Can’t take a compliment? Feel like a fake? Convinced you’ll be unmasked at any moment? These could be signs that you may have Impostor Syndrome.
Based on the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (American Psychiatric Association, 2013) DSM, Impostor Syndrome is not classified as a mental disorder. Nor is it listed as a diagnosis in the International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision (ICD-10). For this reason, psychologists refer to it as the Impostor Phenomenon. Thus, it is important to destigmatise this phenomenon by not using medicalised language of “syndrome.”
Depicting the phenomenon as a “syndrome,” gives the impression that the individuals who experience it are “patients” which is highly problematic, as it implies a medical model of dysfunction within the individual. Hence many of the proposed solutions and strategies for addressing impostor feelings nowadays focus on trying to “fix” the individual. Solutions in this regard typically involve clinical therapy.
"It is a pervasive feeling of self-doubt, insecurity, or fraudulence despite often overwhelming evidence to the contrary. "
However for the sake of this article and to aid your reading, I will still use the term “syndrome”.
Impostor Phenomenon is a psychological pattern whereby an individual doubts their accomplishments and has a fear of being exposed as a fraud. Refers to the notion that some individuals feel as if they ended up in esteemed roles and positions not because of their competencies, but because of some oversight or stroke of luck. It is a pervasive feeling of self-doubt, insecurity, or fraudulence despite often overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
Impostor Phenomenon was defined as the inability to believe your success is deserved as a result of your hard work and the fact you possess distinct skills, capabilities and experiences. Rather, your inclination is to internalise that you got where you are by other means such as luck, or being in the right place at the right time.
People with Impostor Syndrome are unable to internalise success.
Although Impostor Syndrome isn’t an official diagnosis, many psychologists realise that it’s a serious form of self-doubt. People with Impostor Syndrome tend to have anxiety and depression, too. Abundant research has shown its detrimental consequences for individuals’ well-being as well as career advancement.
In 1978, psychologists Suzanne Imes and Pauline Rose Clance first described Impostor Syndrome in high-achieving professional women. More recently, experts have found that it's common among both men and women in many lines of work.
"People with Impostor Syndrome are unable to internalise success."
Although findings are mixed regarding gender differences in impostor feelings, both in academic literature, and in popular media outlets, the Impostor Phenomenon is often linked to women and members of ethnic minority groups.
Women may experience Impostor Syndrome more than men due to differences in how boys and girls are raised in childhood. From an early age, boys are encouraged to lead, demonstrate self-confidence and exhibit less emotion than girls. Women also cited family expectations, gender roles, societal stereotypes, and cultural differences as root causes of self-doubt.
I’ve been stunned at the degree to which highly accomplished women frequently struggle with feelings of inadequacy, self-doubt, low self-confidence and confusion about how they, in fact, reached the high levels they’ve achieved. Nearly half said their feelings of self-doubt resulted from never expecting to reach the heights of success that they’d achieved and more than half have been afraid they won’t live up to expectations.
With its roots in clinical psychology, scholars have predominantly depicted the impostor phenomenon as a personality trait that originates within the individuals who experience impostor feelings (Bravata et al., 2019.)
People who have Impostor Syndrome aren’t all the same. There are generally 5 types of impostors:
1. The Perfectionist
The Perfectionist focuses on how something should be done — they want perfection from any project or assignment, each and every time. When these standards aren’t met, however, Impostor Syndrome kicks into gear.
If you always hold yourself to the highest standard. You’re sometimes accused of being a micromanager. Even if you deliver a successful presentation, you’ll kick yourself because you forgot one minor detail. You never settle for less than gold; anything else is a failure. Then you might be a perfectionist.
There’s a method called the GEQ method that you can practice in your daily life. GEQ stands for “Good Enough Quality.” In other words, it’s better to hand in something that’s good rather than strive for the best. Perfectionists want to spend more time preparing, so you’ve got to break that cycle with action.
Embrace being non-perfect and accept that it's okay to have imperfections with these actions:
Imperfect Affirmation: Whenever you’re feeling like a perfectionist, keep a positive affirmation in mind. Try “It’s OK to be 75% done and not 100%” or “It’s better to do it well now than wait and do it perfectly later.”
Incomplete Drawing: Take out a pen and paper and start drawing with an idea in mind. It could be a person, your home, a flower or even a musical instrument. Set a timer for 2 minutes and start drawing! Aim to get as much detail in as possible, but don’t draw too quickly. At the end of your timer, take a look at your drawing. If you didn’t finish, great! The goal of this exercise is to embrace your unfinished work with complete acceptance.
Set realistic goals: Do you keep a list of your goals? If you do, take a look at them. Are they realistic, or are you overachieving? Try to be realistic with yourself and your deadlines.
