Struggling with Imposter Syndrome? Or Are You?
Let’s talk about imposter syndrome. So let’s start by understanding where imposter syndrome originated. In 1978, 2 psychologists Suzanne Imes and Pauline Rose Clance first described imposter syndrome in high-achieving professional women. However, it’s been later discussed that it affects both men and women, with one study reporting that 70% of all people have felt imposter syndrome at some point.
According to WebMD, those reported to have felt the kind of self-doubt associated with imposter syndrome include Albert Einstein, Serena Williams, Jennifer Lopez, Natalie Portman, and Tom Hanks to name a few. That’s quite a list. I, myself have felt like I was an imposter that didn’t fit in at work and I was just days away from everyone finding out. But I eventually realized that imposter syndrome was not what was affecting my performance.
But before I get into that, let’s discuss what imposter syndrome is defined as. It’s not a mental health condition, but is a term used to describe someone who feels like they aren’t as capable as others think they are and fears they’ll be exposed as a fraud. This happens to many of us at one time or another. I’d argue that if you’ve never felt this way, you’re probably staying in your comfort zone too much as these feelings generally arose when you’re challenging yourself beyond your comfort zone.
But is this feeling of being a fraud really imposter syndrome, some dialogue that we set up in our heads? Or could it be something else?
What if I told you its normal to feel like an imposter when you do something for the first time or something that may be beyond your training? For instance, I worked as a corporate attorney for a long time and someone asked me if I could work on a litigation. Of course, not knowing better, I said sure, I can do that. And then that panic kicked in. What was I thinking? I have no idea what I’m doing! Which turned into I’m a terrible attorney! Why would anyone hire me!
Well, in that instance, I don’t think I had imposter syndrome, as much as I was taking on something that I didn’t have the experience to do, I think that’s realism! But, in our day to day experiences, when we’re doing the job we were trained for and have experience in, these feelings of inadequacy may or may not be self-imposed imposter syndrome. It could possibly be the bad behavior of those around you.
About 2 years ago, Ruchika Tulshyan, author of Inclusion on Purpose, coauthored an article with Jodi-Ann Burey, titled “Stop Telling Women They Have Imposter Syndrome”[1]. The article describes a woman who, as a result of the behavior of her colleagues, went from “healthy nervousness — Will I fit in? Will my colleagues like me? Can I do good work? — to a workplace-induced trauma that had her contemplating suicide.”
She was a woman, confident in her capabilities and sense of self. But as time went on, her ideas were dismissed, she was demoted as a result of speaking, up and her colleagues began to shun her. Well, I listened to this and thought, Woah, that’s me. I know exactly how that feels. And it didn’t make any sense to me at the time it was happening. I didn’t feel like an imposter. I worked my bumm off and had complete confidence in my capabilities, well except for the litigation situation. But I knew what I was doing, I was good with people, and I was fair and professional. So why was I feeling like an imposter? Why was I becoming insecure about every decision I made? About my capabilities?
Well, what I thought was imposter syndrome, eventually turned out to be Generalized Anxiety Disorder or GAD for short. It started with a few snipes from coworkers here and there, which I easily brushed off in the beginning. But then my workload increased significantly, so inevitably my hours got longer, and I felt like I was getting conflicting messages at work about what was expected of me. “You need work life balance, put yourself in the shoes of others, you need to be responsive, you need to take time off for yourself”. And when I did take time to myself, someone in the group would be reaching out with some emergency, and then my boss would say I was not making myself available enough. I was even told, if things didn’t change, they would need to figure out what to do with me. My mind became a confused a conveyor belt of conflicting messages that I couldn’t slow down. And the longer it rotated around and around, the worse I felt. My resiliency decreased, my sleep was affected, my sense of humor was evaporating, and I began to feel hopeless. And it went on for three years until I was a hot mess and needed to take medical leave.
