’s successes. Be very careful with using social media too much, as everyone shows their highlight reel. Just remember: nothing is as it seems!

- Dreading receiving feedback from others on your work

- Talking down on received compliments such as: “Oh this project didn’t need much time anyways.”

- Doubting yourself constantly in any given situation

- Overworking yourself to the point of burn-outs to prove to others and mainly yourself that you are capable

- Sabotaging your own success

- Feeling dissociated or lost, like a feeling of not knowing why and what you are doing

- Feeling unqualified, fake, phony or unworthy

 

Imposter cycle

             

According to psychologist Pauline Rose Clance, you can get trapped into the Imposter Cycle (1985). This cycle can keep going and going, which discourages you from doing or trying new experiences or projects again.

 

How can I deal with it?

1. Don’t ignore your feelings and brush them off as irrelevant

Find a trusted friend, a family member, a colleague or a healthy outlet in which you can share and express your feelings to. Your feelings matter and they are important, no matter if anyone told you otherwise. You deserve to be free of these feelings.

 

2. Find trigger points

Search for what specifically triggers you or what event took place for you to feel like this now. Maybe you grew up with strict parents, and now you are way too harsh on yourself and became a perfectionist. Maybe you spend a lot of time on social media, comparing your life to everyone’s highlight reel and expecting that life should also be as perfect as being shown on your screen.

3. List and analyze your gifted qualities and personality traits

At times, we tend to focus too much on the things we can’t do and we forget the things that we are good at. In times of high feelings of fakeness, try to make a list of the skills you are good at. If you can’t remember, help someone else to remind you. This is a great way to put your mind in the present.

4. Know that you are allowed to fail and that these thoughts aren’t yours

You are allowed to make mistakes on projects. You don’t have to be perfect at everything. No one got successful from the first second. Immerse yourself in that uncomfortable feeling and say goodbye to those diminishing thoughts like “Oh, who am I to do this project?” or “Do you really think YOU can pull this off, HAHA!”. They are not yours and never will be. Observe your thoughts and treat them like it’s a bully telling you all this, because that is just what it is. A trashy bully. The good news is, you might not be able to control what it says, but you don’t have to take its crap. You can challenge it.