Picture courtesy of Matt Duncan @ Unsplash
Throughout my corporate career I didn’t know what I was feeling had a name or that other people were experiencing the same. My journey to managing and overcoming Imposter Syndrome was not a linear one. In fact I started on my personal journey by looking at ways to elevate stress (which I didn’t know was massively being caused by my Imposter).
Over the past few years I have worked personally through these 4 steps and it is this process that I use with my clients to help them on their journey to recognise, manage and overcome Imposter Syndrome. However I have to say that I don’t think we ever fully overcome it but over time the frequency which it shows up may be less and personally I can get out of an Imposter spiral much quicker nowadays (less days and more minutes/hours)
So what are the 4 steps?
Step 1 - You get clear on how it is showing up for you - it’s time to meet your Inner Imposter
Whilst we might all recognise the term Imposter Syndrome, how it shows up for you can be completely different to how it shows up for the next person.
Awareness is the first step to making change so you have to take time to get to know how it shows up for you personally. Taking the time to get to know your Imposter is an important step as you can start to understand what your personal triggers are and start to notice how it’s showing up in your everyday life and affecting the way you think, feel and act.
Here’s some questions to help you with this.
How does it judge you?
What does it say?
How does it make you feel?
How does it affect the way you behave?
What triggers it?
How is it holding you back?
What does it say to you?
Where does it come from?
Step 2 - You work on understanding what’s great about you
When you’re experiencing Imposter Syndrome it’s highly likely that you struggle to recognise what’s great about you and the success that you’ve had (and are still having!). You may even be questioning your skills, knowledge and experience. You may find it easier to say what is lacking and thinking you need to be different in order to succeed or be accepted.
That’s not to say we don’t have development areas as I believe we all do as we work in new areas as well as the way that technology and business is evolving.
So take the time to figure out what you’re already great at and put together a plan to help you develop.
Spend some time working out where you add value, reflect on past experiences and recognise what helped you succeed at that time. If you get stuck thinking what’s great about you then consider reaching out to colleagues or friends and family (choose people who you value their opinion) and ask them to tell you 3 words they would use to describe you and to give an example of why they choose each word. You can then start to build up a picture and borrow their belief until you start to recognise what’s great about yourself.
Also keep any feedback you receive in a folder so you can start to create evidence that you can go back to at any time you feel you’re heading into an Imposter spiral
Taking time to figure out what is great about you allows you to see yourself in a different light. It allows you to recognise your strengths and your achievements. You start to become confident in who you are and that then affects how you show up in your work.
Step 3 - You remove any road blocks
An important step in overcoming Imposter Syndrome is to tackle the things that could be holding you back.
The majority of what we do on a day to day basis is decided by our sub-conscious brain so in effect we’re operating on auto pilot. If on auto-pilot we’re programmed to believe we’re not good enough then this affects the way we think, feel and behave without us even realising.
So what type of roadblocks could you have? These could be the things that trigger your Imposter, fears (failure, success, being visible), doubts (about your capabilities), limiting beliefs, critical self talk, comparison, self sabotage (procrastination, perfectionism)
As you start to remove the different road blocks the road ahead becomes clearer and feels less hazardous. The things that were holding you back are no longer there, so on auto-pilot you think, feel and behave differently without consciously thinking about it.
Step 4 - You act with courage
When you’ve started to realise your own brilliance (yes it was there all along) you start to walk away from people and environments that aren’t supporting you anymore. As you start to remove the internal road blocks that have been holding you back, this allows you to take the leap and trust in yourself. Of course you might still be nervous about taking steps but you do it anyway and over time the more action you take, you start to build your confidence muscle. If you continually do this and continue to remove any road blocks that arise (yes new ones spring up) then you will be able to look back in the future and realise how far you’ve come.
If you feel like your Inner Imposter is holding you back or is affecting your personal wellbeing and you feel like you need some support to overcome it, please get in touch and let’s have a chat about how I can support you.