Do you get upset sometimes by what you are doing in your career? You might be running a successful business with a flourishing team and generating great revenue., but you still feel like a fraud. It is called imposter syndrome. The imposter syndrome is not a clinical disorder but a behavioral condition.
According to data, “around 70% of corporate professionals including employees and business owners suffer from these symptoms at some point in their lives.” In this blog, we will talk about imposter syndrome in brief, including its basic definition, the signs of imposter syndrome, and strategies to deal with it.
Imposter syndrome: What is it?
Imposter syndrome is an internal feeling where people often doubt their talents and feel like frauds. Also known as the “imposter phenomenon,” this condition, mainly affects successful individuals but they feel they are not deserving.
The bright side is that, despite what imposter syndrome makes us believe, nobody is perfect. Learning is a part of every journey! You are in a certain position, whether in any company or leading your firm, and you have the intelligence and abilities to be part of the process. But impostor syndrome frequently behaves strangely, even in situations where no one has pointed out your flaws. You should be aware of the following few clear symptoms of imposter syndrome in yourself:
Symptoms of Imposter Syndrome
- To get over the feeling that you are not achieving enough, you overwork.
- Being a perfectionist, you punish yourself for whatever mistake you think you made.
- You think that you don’t deserve your success or your position.
- You find other people getting more success than you.
- You find it difficult to get credit for your work.
- You feel you should not rest or that you’re too busy to take care of yourself.
- You measure your value with your performance at work.
So why do some people experience these emotions at work? Numerous factors can cause to imposter syndrome from past experiences, cultural influences, to personal characteristics. Fortunately, there are proactive measures you can take to boost your confidence to get over it.
Best Tips to Deal with Imposter Syndrome
Here are a few of the best tips to avoid imposter syndrome. Besides, you can think of following the practical methods for putting down the voice in your head that include self-awareness, self-compassion, and a healthy dose of realism.
- Recognize your negative self-talk: Your inner voice storyteller can be cruel. Try your best to redirect that negative voice to one of empathy and dignity for yourself. Instead of focusing constantly on your weaknesses, pay attention to your past successes and strengths.
- Acknowledge personal accomplishments: No matter how harsh you are on yourself, you have made a great deal of personal sacrifice and achieved at least some degree of success in the process. Honor your successes and consider maintaining an ongoing scorecard of all your achievements.
- Clearly define your priorities and expectations. People suffering from imposter syndrome often overwork to make up for it and put themselves through excessive weekly hardship. In addition to having an overburdened effect on output and performance, this can result in mental health issues or even job burnout, which will affect more than half of the workforce. To achieve progress that lasts, you can schedule your free time during regular business hours rather than on the weekends. To do this, ask your manager to clarify your expectations. Once your expectations are reasonable, you may set priorities for your work and daily objectives and truly gauge your progress.
- Talk to someone: Dealing with imposter syndrome can be very embarrassing. And you risk feeling worse than you did initially if you hold that in and focus on your anxieties. Though it could be difficult to tell your manager about your feelings of impostor syndrome when you’re already anxious about how they see you, consider confiding in a friend or relative instead. Talking out loud about your anxieties will help you put them in perspective and probably provide some evidence that you are doing well.
- Ask for feedback. Your mind might be a talkative and unreliable storyteller yet again. Talk with key stakeholders, such as your leadership team, trustworthy employees, or colleagues, to gain insight. Ask open-ended questions about how you can best help your team during project reviews or all-hands meetings, rather than framing these conversations as evaluations of your leadership abilities, and listen carefully.
- Establish realistic goals: While having high expectations for yourself as a business leader is great, they have to be achievable. Have high dreams, but don’t let them overwhelm you with unrealistic objectives. Find out that your objectives are SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound), and then divide them into smaller, easier tasks. For your impersonator, every step you take forward is a step back.
- Perfection is impossible. In the entire history of the industrial world, not a single project has been finished without any errors. So, you will fail in your leadership endeavors, and striving for perfection is unrealistic and unproductive. An integral part of the learning process is failure. Therefore, set aside judgment and use mistakes for your good.
- Stretch your comfort zone by 10% every month. The fastest way to build confidence is to show yourself that you can accomplish tasks you once thought were impossible. To that end, try finding a 10% scarier task each month, such as organizing a difficult meeting, asking for a raise, or taking on a demanding client.
- Build a progressive Mindset: Try to stay away from perfectionism, which slows you down, and see all of your errors as insightful learning opportunities rather than signs of failure. Embrace when you make mistakes because it’s a necessary part of learning.
- Get time to rest: Consider that this guideline advises “making time” for relaxation rather than simply “trying to find time.” Relaxing can seem like a waste of time when you’re worried about how well you’re performing at work, or it can even be impossible because of imposter syndrome. But the truth is that to truly be able to perform at your best, getting enough sleep is a must. So, get a good rest and then be ready to give your best.
You earned your successes through hard work and deserve to be where you are. Although imposter syndrome might make it difficult to believe in yourself, you can learn to trust your abilities and acknowledge your successes, even when your worries tell you differently, with some practice and useful tools in your toolbox.
Has impostor syndrome affected you in your line of work? What methods did you use to overcome your fear of falling short? Please share with us. We would be happy to hear from you.