Sometimes I hate when people say to me, “you’re not alone” or “you’re not the only one” or “it’s not just you.” While I appreciate the support and kindness, knowing that I’m not the only one who experiences something - say Imposter Syndrome - doesn’t take away the feelings of frustration, shame, and stuckness. What I want is to know how to move past it. So today’s blog is about just that: how to combat Imposter Syndrome.
But first, a super quick recap of the what and how of Imposter Syndrome:
👉🏽 Affects people of all ages and levels of success and backgrounds.
👉🏽 It’s a feeling of being inadequate and there’s a fear of being found out. 👉🏽 People who experience Imposter Syndrome hold themselves to an unattainable standard and credit their success to luck or factors outside their own competence.
👉🏽 The five types of Imposter Syndrome identified by Dr. Irene Young from the Imposter Syndrome Institute are Perfectionist, Soloist, Superhuman, Expert and Natural Genius.
I’ve identified seven tools to help you get out of the stuckness of Imposter Syndrome based on research and my work with clients and students over the last decade.
In order to use the tools effectively, it’s important to understand the distinction between coping mechanisms and tools.
The National Institute of Health defines coping as: “the thoughts and behaviors mobilized to manage internal and external stressful situations.”
Essentially, it’s a tactic we use to avoid feeling bad. For example, I may binge Silo on Apple rather than face my fear of making You Tube videos to help grow my coaching practice. It’s a specific coping mechanism called procrastination.
In part one of this five part series, I wrote about three coping strategies:
Procrastination
Over-preparation
Pre-crastination
I have a writer friend who over-prepares by conducting massive amounts of research: reading books and essays, interviewing relevant and non-relevant subjects and experts, watching comparable shows or movies, and talking to colleagues about their writing process. He’ll then write out notes, then (reluctantly) a beat sheet, then (way more reluctantly) a detailed outline.
My eldest daughter is a master pre-crastinator. She’ll jump right into any task to get it over with as quickly as possible. Otherwise the anxiety that she will be found out as a fraud is too overwhelming.
Coping mechanisms can be awesome because they help us deal with stressful times in our lives. At the same time, we want to combine coping mechanisms with actual tools so that we’re not just slapping a band-aid on a broken bone.
A tool, as opposed to a coping mechanism, is a means to an end. So while a coping mechanism falls more into the avoidance category when used exclusively, a tool is a way to achieve an objective. In this case, the objective is to move past Imposter Syndrome in order to accomplish the task at hand. For example, I used the tool of google and a dictionary in writing this blog to insure that my definitions were accurate.
Some of the following seven tools are commonly known and some of them have been adapted by me based on work with my clients and students.
Number One: Practice Humility
Humility is freedom from pride or arrogance. I wrote about this tool in part two of this series as well and gave further examples in part three of the series. For those who experience Imposter Syndrome, there is a contradicting set of beliefs that are black and white. For example, the Soloist believes they can go it alone and they also believe that they will be found out as being completely incapable.
The Humility tool is to actively recognize and accept one’s strengths and limitations. Not going to lie, this takes great, great, great effort. However, in doing so, it creates pathways to move forward by embracing the hard truth that obstacles and challenges are a natural part of life. A daily affirmation along these lines has helped me:
I am smart and I have a lot to learn
I am capable and I need help
I am dependable and I sometimes drop the ball
Number Two: Embrace Duality
A close cousin to Humility, Duality, in the context of a tool to move past Imposter Syndrome, is the acceptance that we are walking contradictions. Not to get too philosophical here, but heck why not?! Duality creates wholeness. Can’t have light without dark. Can’t appreciate life without death. By whole-heartedly embracing that we are both smart and have a lot to learn, we can access grace for our “shortcomings” and stay engaged in the task at hand. For example, the Expert gets stuck when approaching a new task if they do not have 100% confidence they know everything they need to know before they start. It’s sorta like how I clean my house before my cleaning person comes in to clean it - I don’t want her to know my house gets dirty. 🤪 The Expert thinks: I either know it all or I’m a complete failure. They’re also filled with what I call pre-shame from the anxiety they will be found out. However, when the Expert truly embraces both their intelligence and their learning curve they are able to move forward in wholeness.
Number Three: Seek the Truth
Imposter Syndrome acolytes have a stadium full of “gremlin” voices that say they’re a fraud, about to be found out, and not actually capable of anything. I’m sure your gremlins say variations of these statements – and can sound cruel, wise, condescending, and helpful. They are quite tricky and will show up in any way needed to slow or stop you.
My business coach Dallas Travers says “data over drama.” Actively seek out the data that supports the statements from the gremlin. With an analytical eye, you can these assess if there’s truth to the statements. If yes, then you can look to develop further skills or resources. If there’s no truth, then keep moving forward. You’re on to something good.