2. The Natural Genius
Do you think you should always be smart, be a fast learner, or excel at everything you’re taught? Then you might be a Natural Genius.
It’s often people who are hard workers, high achievers, and perfectionists who are most likely to feel like frauds. Natural geniuses have a tendency to look at the pros in their field and wonder: Why am I not there yet?
They often don’t realise there’s a mid-stage process called learning that takes beginners to the pro level, so when faced with setbacks, they usually question their own competency.
Natural geniuses share these traits:
They believe people are born talented or skilled.
They get frustrated easily and may quickly switch from one hobby to another.
They see everyone around them as achieving success while they are the only ones failing.
To overcome your genius complex, try cultivating a growth mindset.
A growth mindset is the belief that with effort, you can improve your abilities, skills, and talents. The opposite is a fixed mindset, which believes that people are born with talents or skills rather than earn them.
When you have a growth mindset, you’ll start believing in the power of putting in concentrated effort toward your goals.
3. The Expert
Experts strive for more — more knowledge, more experience, and more awards. Even if they have success and fame in their field of expertise, they think they don’t have enough.
In fact, the original term “Impostor Phenomenon” was coined in 1978 from examining professionally accomplished women who constantly felt they were underachieving and were just fooling others.
Experts strive to be perfect because they want to please others. They feel like an impostor because there’s always someone better out there.
If you’re an expert impostor, you might relate to the following:
You tend to prepare yourself fully by diving into books, courses, trainings, etc. before attempting a big project or presentation.
You avoid applying for jobs because you don’t meet all the qualifications.
Even if you’ve been teaching or working in your job for years, you still feel like you’re not enough.
Experts should recognise there’s never an end to knowledge! So instead of always fell the need to accumulate more knowledge/skills, try to accumulate them when needed.
This means focusing 100% on accumulating one skill instead of dividing your attention to learn everything.
4. The Rugged Individualist
The Rugged Individualist believes they can do everything themselves and prefers to do things without asking for help. They believe asking others is a sign of weakness — after all, shouldn’t they know what they’re doing?
As a rugged individualist, you may:
Feel like you need more time for prep
Prefer solo projects versus group tasks
Don’t ask for help, even if you need it
It may be hard, but the problem of not asking others may be because you haven’t found the right people. Start by asking someone you feel most comfortable with, and then slowly expand that circle. Who knows you may gain more friends and build more relationships too along the way.
5. The Superwoman/Man
The Superwoman or Superman loves to take on more responsibility. They have a hard time saying no and often work harder than their peers. A superwoman or superman often juggles many tasks at once, even to the point of over-exhaustion.
Here are signs you may be a superwoman/man:
You juggle multiple tasks at once — work, chores, school, side business, etc.
You often find yourself working overtime, even past your normal team’s working hours.
You neglect your friends, family, or hobbies in order to work more.
Chances are, if you’re running in super mode, you’re also a people pleaser. You strive to do good not only for yourself but for others. You want to impress, and taking on extra responsibility is your idea to get there. Stop biting more than you can chew!
Impostor Syndrome manifests itself in feelings of self-doubt, fear of success or failure, or self-sabotage.
Feel a wave of self-doubt coming on? Among the ways it can manifest itself:
You feel like a fraud. Even when you’ve arguably “made it” — you got the job, you earned the recognition, you won the award — you can’t seem to shake the feeling that it’s all smoke and mirrors, that you must have tricked everyone, and that at any moment you’ll be discovered.
You devalue your worth.
You undermine your experience or expertise.
A belief that one has fooled others into overrating one’s abilities.
The attribution of personal success to factors other than one’s ability or intelligence, such as luck, misjudgment, charm, networking, presentation skills, or a lowering of standards.
The Impostor Phenomenon cycle: “Impostors” start tasks with extreme over-preparation, or with initial procrastination followed by frenzied preparation. If the task is achieved successfully, the “impostors” would experience a feeling of accomplishment and relief. The new cycle begins once a new achievement task is encountered, and feelings of self-doubt and anxiety recur.
Remember: You are not alone!
When suffering from self-doubt, it’s easy to think that you’re the only one who’s ever felt that way — but it’s not true. Even the most successful, powerful and accomplished women (and men, too) have been unsure of themselves at one point or another.
But there are ways to overcome feeling like an impostor — beginning by recognising that it’s more than just a feeling.
