Feeling out of place? How to beat imposter syndrome | Life and style

FAke it until you do it, the saying said. But what happens when you have “done” but you always feel like total fraud? The term “impostor phenomenon” was invented in 1978 by American psychologists Pauline Clance and Suzanne Imes, who noticed that their students and therapeutic patients were full of doubt about their capacities. A survey in 2021 revealed that up to 82% of people have experienced what is known as the Imotter syndrome – that throbbing feeling that you have encouraged everyone to think that you know what you are doing.

“Impost syndrome is incredibly common among my clients,” said Dr. Jessamy Hibberd, author of the Impost Cure. “This seems to be worse among the very competent and very competent people who are externally very successful and experienced.” Indeed, Michelle Obama, David Bowie and Maya Angelou have all spoken of feeling as if they did not deserve their success.

Hibberd says that it is not only at work that people can feel like impostors: parenthood, relationships and social media can all cause feelings of insufficiency and a deep fear of discovery. Impostor syndrome can lead to anxiety and depression, interfere with our ability to take risks and make progression more difficult.

So what should you do if you can’t shake the feeling that you are only a badly formulated email far from being dismissed? How can you overcome the fear that a bad day means that everything will collapse? We asked experts their advice on how to beat for good feelings of self -doubt.

Follow your fears

“People with impostor syndrome often predict the worst case that takes place and will refuse opportunities because they believe that things could go wrong and then they will be discovered,” explains Hibberd. “I recently had that myself, when I tried to dissuade myself from a public commitment because I was nervous that it would be bad.”

To overcome this, Hibberd encourages his customers to write their anxious predictions, then follow what is really going on – something she does herself. “When you start doing this, you realize that the worst does not happen, in fact, things go normally positively,” she said. “You are growing with confidence and confidence in realizing that it’s just your imposter brain that speaks, it’s not realistic. The next time I am asked to give a conference and I feel nervous, I can look back and remember that I have felt this before, but also I will be able to follow how much I felt with satisfied. “

Swim in the unknown

“Those of us who feel like impostors often have the conviction that we must always be the expert or have all our ducks in a row,” explains the business coach and therapist Amanda Brenkley. “When in fact, coming from a place not to know is a superpower, not a weakness.”

It is possible, says Brenkley, to train the brain to be comfortable with uncertainty and to take advantage of swimming in the unknown. “You don’t have to come in all firearms, knowing everything,” she said. “Remember that it’s perfectly ok to say” I don’t know “; it is good to ask questions; it may be stimulating to ask for help. In fact, you could see that people are better reacting to the curious learner, rather than to the entirely expert.”

The physicist winner of the Nobel Prize, Richard Feynman, adopted this philosophy, decomposing new complex ideas in what he called his notebook that I do not know, a technique that has become known as Feynman method. Normalize that you will never know everything, and that it’s okay. Maybe even start your own notebook.

Celebrate your victories

“People with impostor syndrome tend to be very difficult towards themselves when things are not going well and depreciate the success they have,” explains Hibberd. “When things are fine, they will say” I was lucky “or” I had a good team “, that’s why they never feel good enough and feel disconnected from their achievements.”

To fight this, Hibberd asks his customers to write three things they have done well every day. “I ask them to read them in our sessions and they find it incredibly difficult at first,” she said. “They will say:” Oh, I forgot to do it “, or to wiggle visibly by reading it. People are much more comfortable to replay the things they have not been unhappy. But over time, celebrating victories like this is more natural, and you can even increase negative thoughts with positive positions. ”

Create a CV impostor

“I ask customers to write a large list of their achievements or to create a large CV of everything they have done and to continue to add to it all the time,” explains life coach Ash Ambirge, author of the Kidg Finger project: Trash Your Impost Syndrome and experience the non -ckwitable life that you deserve. “I tell them to imagine that they do this for someone who is not in their industry. Many incredible things they have done, they have never written or said out loud.”

Ambirge then obliges customers to step back and imagine that they read on this person as if it were not them. “I ask them,” How would you feel if you heard about someone who had done all these things? ” And “What would your 16 year old self have to do with the person who had accomplished all this?” Sometimes, the simple fact of seeing your achievements on paper is enough to make you stop feeling as fraud and starting to feel like a hard to cook. »»

Learn to make a compliment

“People with impostor syndrome are particularly difficult to take and remember compliments, and they spanned successes,” explains Hibberd. “We have to learn to take credit in a row.

The next step is to start making compliments. “Don’t forget to tell yourself when you think you’ve done well,” says Hibberd. “Then you can start informing the others of things you have done, done or learned.”

Kiss your failures

“There is a tendency these days – especially online – to share only the best pieces of our jobs or families and our friendships, and this can worsen impost syndrome, because it seems that everyone understood everything,” explains Brenkley. “We are very good to claim that things are effortless, but we do not share the feelings of nerves or insufficiency along the way, nor all the hard work that has passed in a final result.”

Brenkley says that by kissing our failures and our mistakes – by sharing our traps, and even by rewarding us and rewarding us and in us for the others for the apprenticeship opportunity – The feelings of being inadequate or fraud no longer feel like something we have to hide. “Growth and discomfort are a circle, not a straight line, and no one does 100% of the time.”

Find your wire

For many people, impostor syndrome strikes when we try something new, putting us in a different context or leaving our comfort zone. Ambirge says that it is at this moment that it is important to think about your “secret sauce” – your USP, which translates into many different areas of your life and your interests.

“If you start something different, it’s easy to feel out of your depth or as if you didn’t know what you are doing,” she said. “But in fact, if you look at what you have done in the past, you can probably trace certain common points or a theme, for example, it could be creativity, or help people find their goal, or even be curious. If you develop your life so far, the path may seem shredded, but there will be a thread between your previous experience and this new interest or project. Sometimes that’s all you need to make you realize that you are not fraud trying to deceive everyone. Everything you have done before is an advantage, and you have precious skills. Now you just apply them to a different framework. “”

Get closer to your impostor syndrome …

“Part of the power of impostor syndrome is that it looks like a private shame,” said Hibberd. “But being open to how you feel, you can start gathering the different parts of yourself.”

Hibberd advises to speak to friends and colleagues of trust on the errors you feel or – even better – the fears that you have on the errors that you could make in the future.

“Revaluating our insecurity and admitting our difficulties to others can help us give us a better perspective on how we are talking about it,” she says. “You might see that if you are talking about what you feel, you will notice how many other people in your life feel in exactly the same way, and this can be very healing.”

… but don’t hang on

“Sometimes people have lived with their imposter syndrome for so long, they have convinced themselves that it is actually a positive line,” explains Ambirge. “They might think that it is a way of making sure they remain humble and do not become arrogant. They also think that if you underestimate yourself, you will be motivated to improve – it makes you work harder, target higher, prevents you from becoming big or complacent, and will protect you if all is bad.

“They feel like they don’t think that these imposing thoughts go somehow the jinx, and it’s too risky to try in another way,” she said. “But recognizing your own skills, knowledge and experience is not arrogance. Impostor syndrome does not help you – it holds you.”

Additional Zahra Onsori reports