Imposter Syndrome

I, like many, experience “imposter syndrome”.

Perhaps you’ve heard the term, maybe even used it. Imposter syndrome is when you doubt your skills and talents and have a fear of being exposed as a fraud when you are ultimately “found out”. This includes those of us with clear accomplishments that “prove” our competence – but instead of seeing those things as accomplishments, we may see it as “fooling” those around us or simply as luck that’s due to run out.

Those with imposter syndrome are both running away from and running towards something at the same time.

On the one hand, we run from our self-doubt and the fear of being caught.

At the same time, we run towards the place where we believe we will finally be the expert, the best, unquestionable. It’s the expertise that will prove, once and for all, we are knowledgeable, worthy, and perhaps most of all, a contribution.

There’s an underlying belief that we need to know everything. Imagine being caught having questions or doubt. What a sign of weakness!  We feel we need to come up with answers on the spot. There’s always somewhere to “get to”, and we believe we will one day have “made it”.

As you may be starting to see, no amount of knowledge or expertise is going to be sufficient to chase away the self-doubt. After all, who you are BEING is an “imposter”.

Inside of “imposter”, the actions available to us are limited. To shut off the threat of being found out, we stop listening to others. We stop engaging with people. Fear takes over – if we let in others, they may discover our deepest secret, that we don’t know it all, that we are faking it, and we are actually a failure.

When we stop listening, we shut down a part of ourselves. We stop letting in new ideas, we stop growing, we stop learning. To protect ourselves, we let ourselves off the hook for taking any real risks in the things that are most important to us.

Fear keeps us from playing full out, from reaching our potential, from fully experiencing life. What if there was another way?

What if life’s experiences were not an “end game” to win, but a continual path of learning and growing? What if life was truly about mastery, continually growing and learning? How could we connect with others if that was not a threat, but part of our growth?

If these thoughts speak to you, contact me to set up a time to talk!