Are You Still Struggling With Imposter Syndrome?
Is this self-sabotaging behaviour and what is the antidote?
As you walk towards the meeting room, the voice in your head gets louder. “Who do you think you are?”, “You don’t know enough…”, “You’re a fraud!”, “You’re going to be found out.” Sound familiar?
Your footsteps slow and you hesitate. What if the voice is right, you ask yourself? What if you’ve got this far by sheer luck and you are pretending to be competent? You’re about to go into the meeting and be exposed as the fraud you are to the team, the department and maybe the entire company!”
The term for this internal dialogue is called Imposter Syndrome and was coined in 1978 by psychologists Pauline Clane and Suzanne Imes to define a
“psychological pattern in which [an] individual doubts their accomplishments … despite external evidence of their competence, those experiencing this phenomenon remain convinced that they are frauds, and do not deserve all they have achieved.”
The fear that comes from thinking these thoughts is a real sensation. You vision becomes a blur, your heartbeat becomes rapid, and you can feel the stress sweat. This fear response is the body’s way of dealing with danger, real or imagined. It’s part of our “flight, fight, freeze” survival mechanism. My reaction to the feeling of fear when I experience Imposter Syndrome is to freeze. I do this in creative ways — making excuses to not put myself ‘out there’, avoiding growth opportunities, making myself small and silencing my voice. In essence, I try to become invisible so that you don’t see me.
So many of us women still struggle with this persistent feeling of inadequacy despite it being nearly 50 years after the initial research on the phenomena. Shouldn’t we be embracing who we are? Aren’t we powerful in our own right? I feel like I’m letting the side down!
This article was nearly unwritten, I had the unconscious thought that I didn’t know enough and without hours of research and reading, my input would be of no value to others. I was in freeze mode. So, my question is a tough one; is Imposter Syndrome a self-sabotaging behaviour developed as an unhelpful coping strategy for an environment of social conditioning. Has our self-doubt grown exponentially and detrimentally due the pressure of gender norms, inequality and a society that hasn’t been set up for women to succeed.
Why, when we can provide evidence of our list of accomplishments, do we still doubt the genuine value of our contribution, no matter our field of profession? I believe the reason is we have been conditioned to see what is wrong with us rather than what is right with us.
“What will happen when we think about what is right with people rather than fixating on what is wrong with them?” Don Clifton, Psychologist & Business Executive (1924–2003)
Working through the feeling of Imposter Syndrome in writing this article, I knew I had to seek out an antidote to this self-sabotaging behaviour, to remedy my thinking patterns and catalyse a change in my environment.
My research showed that one’s innate talents and strengths can be a powerful antidote in combating these self-doubts. The Clifton Strengths ©️ assessment designed by Gallup Inc. identifies an individual’s top five innate talents — their natural ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving. This assessment gave me the tool and the language to shine a light on what I do well naturally. For the first time, in my 40++ years I could give myself permission to be me and start to gain an intrinsic appreciation for what I do well.
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Very often we take our strengths for granted and imagine everyone has them and so we are not valuable or worthy which compounds our struggle with Imposter Syndrome. When we use the lens of Clifton Strengths ©️ we can identify our unique Clifton Strengths ©️ profile and leverage those talents to combat the self-doubt and anxiety associated with Imposter Syndrome.
Identifying our Clifton Strengths ©️ is only the start of the work — it’s informational. The next step in the process is learning about the characteristics of these talent themes and how they might show up in our behaviours. When we start to develop this awareness and educate ourselves about how our Strengths manifest, we can gain insights into how we can use our Clifton Strengths ©️ with deliberate intention. Using them as an antidote, we move past education to transformation. When we aim our Clifton Strengths ©️ on purpose — the results are higher performance. By shifting the focus outward to how one’s strengths can benefit others, we can start to internalize our competence and achievements.
Ultimately, Clifton Strengths ©️ provides a research-backed framework for women to recognize their inherent worth, silence the inner critic, and thrive despite the imposter phenomenon.
