3 techniques to fight your inner Imposter

Imposter syndrome hits almost every professional every now and then. First seen in scientific literature in 1978, it is still one of the most powerful “professional demons”.

What is imposter syndrome?

When a progressive individual believes that (s)he isn’t as great, and tends to attribute his success to the circumstances or other external things. Below you will see some of its manifestations.

Have you ever felt any of these?

• I seem to be a more competent person than I really am.

• Every time people say thank-you for what I’ve done, I’m worried that I won’t be able to meet their expectations in the future.

• Sometimes I think that I’m in my current role because I just happened to be in the right place at the right time.

• I’m afraid that people whose opinion I value, will see that I am not who I seem to be.

• I remember my failures  but not my successes.

• Sometimes I think that I got successful by mistake.

• I get uncomfortable when someone compliments my achievements or talents.

• I don’t believe that my achievements are somewhat outstanding.

• I get nervous when I think that eventually the others will notice that I don’t know much.

• I am afraid to take on something new, as it increases risk of failure.

• When hearing about my results, I tend to diminish my role.

• I hate comparing myself to others because they are smarter and more capable. 

Interesting that those prone to imposter syndrome most often

are the most effective and talented people.

What to do?

🔸 The first thing you could do is to simply acknowledge the problem. Just accepting this could have therapeutic benefit.

🔸 Another excellent technique that has been brought into practice by many people including myself. It’s called “50 thank-yous”.

Basically what I do is: every time someone says/writes/sends me the most ‘live’ and charged “thank-you”, I document it somehow. These could be emails, thank-you stories, most powerful wins of my clients, feedbacks from conversations and sessions ... Most often I would take screenshots and collect them in a special folder called “50 thank-yous”. And every time I hear my internal imposter’s sneaky voice, I would open this folder and scroll these pictures. These are the evidence of my value.

🔸 The third one is my favourite: enable master mode. Which means to shift the focus from yourself to the task.

Let me tell you how this works. Let's say I'm preparing for a difficult client session or an interview with someone I absolutely need to hire. My inner imposter would attack me with questions like: “Do I have anything valuable to share? .. Do I even know anything worth sharing? .. What if my practice doesn’t work? .. What if my clients still fails the interview he wants so much?”

And then I force my attention to switch and ask different questions: “What do I have to share? How do I want to help? What problem am I helping to solve? " And my perception of my role changes immediately. I stop thinking about my frustration, instead I think about the task I am solving, and then I can physically feel the shift. I’m still nervous, this doesn’t disappear, but this feeling becomes constructive and tangible.