To Curb Your Imposter Syndrome, Checkmate Your Narcissism
You’re awesome. Accept that, be humble about it, and help us become awesome too. Here’s how.
Jordan Gross recently shared a question that made me think. He asked — “What’s the best compliment someone could give you?”
After thinking about it for a while, I realised that the best compliment for me would be if someone called me humble. Because I’ve never been called humble. People always thought of me as someone who’s arrogant, and braggy.
And for good reason. I was not at all humble. I used to believe that I’m smart, and I never let go of any opportunity to highlight that.
But in the past few months, I’ve been feeling like an imposter. Since I started writing self-help, an annoying question keeps popping up like an irritating internet ad — “Do you even know what you’re talking about?!”
I’ve been writing articles to teach people how to lead better lives. But… I turned 22 only a few days ago. I’ve not even lived a real life for more than a few years, so are the lessons I share here, dependable?
Someone recently commented on one of my articles — “22 and so wise is 2200 times rare.” It felt good, but again, I questioned myself — “Am I really wise? Or am I just pretending to be? Do I deserve to write these articles? And are you wasting your time reading this?”
Imposter syndrome was getting on my nerves. But recently, I was able to deal with it once and for all. How? By checkmating my narcissism. I’ll share how I did that, but first, let’s talk about the philosophy of Tabula Rasa.
Tabula Rasa
I feel like a broken record going over because I’ve shared this so many times already. But since it’s important, I’ll do it again.
Tabula Rasa is a theory that says that individuals are born without built-in mental content, and therefore all knowledge comes from experience or perception. It literally translates to a clean slate — saying that all babies are born like a clean slate.
And as the baby grows up, his environment in the form of his family and his experiences writes programs on his clean-slate like mind, and then he uses those programs to live his life.
Simplified: The baby starts at zero →Then he’s given inputs by his environment →Then he uses those inputs to produce outputs.
Checkmate Your Narcissism
Let’s do an exercise. Think about the traits you have that you’re proud of. These are the traits you could be potentially narcissistic about. I’ll take mine as examples.
- I feel I’m much wiser than my age.
- I have a high capacity for compassion.
- I have an above-average work ethic.
If you notice, we’re proud of or narcissistic about our outputs. But as we discussed above, how can we have outputs without having had inputs, since we all started at zero as babies?
Hence, try to trace back to the inputs that produced these outputs.
- Output: I’m much wiser than my age.
Input: I belong to a low percentage of the Indian population that’s lucky enough to learn English. Then, I was taught the importance of reading by my brother. And I was only able to read some wisdom-dense books because some writers wrote them. - Output: I have a high capacity for compassion.
Input: I was an insecure kid in school. My friends didn’t like me and respect me. And sometimes, they would even psychologically bully me. Hence, I know what it’s like to suffer, and I wouldn’t want it for my worst enemy. Hence, I feel I’m more compassionate than others. - Output: I have an above-average work ethic.
Input: Growing up, I’ve seen my father work insanely hard. Late nights, early mornings — that’s what he had to do to make ends meet. And he’s also actively taught me the importance of work ethic.
Whatever trait you’re proud of, trace it back and you’ll realise that it was only possible because of your environment in the past. And hence, it’s 100% a matter of luck. And how can we be narcissistic about something if we were just lucky?
For instance — Yes, I feel I’m much wiser than an average 22-year old. But that’s mostly because my brother forced me to read. If he hadn’t, I could have ended up being a stupid kid.
So, if I’m very wise, it’s because I’ve had just as much luck. Hence, I deny taking absolutely any credit for my wisdom. So… checkmate narcissistic Akshad.
Try doing this exercise for yourself and you’ll see how narcissism doesn’t make sense anymore. The only feelings that make sense now are humility and gratefulness.
Accept Your Strengths, Give Away The Credit, And Make Other People Luckier
Imposter syndrome is when you feel like you’re less competent than people perceive you to be. Possible. But mostly the reason we feel like an imposter is that we’re insecure, and in a way afraid to take credit.
And when people start feeling like an imposter, they start questioning themselves. They feel like they don’t deserve to be wise and hence, they’re afraid to share their knowledge.
But when you give away the credit, by dedicating all your competence to pure luck, it becomes easier to accept your strengths. Because now, there’s no narcissism involved.
Accepting your strengths, instead of feeling like an imposter is important. Because only then will you be free enough to share your gifts with the world.
For instance, if I feel like an imposter, I’ll have troubles writing articles because I’ll question my worth. But those articles could potentially help people live better lives. So it’s important that I stop feeling like an imposter so that I can share my wisdom without resistance.
My point is, you’re awesome. Stop shying away from accepting that. You don’t have to feel like an imposter because you don’t get the credit anyway. You’re awesome because you’ve been very lucky. Accept that, be humble about it, and help us become awesome too. The world needs you to share your gifts.
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