the ingredients of imposter syndrome
Imposter syndrome. Most of us have felt it at one time or another. And when I asked people to describe it to me, some words got mentioned a lot: “fake”, “pretending”, “exposed”. Or as one person said: “It’s the feeling like I’m managing to trick people into thinking I’m better than I actually am, and the stress comes from thinking that today might be the day I get exposed.”
As I continued my research, some key ingredients of imposter syndrome bubbled up. Here’s my preliminary thinking:
FAKE - People talked about creating (or at least maintaining) some sort of ruse - a pretense that they were better than they were.
INSECURITY - People felt like they didn’t belong in the group where they were. Maybe they weren’t good enough, or maybe they felt they were missing some sort of prerequisite to belong (e.g. money, status, success, pedigree, etc.). Whether from systemic issues, personal issues, or beliefs, and whether it's real or just perceived, it can all still lead to imposter syndrome.
CONSEQUENCES - People worried about what might happen if others exposed the lie.
IN COMMUNITY
Importantly, all of these things were in relation to the people around you. People were insecure about belonging to a group, not in a vacuum. And they felt that they’d fooled others, not themselves.
BREAKING THE CHAIN
Imposter syndrome didn’t seem to exist without these three things. If people felt like they belonged, it didn’t seem to matter if they were faking it. If people felt like they had accurately portrayed how good they were, then it just became a question of whether they would be good enough - there wasn’t the same worry about being exposed. And if the consequences didn’t matter, people didn’t care. Break any link and the chain falls away.
THE WAY FORWARD
Where do we end up? The same place we always do. If you want to make a change, the first place you start is with your self-awareness. If you’ve got imposter syndrome: What’s the ruse? What’s the insecurity? What are you worried will happen?
What would you add? Am I missing anything?
And before you ask: no, I don’t feel qualified to write about this. 😉
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