Why did it take so long for me to get help? Simple, the stigma and shame of what I though was imposter syndrome. I was afraid to admit I was struggling as much as I was because of the fear that people would think I just couldn’t cut it, I couldn’t handle stress well, or I needed to act more like a leader, because that’s what I was being told. Like it was some kind of psychological warfare challenge that required me to outperform my coworkers on an emotional scale. Let’s mess with her head to see if she has the stamina to be a leader.
Well in that case I failed. Because, by the time I had to take medical leave, I couldn’t think anymore and I was crying over everything, which was freaking me out even more.
My optimism that I could handle the stress, and my confidence in my resiliency really worked against me, because they caused me to ignore the severity of the situation, and this caused things to get progressively getting worse. The fear of embarrassment of not being able to cut it prevented me from telling anyone that I was struggling as much as I was. I was afraid that I would get dismissed and lose the credibility I worked so hard to build. And, because I didn’t address it, I crashed and burned and created the reality I was so afraid of in the first place. I was hiding and I was masking, a lot. I kept hoping I would figure out on my own how to feel better, how to fit in, how to manage my time better, how to thrive in that environment but I never did figure it out on my own.
My resilience made me miserable! And not talking about it made things worse. I was trying to prove I deserved to be in my role by convincing myself that if I worked harder and longer hours, I’d overcome these feelings of inadequacy. How wrong I was, because this only made things worse. I spiraled down a rabbit hole of self-fulfilling prophecies.
I was completely burning myself out and probably making everyone around me miserable while I was doing it, because I was complaining so much, and not because I didn’t enjoy my job, I just needed relief and rather than having healthy conversations about it, mostly because I didn’t know how, and others didn’t either, the only outlet that I knew was to complain. This really was my way of asking for, begging for help, desperate for help, but no one I spoke to (including myself) knew how to give it.
So how does imposter syndrome lead to burnout or vice versa. Well I ignored the warning signs of burnout which fed the little voice in my head that was telling me I wasn’t good enough. It was a circular conversation. The signs of burnout for me were the complaining, being tired all the time but not being able to get anything accomplished because my brain was on overload. It’s like making too many smoothies, and after a while the motor in the blender starts to smoke up. I was burning out my motor. And of course, when your burnout fuels what it thinks is imposter syndrome, the reality of it grows.
It would have been easy to point fingers at my coworkers and the organization, but with time I’ve realized that, even though they knew better and were teaching all the right stuff, the organization was not making anyone accountable for changing the culture. And, what I realized and overcame, was the understanding that it was my responsibility to change things for myself because I couldn’t rely on the organizational culture to change as rapidly as it needed to in order to make me feel safe and valued. I reached the understanding that I didn’t have imposter syndrome, that I had nothing to be embarrassed about, and that SELF-CARE HAS TO BE A PRIORITY.
Feeling like you’re an imposter, like you don’t fit in, is not a form a weakness…this is your brain trying to protect you from what it perceives as harmful. Which can be a false definition of harmful. Self-care must be a priority because success requires it.
Have you been told this? Have you felt this? If so, you need to learn how to take care of your own needs in this type of work environment. You can go look for another job, but until that happens, one of the things I’ve found that works, is to filter information that may be harmful. Each of us needs different filters and this is dependent on who you are and what you want.
This takes learning how to filter what you’re hearing and what’s being said, stop identifying with your environment and coworkers and become more autonomous in your internal dialogue.
This is why I became a coach. Because sharing what I have learned, helps others understand how to productively filter and make the changes necessary to reclaim their sense of empowered selves so they can avoid falling into the imposter syndrome trap.
To quote Ruchika and Jodi-Ann again: “For many … feeling like an outsider isn’t an illusion — it’s the result of systemic bias and exclusion”[2] and you deserve better.
[1] Stop Telling Women They Have Imposter Syndrome, Tulshyan, Ruchika and Burey, Jodi-Ann, Harvard Bus Review, February 11, 2021, https://hbr.org/2021/02/stop-telling-women-they-have-imposter-syndrome
[2] Id.
