Imposter Syndrome: The never ending battle…
“I don’t fit in”
“I don’t belong”
“Oh come on…anybody could have done it, it’s not that much”
“I’m a total fraud, and sooner or later, everyone’s going to find out.”
These are some of the most frequent expressions that came up in the Imposter Syndrome talk, hosted last month by AllWomen Academy in collaboration with Ana Zamora, CEO and co-founder of Vitaance. The goal of the talk was to have an intimate conversation about the specific difficulties faced by women in the world of entrepreneurship and some of the paths they could follow to overcome those.
But, what exactly is Imposter syndrome? Harvard Business Review loosely defines Imposter syndrome as doubting your abilities and feeling like a fraud. It disproportionately affects high-achieving people, who find it difficult to accept their accomplishments. Many question whether they’re deserving of accolades.
Personally, this definition resonates with me, and probably with many other people who went through transitions or tried new things out of their comfort zone. Also, we can see a reflection of this syndrome when we women rule ourselves out from a job offering where we think won’t fit in the profile or because we don’t know much about xyz topics, even when the recruiter confesses the opposite. Another common hustle for females in their professional careers tends to be that their decisions-especially technical ones!- do not get the same trust and support they deserve just because of their gender. An interesting solution that Ana, our co-host, provided is that you could find an ally; this is the person who would make space for you and your opinion in the meeting.
Doubting ourselves is a natural reaction when we are in an unknown territory but what matters truly is to have a positive attitude and faith in yourself that you got this girl!
So, what steps could we follow to defeat this common enemy, Imposter Syndrome? The solution provided consists of 3 steps:
- Be aware of it: It is very hard to tackle a problem if you don’t recognize and accept its existence first. What you resist, will persist; what you accept, will transform.
- It’s not your fault: once you have accepted that the problem is there, you will have to make a conscious choice to not to suffer. As very well pointed out during the talk, we tend to judge ourselves harsher than how we judge others, I guess to unconsciously prove that we are worthy and competent socially. But here is when we need to stop our thought process and settle on the same starting point and the same metrics to judge our own work and performance that we use for other people.
- Help others, validate their abilities: another rather controversial topic that was discussed in the talk was that sometimes, due to several reasons, we women contribute unfavorably to the self- growth of other women. It could be due to how one was raised or because of lack of confidence to take a stand for what’s right. Anyhow, when we see other women making a hard decision or going through a tough time, it is almost our duty to give her the pep talk, to fill her with courage, confidence and enthusiasm. Likewise, when she gets that job offer she worked so hard for or win’s a project because of her brilliant skills, we need to ensure she doesn’t think it is a stroke of luck or mere coincidence. Let’s make sure that she sees in herself what you see in her.
Having said that, I would like to conclude this article with the following quote by Denis Waitley:
“It’s not what you are that holds you back, it’s what you think you are”