If you find yourself experiencing Impostor Phenomenon, here are some strategies that may help:
❏ Seek out mentorship, ask for help regardless from whoever that may be ❏ Talk with a safe person outside of your professional network ❏ Share your experience with a colleague informally ❏ Seek consistent feedback on your performance to recognise your strengths ❏ Practice meditation and mindfulness ❏ Accept that some tasks will not be done perfectly ❏ Focus on your strengths through journaling ❏ Review your experience and achievements documenting your progress ❏ Reward yourself for progress ❏ Practice improvising to become more comfortable with speaking extemporaneously ❏ Rehearse acting confident ❏ Shift the language of your self-talk to focus on effort and achievement, not luck
Research has found that what you say to yourself can actually change the way you see yourself.
Here are four exercises to change the way you think about yourself:
Make a list. Make a list of at least 10 things that show you are just as qualified as anyone else for the role you are seeking.
Say your name aloud. Research has found that the simple act of taking a positive affirmation can have a powerful effect on how you perceive yourself (I wrote more on reciting affirmations in this previous article)
Own your accomplishments. Women tend to explain their successes away by ascribing them to things like “luck,” “hard work” or “help from others” rather than the innate ability or intelligence than men. Try to own the role you played in your success by forbidding yourself from falling back on excuses.
Visualise success. Visualise precisely how you’ll navigate the situation — successfully — before it happens.
"A thing, but not your thing."
So you’ve talked to yourself in the mirror and made lists of your accomplishments, and you still feel that impostor feeling creeping in. Try the following:
Talk to a colleague or friend. Has she/he felt like an impostor, too? Knowing this is a thing that others feel will help make it just that: a thing, but not your thing.
Unsubscribe from doubt. There are two kinds of doubt: self-doubt, which causes you to freeze up, and idea doubt, which can motivate people to refine, test or experiment with a good idea. Try to turn self-doubt into idea doubt by telling yourself: It’s not that I’m bad, it’s that the first few drafts of any idea are always bad — and I’m just not there yet.
Decide to be confident. Literally make the choice to be confident. Raise your hand. Volunteer your expertise. When you start spiralling into self-doubt, force yourself to write down three things you've done well. (If three isn’t enough to ease your doubts, write three more.) And actually hand-write them.
Remind yourself you’re good at what you do. There’s a distraction method that is usually used in patients with OCD that you can employ. Something called the “rubber band trick.” It’s where you wear a rubber band around your wrist and snaps it every time you have an impostor thought.
It’s important to remember: Failure doesn’t make you a fraud. Even the best athletes screw up, the best lawyers lose cases, the best actors star in busts, the best doctors lose patients. Failing, losing and being wrong on occasion are all part of the job. Don’t let it define you. Learn from your mistakes and move forward.
And remember, it’s OK to feel like an impostor every once in a while, but don’t let your Impostor Syndrome define you. And you’re never alone! These tips should help, but alongside working on your Impostor Syndrome directly, it can also be beneficial to work on your confidence and self-esteem. This can give you a better emotional foundation to work on while you continue your self-development.
Success doesn’t require perfection. True perfection is practically impossible, so failing to achieve it doesn’t make you a fraud. Offering yourself kindness and compassion instead of judgment and self-doubt can help you maintain a realistic perspective and motivate you to pursue healthy self-growth.
Remember that if you are feeling like an impostor, it means you have some degree of success in your life that you are attributing to luck. Try instead to turn that feeling into one of gratitude. Look at what you have accomplished in your life and be grateful for your achievements.
Don't be held back by your fear of being found out. Instead, lean into that feeling and get to its roots. Let your guard down and allow others to see the real you. If you've done all these things and still feel like an impostor, which is holding you back, a mental health professional can help you learn how to overcome these feelings.
Impostor Syndrome is not a recognised disorder, and the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (Fifth Edition) (DSM-5) and International Classification of Diseases (ICD) do not list criteria for diagnosing it. However, mental health professionals can help people who experience Impostor Syndrome and anxiety or other symptoms that occur with it. It may help to work with a mental health professional, especially when symptoms persist or severely impact a person’s mental health and quality of life.
A therapist can help you recognise feelings associated with Impostor Syndrome and create new behaviours to get past them. Action really helps overcome this because self-doubt can be paralysing. But once you know how to recognise and deal with these feelings, you can make efforts to move forward instead of getting stuck in the imposter cycle.
For support in facing impostor feelings and anxiety related to it, or if you have other concerns and do not know where to start, PlusVibes professional counsellors or volunteer crisis responders are available 24/7.
If you or someone you know feels overwhelmed, has thoughts of death or suicide or self harm, having difficulties coping, or simply in need of someone to talk to, you can call Mental Health Psychosocial Support Service (03-2935 9935 or 014-322 3392) Talian Kasih (15999 or WhatsApp 019-261 5999), Befrienders Kuala Lumpur (03- 7627 2979) or contact a medical professional, loved one, friend, or your hospital emergency room immediately.
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