What Is Impostor Syndrome, What Are Some Symptoms, And What Coping Methods Exist?

According to Wikipedia, impostor syndrome, which is also known as fraud syndrome, impostor phenomenon, impostorism, or the impostor experience) is “a psychological pattern in which an individual doubts their accomplishments and has a persistent internalized fear of being exposed as a fraud.”

It is estimated that almost three quarters of people will experience this syndrome at least once during their working lives, and it can affect anybody, regardless of gender, skin colour, or socio-economic background, although some studies suggest that it is more prevalent among high-achieving women.

Four Types Of Impostor Syndrome

The first type is the Fake.

These people are achievers who feel that, one day, they will be exposed as fakes because they haven’t truly earned and don’t deserve their position and status.

I definitely remember feeling this way at the last company I worked for, and it really came home to me when I was considering looking for a job elsewhere. When I was listing my skills and accomplishments, I found it difficult to come up with things that other companies would value.

This may be related to the well-known Peter Principle, that says people tend to rise to their level of incompetence. I don’t believe I was incompetent in the role I ended up in, but I did know it wasn’t really me, and it’s easy to see why people who do get promoted this way can feel like fakes.

The second type is the Lucky One.

These people attribute their success and achievements to luck, and being in the right place at the right time.

The third type is the Hard Worker.

These people attribute their success to working harder and/or longer hours than others, and not because they are actually good or talented at what they do.

The fourth type is the Uncomplimentable.

These people are falsely modest and can often be identified by their inability to accept compliments.

Where Does Impostor Syndrome Originate?

One professor of psychology, a Dr Carol Dweck, suggests that it can be the result of parents praising their children in the wrong way.

There are two types of praise – person praise and process praise.

Person praise involves telling somebody, for example, that they are smart.

Process praise would reframe that by telling the person they must have worked hard to get such good results.

While praising your young children has been shown to be beneficial, too much person praise can cause issues later on – such as impostor syndrome.

The problem comes when that person grows up thinking they are naturally smart, and therefore expects to do well in all tests and in all their work. The first time they receive a grade or assessment that is lower than what they’re used to, it calls into question whether they are as smart as they were told they are. And in turn, that can lead them to believe that they are fakes.

Another source of impostor syndrome is the feeling that you don’t fit in.

If you stand out from the crowd (e.g. most people are male and you’re female, or most people are of a different “race” to you, or you’re LGBT and most of the people around you aren’t), then you can end up feeling like you don’t belong there – because you’re different.

That can then extend to not feeling worthy of being in your peers’ company, even though you may be similarly qualified, for example.

And then the third source can be comparison to others.

When somebody is described as a high achiever, that only makes sense in relation to other people. In other words, it’s a comparative term.

These high achievers have probably been compared to others for most of their lives, and it’s become a way of life for them. (To an extent, of course, this applies to most people, but not to such an extreme degree.)

This means they enjoy the process of being compared to others, because they historically come out well as a result of it.

But it can also lead them to being extremely sensitive to the process too, and when the process fails them (e.g. they don’t come out on top, or where they believe they deserve to be), they can question whether they are as high-achieving as they were led to believe.

So, What Can You Do About It?

1. Accept It’s Normal. Accept that this is a normal way to feel on occasions. (Remember the 70% statistic I quoted above?) If you have this feeling permanently, however, then maybe it is time to re-evaluate if you’re in the right job or career, or whether you need medical help.
2. Ask For Help. Some people don’t like asking for help because they are afraid that will expose them as the impostors they think they are. Of course, in any given role, there are reasonable expectations of what you do and do not yet know, but if it’s not something that anybody (e.g. your boss) would believe you could do, then asking for help is OK. Nobody can do everything by themselves.
3. Don’t Be A Perfectionist. Striving for perfection sounds good, but perfection is almost impossible to achieve. So having that as your goal is setting yourself up for failure. You’ll end up feeling like you could have done better, and then when you can’t, because that’s not possible, you’ll feel like an impostor.
4. Everybody Has To Start Somewhere. In spite of what you’ve done in the past, there will be occasions when you start a new job or role with very little knowledge or experience, which means you’re right at the bottom of the learning curve. And that’s OK – nobody will expect you to be an expert right off the bat, so why should you think of yourself as an impostor in such situations?
5. Internal Validation. High achievers are used to receiving validation from external sources (e.g. their parents, their bosses), but that means living up to other people’s expectations, not yours. Try to aim more for internal validation (e.g. are you satisfied with your work), and take the pressure off yourself a bit.
6. List Your Accomplishments. If you doubt what you’ve managed to achieve with your life so far, write everything down. Dig out old certificates and letters of recommendation and even school reports, read them (to remind yourself of what they say), and take credit where credit is due – you accomplished those things, not somebody else. (On the other hand, don’t take all of this as proof that you have nothing left to achieve or learn.)
7. Praise Effort. As I said before, if you are a parent, then learn to praise the effort and work they put in to something rather than personal traits. In this way, you can hopefully steer them in the right direction and not have them grow up to feel like impostors.
8. Share What You Know. When you teach others what you already know, you may be surprised at just how much you have learned and grown over the years. In addition, I’ve found that when you try to educate others, it helps increase your own knowledge too. You may, of course, come to realize how much you still don’t know, and while this may increase your feelings of being a fake, a better way to look at it is to embrace what you don’t know so that you can continue to be perceived as an expert. And the word “expert” is also relative – it often means that you know more than somebody else – not that you know everything about a given subject. Remember the saying, “In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king”?
9. Skill Comes Through Failure. Whenever we create something new or do something for the first time, we should expect not to be very good at it. It’s only after you have failed at something a few times and learned from those experiences that we can hope to become an expert at it. Even the writer Ernest Hemingway is quoted as saying, “The first draft of anything is shit.”
10. Talk To A Friend. Like with mental health issues such as anxiety and depression, it can really help to talk to somebody you trust (e.g. a friend, family member, or even a colleague). Of course, this person must be a good listener, non-judgemental, supportive (e.g. telling you to stop being insecure and just get over it is not helpful), and trustworthy (i.e. they don’t discuss it with others).
11. Work With A Mentor. Try to find somebody with more knowledge and experience in your field who can help you develop further. Ideally, if your impostor syndrome is fuelled by the feeling of not fitting in, look for somebody who has similar attributes to you (e.g. gender).
12. You’re A Work In Progress. That means there is always something more you can learn, the conclusion of which is that you are not perfect (because nobody is), so don’t be self-critical when you don’t perform as well as you thought you should at something – use it as a clue about where you need to learn more.

Conclusion

If you feel like you’re an impostor, you can take comfort from the fact that you’re very unlikely to be the only person in your office or job who does so.

It’s just that you don’t hear people talking about it – for obvious reasons. After all, have you told anybody about your own feelings of being a fraud? Probably not.

As human beings, we all have some sort of insecurity – it goes with the job, as they say.

Impostor syndrome is just one of many possible insecurities, and like many of them, they are often feelings and fears that are not backed up by evidence.

If you feel like you’re going through such a phase, then if it’s because you’ve just started a new job or a new role, then that’s normal, and you’ll likely grow out of it.

If it’s a more chronic state, it’s possible you may also be suffering from other issues such as anxiety and depression, in which case seeking medical advice would be a good option.

Additional Resources

These are suggestions for those who wish to delve deeper into any of the above:

1. Impostor Syndrome Book