Dealing with impostor syndrome in your career

Working in fast-paced environments, surrounded by highly-skilled, intelligent individuals or even showing up at a new job can be challenging. It can be challenging not because you are not performing, but because you think you are not performing as you “should”. The impostor syndrome is something that came up a lot for me, especially as I reflect back on my attitude and approach at work in the first years of my career. As a woman, as part of a male-dominant profession, as an immigrant, and as part of many beliefs that my identity has been built on, it’s easy to feel you are not the same as others or not as worthy. Thankfully, diversity and inclusivity are becoming core aspects in workplaces; but there is still a need for a lot of personal work and self-understanding to overcome this feeling.

What is an impostor syndrome?

The impostor syndrome describes feelings of inadequacy and self-doubt that can leave people fearing that they will be exposed as a “fraud”, usually in their work lives. There is a sense of inferiority and their self-worthiness is being challenged. Potentially, one might feel that everyone has everything sorted out and know more things than them. The good news is that there is evidence that 1 out of 3 millennials are feeling this way and this feeling is actually not correlating with how successful you are. So, if any of the aforementioned resonates with you, don’t take it too hard on yourself. Firstly, you are definitely not alone and secondly, this learning can make you much stronger eventually.

What are the potential behaviors that you exhibit in this state?

When this inadequacy takes place, there are different ways that it might show up in the way you work.

1. We might find ourselves overworking to compensate for what we think we should be giving. There is no real bar for success, but we set the bar really high and want to deliver more. The tricky part is that there is no end in this loop and the feeling of “I finally achieved it” is still not coming. Often, we might invest so much in our work, that we dismiss hobbies, free time, and stress levels might increase by keep thinking of work.
2. There might be an element of “micro-managing” our work and having a hard time letting go. There is an increased element of taking ownership of more projects than what we can deliver and keep saying “yes” to everything. You feel that you need to control everything and don’t trust that others will do an equally good job as you would.
3. You might have always been really clever, really good at everything, a proper “natural genius”. Your bar in your life has always been extremely high and when there is a fear of underperforming or not performing at the same bar, it’s scary. Then, there comes a tendency to be perfect in everything and if this doesn’t happen, an alarm is hitting and you feel out of control. If this happens for you, it can also be hard to ask for help from mentors or coaches, because it feels you have it sorted out.

How have I worked through my impostor syndrome?

I can see myself in all of the categories mentioned above. I had always been the “clever” one, I feared failure, I had been saying “yes” to everything, have worked really hard to prove my value and have found it hard to ask for help. Of course, things like these don’t disappear. It’s a journey and we keep fighting over our self-doubts, but I feel I am in a better place and I would like to share some of my insights and what helped.

• Acknowledging what your behavior is. If you are realising that parts of your behavior are being triggered by an impostor syndrome, you have already done 50% of the work. When we are aware of why we do things, that’s when we are capable of changing them. Try to understand what it is exactly that you are doing; working too much or pushing down your ideas or taking too much on you maybe? How does this make you feel? How does it impact your daily life? Talk with yourself and be curious and open about all these ideas. Vocalise or write down these thoughts. Focus on what happens, what is triggering this behavior and how it impacts you with concrete examples (e.g. I realise that I work 2–3 more hours everyday because I feel I need to contribute as much as everyone else does. I want to be as good as everyone else.)
• Could you think of how you would want it to be? Surely, there is a voice that challenges our self-worth, but another one must exist as well that knows how worthy you are. Talk to the latter one and think of how you would like your daily life at work to be. Do you want to work fewer hours? Do you want to show your ideas in the world and influence people? Do you want to feel more recognized? What is important to you to feel ok in your work and ok relative to everyone else? (e.g. I want to work 7 hours a day, feel valued in my team, talk proudly and openly about my ideas, work on long-term projects)
• Ask for support and feedback. Colleagues, friends, mentors. Draw upon existing resources and build up your confidence. I found that preparing before meetings with notes helped me express my opinion better. Having dry-runs of presentations helped me improve my public speaking. Having mentors helped me get more perspectives on how life can be and how I position myself. Proactively asking for feedback for my work, helped me improve the work I do and find mistakes faster. Receive all the feedback you can and accept it with an open and curious mind. Accept it as an opportunity to learn more and improve, rather than a judgment or a criticism.
• Find your niche/strengths. You might be doing the same job as hundreds or thousands of others, but there are still things that you are unique at. Instead of measuring your worthiness by comparing yourself with others, try to find what are the things that you are really good at and play at your strengths. When we focus on the things that we love and energise us, there is no room for competition or feeling less. Work on these aspects that you have a natural tendency on and bring them authentically in your workplace. Instead of focusing on why you are not like the others, focus on why you are special. Bring your authentic, different perspective and stand up for it.
• Accept failure and learn to say no. Accept that there will be times where we will be wrong, there will be times that you might not be able to take on more. And this is ok. There are only 24 hours in a day. The key here is to separate facts from feelings. We all indeed do mistakes, but this doesn’t make you become less worthy. If you say no to people, it doesn’t mean they will take it personally and it doesn’t mean that they will like you less. If you are struggling with saying no, try taking one step at a time. Instead of saying directly no, you can postpone by saying “I would love to help you, but I can do it next week.. ” or you can ask how important it is for others or show to them your priorities and ask if what they ask you to do is more worthy than these priorities. Accept that things are not personal, and it’s rather a relationship that needs transparency and prioritisation. If mistakes happen, address why they happened and put processes to avoid them in the future. Remember, we are only humans at the end of the day.

These are some of the things that helped me on this journey. And to be honest, there is a lot more going under the surface since the sense of worthiness is very rooted in us. I could keep going on and on about all these, but I will leave it here for today.

If you have any questions feel free to reach out :)