This International Women’s Day 2020, let our personal power shine by befriending the naysayer, the Imposter Syndrome!!!
We all have a resident naysayer in our head — the one that tells us that everything that we have in terms of happiness, relationships and success is a sham — it is ‘just luck’ and has nothing to do with any ability we may possess. This comes across as a mix of anxiety and a reoccurring inability to acknowledge our own success. This is called the ‘Imposter Syndrome’ (IS)- the psychological term which refers to a pattern of thought where people doubt their achievements and have a persistent, sub-conscious fear of being exposed as frauds. People who suffer from this syndrome believe that they do not deserve the success they have.
Due to an inherent prejudice in cultures across the world, we women suffer a deep confusion about our potential and experience. It turns out that we are not alone and some highly accomplished women are haunted by this visitant. Pulitzer-prize nominee Maya Angelou said, “I have written 11 books, but each time I think, ‘Uh oh, they’re going to find out now. I’ve run a game on everybody, and they’re going to find me out.’
Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg has often admitted to feeling like an imposter at times. In her book, Lean In, she shares that when she was a member of the Phi Beta Kappa honor society at Harvard, she didn’t feel like she deserved to be there. She wrote in her book: “Every time I took a test, I was sure that it had gone badly. And every time I didn’t embarrass myself — or even excelled — I believed that I had fooled everyone yet again. One day soon, the jig would be up.”
Jennifer Lopez said, ‘Even though I had sold 70 million albums, there I was feeling like “I’m no good at this.” Newsweek reported the former First lady of US, Michelle Obama say, “I still have a little impostor syndrome… It doesn’t go away, that feeling that you shouldn’t take me that seriously. What do I know? I share that with you because we all have doubts in our abilities, about our power and what that power is.”
Arianna Huffington has also admitted to feelings of self-doubt. In an interview, Huffington shared: “The greatest obstacle for me has been the voice in my head that I call my obnoxious roommate. I wish someone would invent a tape recorder that we could attach to our brains to record everything we tell ourselves. We would realize how important it is to stop this negative self-talk. It means pushing back against our obnoxious roommate with a dose of wisdom.”
Imposter Syndrome has the ability to limit our courage to explore potential areas of interest, go after new opportunities, and put ourselves out there meaningfully.
Befriending our inner critic may be the best way to dispute this fear. By engaging our rational brain, we can look for evidence on where we are doing a terrible job or making poor decisions. We need strategies to deal with this irrational fear in order to restore our emotional equilibrium and confidence in our abilities. I have outlined a Four-Point Plan to help us stop playing small and avoid risks.
On the start of this decade, let us rise to the occasion of International Women’s Day 2020, and take charge of our confidence, self-beliefs and sense of self-worth. We are women of substance and we deserve every bit of what we have accomplished!