It’s important to note here, that we’re not looking for toxic positivity. We’re looking to seek out the truth as a way to use discernment in evaluating next steps. It may be the truth that your resume is not as strong or specific as it needs to be if you’ve submitted to 20 places and you’re not getting any responses. If you’re getting responses to resume submissions and not landing a second interview, you may need to sharpen your interviewing skills.
The Perfectionist will submit one resume and if it’s not successful, then they will be stopped in their tracks. In working with my Perfectionist clients who are actively job hunting, we’ve looked at current data. According to a LinkedIn study in February 2023, it takes 21-80 job applications to get one job offer. So sending off one resume and expecting to land the next gig is a wildly unreasonable expectation.
Number Four: Find a Mentor
Building off of tool number three, it greatly helps to have a mentor who can give you feedback about where your expectations are incorrect and where you might need to course correct. The mentor can also be truthful about what you’re doing well and how to build on previous success.
For the Soloist, Expert and the Natural Genius, asking for help is a sure sign of failure. Which is where the tools of humility and duality come in. The hard truth is that there are times when going it alone is an important step to achieving your goals and it’s only a few steps in the totality of the career marathon. Everyone needs support in different ways.
Number Five: Be a Mentor
There’s nothing that gets one out of stuckness quicker than being a resource to someone else. Imposter Syndrome is a manifestation of self-centeredness and selfish-ness that keeps us small and insignificant. When mentoring, we naturally access a development and learning experience for ourselves. We are forced to examine how we have succeeded: what has worked well and what hasn’t. In imparting the wisdom from our experiences, we naturally put a spotlight on our own strengths and needs.
You know how I said in the Duality tool that we are walking contradictions? Well in being a mentor we can also be self-centered. How is this possible? A study by Sun Microsystems shows that companies promote mentors six times more often, and mentees five times more often.
Number Six: Know Your Triggers
This tool has been the most helpful to me. I literally have a list of what triggers my Imposter Syndrome. While we’ve identified being given a task as the primary trigger for most people, consider getting very specific as to the types of tasks. From my list:
😰 Making a You Tube video
😰 Being in a meeting where I don’t know the agenda (because I can’t prepare)
😰 Learning the backend of new technology
The goal is to specifically know your triggers so you can trigger less frequently and process quicker. For example, when I know I’m going into a meeting without a set agenda, I can side coach myself to take deep breaths and grant myself permission to listen and take notes before I speak. If I’m asked a question I don’t know the answer to, I can say “Let me get back to you.”
Another hard truth: You can’t not ever not trigger. (You may have to read that statement twice.) As a recovering Perfectionist, I had to learn the hard way that I could not master “knowing my triggers” as a way to never trigger. However, knowing that I will most likely get triggered in certain situations allows me to notice and name the gremlins and kick them in the ass.
Number Seven: Replacing the Thought, Replaces the Feeling
There's a whole field of study called Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (in which I am certified as a practitioner.) I am very briefly focusing on the most high-level aspects of this particular model: replacing the thought, replaces the feeling. In a snapshot, it looks like this:
Trigger/Activating Event: Something happens that prompts a crack in the belief system of the person experiencing Imposter Syndrome.
The Superhuman wears many, many hats and expects to do them all well.
One day the Superhuman accidentally double-books themselves.
Thought: When the event happens, it triggers a thought.
The Superhuman cannot accept that they have fallen short because they should seamlessly, gracefully and easefully be a parent, spouse, worker, colleague, friend, neighbor, yoga teacher, community activist, meditator, avid book reader and gardener.
When the double-booking happens, the Superhuman thinks, “I am a failure.”
Feeling: Thought always leads to feeling.
The “I am a failure” thought leads the Superhuman to feel shame, agony, despair.
Behavior: The feeling leads to doing or not doing something.
When the Superhuman feels shame, agony and despair, they work even harder to prove they are Superhuman.
Working even harder may lead to more mistakes and the cycle continues.
The goal here is to slow everything down as much as possible so that you can replace the thought. When the Superhuman practices humility and duality, it gives an opening for the thought, “I am a failure” to be replaced with a thought like, “Ooops, I’m wearing many hats and sometimes mistakes happen.” That thought leads to a feeling of self-compassion and perhaps even curiosity about how to solve the problem of double-booking.
When I first learned this tool, I literally practiced writing down different thought options. Sometimes I would ask a mentor or friend to help me brainstorm different ideas because I was so stuck.
Pro-Tip: Knowing your triggers will help you slow your reactions down enough to find a helpful thought, as opposed to a hurtful one.
As the Jewish-Austrian psychiatrist and holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl said, “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”
Wow, we have covered a lot of territory in this post. It’s a lot to digest. You may want to print this for reference, bookmark it, or share it with a friend so you have an accountability partner.
All of these tools take practice. You may never reach mastery. However, in the practice, you will begin to experience a sense of freedom and expansiveness.
Next week to wrap up the series, I’m going to blow your mind. There may be no such thing as Imposter Syndrome … Stay tuned!
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7 Tools to Combat Imposter Syndrome