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Imposter Syndrome is believing that you are not intelligent or capable despite evidence of high achievement. There is a feeling of phoniness and a fear of being found out or exposed as a fraud.
Sound familiar?
Here are 12 tips for working through your Imposter Syndrome:
Sound familiar?
Here are 12 tips for working through your Imposter Syndrome:
Remember that youâre in good company. Most people with competence have some Imposter Syndrome, because they know how much they donât know. It's the opposite of the Dunning-Kruger effect.
(image by @jessicahagy)
Talk about it. Putting private thoughts into words changes how those thoughts exist in our mind and changes our relationship to those thoughts.
Talk to your therapist, loved ones, and trusted colleagues about your worries and let them reflect a different reality to you.
Seek understanding. Imposter Syndrome presents itself differently in each of us. Examine your own particular breed of it - when do you feel it most (when youâre praised, with your male boss, when speaking publicly, etc.)?
This will help you build shock absorbers around it.
Avoid comparisons. Donât compare your behind-the- scenes to everyone elseâs highlight reel (in other words, peopleâs social medias are not reflective of their true struggles).
Allow your accomplishments to stand on their own.
Stop âshouldingâ all over yourself. âI should be better, I should be more successful, I should be as smart as so and so...â Doing this puts you into a fixed mindset instead of a growth mindset.
âForgive yourself for not knowing what you didnât know before you learned it.â
Keep a self-esteem file. We tend to ruminate on negative feedback and push positive feedback aside.
Hold onto the nice things people say about you. When youâre feeling like an imposter, look through it to remind yourself that you have made a difference in peopleâs lives.
Get comfortable saying âI donât know.â Not knowing everything is not the same as being an imposter. Neither is making mistakes or being wrong. Rather than pretending to know something you donât, own it. Then learn it.
Focus on providing value. The fastest way to get over feeling like a fraud is to genuinely help someone else. Being helpful and caring combats Imposter Syndrome because it refocuses your attention on being loving toward others instead of critical of yourself.
Practice accepting compliments. When someone pays us a compliment we usually reply with why theyâre wrong. Or, we throw a compliment right back.
A compliment is a gift, and should be accepted properly before moving on. https://twitter.com/dremilyanhalt/status/1282360292433788928
Donât personalize professional criticism. âThat iteration was inadequateâ is not the same as âyou are inadequate.â
Our work is our life in so many ways. But the two overlap, they are not one and the same. Find a sense of agency and joy outside of your work and invest in it.
Give people some credit.By thinking youâre fooling everyone around you, youâre assuming that people are easily fooled.
Is it really more likely that youâre bad at what you do but good at tricking people, than it is that you were hired for good reason?
(The answer is no)
Fake it âtill you make it.The things we tell ourselves become our reality. Sometimes, we have to say to ourself: I am good, I am worthy, I am valuable - even when we donât feel it. Over time, it will get harder to deny, and easier to believe.
You got this!
