I describe impostor syndrome as having three elements to it.
The first is the belief that other people have an inflated view
of your own abilities or skills -
a far more inflated view than you have of yourself.
The second factor is that you have this intense fear
that you'll be found out and exposed as a fake.
And the third element
is that you constantly attribute your success, that you do recognise,
to other factors outside of your own abilities or talent.
Impostor syndrome can feel like a dissonance or a disconnect.
But if you have it a lot and you're constantly feeling that way,
then the disconnect between what you see as yourself
and your public view just grows bigger
and you feel fake and you feel an impostor.
Impostor syndrome is something that affects so many of us
that actually to call it a syndrome is probably a little bit inaccurate,
because that suggests it's kind of a mental health condition
or there's something wrong with us. But when it's 70% of us,
it's probably more likely to be something
that is almost normal really.
You can't have impostor syndrome without being successful.
You've got people like Tom Hanks who you'd think,
well they've made it, they must be confident in their abilities.
"No matter who we are, no matter what we've done,
there comes a point where you think, 'How did I get here
and am I going to be able to continue this?
When are they going to discover that I am in fact a fraud,
and take everything away from me?'"
I think a little bit of self-doubt is very good for self-development.
The impostor syndrome people are the ones double-checking their work,
working really hard, trying to get everything right,
never satisfied, always looking for more training opportunities
and more learning opportunities.
And those are all potentially good things.
There are a number of factors from childhood
that may contribute to impostor syndrome.
When children are put on a pedestal,
that's a very, very difficult premise to live up to,
and that can help make you feel an impostor,
because if you're not perfect,
then you're not the golden child that they think you are.
The term impostor syndrome was first coined in 1978
by Pauline Clance and Suzanne Imes
in a paper that they entitled,
Impostor Phenomenon in High Achieving Women.
So it was originally something that was thought to only affect women.
When we talk about impostor syndrome in the workplace,
I see that as the same for men and women,
but I do see a lot of men who don't think they're man enough.
Social media has a huge role to play in impostor syndrome.
We can see everybody else's successful lives.
The more we present our best self to the world,
the more other people will develop impostor syndrome
because they're never going to measure up.
I've had people who have wanted to give up their high-flying jobs
because they fear so much being found out,
that they would rather give it up
and hand in their notice - even though objectively they're not fake
and objectively they are successful.
If you think that you're suffering from impostor syndrome,
actually look objectively at your successes.
Write down the things that you are successful at
and then look at all the reasons why
you might have achieved that success.
Assign percentage scores to how much you think that factor
contributed to that achievement.
You can mistakenly attribute all of it to luck,
but when you put it down on paper,
you'll realise how ridiculous that is.
So it's a bit of a reality check,
and it makes you stop and acknowledge your successes.
Impostors feel that they can't accept anything that's less than perfect.
Learn to make mistakes and to accept failure.
You don't have to be brilliant all the time.
But you can be good enough.
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