As a professional, it can be easy to slip into a place where you start to experience impostor syndrome. Impostor syndrome, or the impostor phenomenon is a term that labels the experience of believing that others think you’re better than what you believe yourself to be. You fear being evaluated, because if you are, you’ll be exposed as a “fraud.” You’re afraid that you won’t be able to replicate previous success despite evidence of your previous success. You’re highly critical of yourself. You discount praise that you’re given. You may experience burnout, anxiety, guilt, and even depression. You probably attribute your achievements and success to things like luck, being in the right place at the right time, or somebody else giving you a chance, rather than believing your own knowledge, skills, and abilities have anything to do with your success.

Humility or Impostor Syndrome?

You may say that you’re not experiencing impostor syndrome, but exhibiting humility. Humility and impostor syndrome are two different things. Humility is based on an accurate understanding and acknowledgement of your own knowledge, skills, and abilities. To be humble means that you choose to exhibit a degree of restraint and are able to acknowledge those you work with. You don’t take all the praise for success. Humility is a positive trait based on a healthy acknowledgement of yourself.

Cognitive Distortions

Impostor syndrome, however, comes from a perceived sense of inadequacy. Impostor syndrome is cognitive distortion. These are irrational thoughts and beliefs that we reinforce over time. They are patterns of thinking or believing that are false or inaccurate that have the potential to cause psychological damage. This psychological damage negatively affects our thought patterns. If you experience impostor syndrome, you may not advocate for yourself, hold yourself back in career advancement, or have a pattern of missed opportunities. You may often feel burnout, anxiety, unmotivated, down, or stressed.

There are many types of cognitive distortion. They’re subtle, and we may not readily recognize them when they’re already so much a part of our thought patterns. They don’t just affect how we see ourselves, but they affect how we interact with the world around us. Here are 8 examples of cognitive distortions.

• Filtering – focusing on the negative things in our lives, ignoring the positive.
• Catastrophizing – Always expecting the worst-case scenario.
• Always being right – Being wrong is unacceptable, being right supersedes everything else.
• Shoulds – Holding tight onto rules of behavior and judging yourself and others for breaking them.
• Heaven’s Reward – Expecting sacrifice to be rewarded.
• Change – Expecting others to change.
• Personalization – Assuming responsibility or blame.
• All or Nothing – Ignoring complexities and thinking in extremes.

These cognitive distortions, or some combination of any or all of them, plus many others that aren’t listed here, come together to form the impostor syndrome that you may be experiencing.

Effects of Impostor Syndrome

We’ve already discussed some of the psychological effects of impostor syndrome. But, there are other, more practical ways that it manifests in our lives. Feeling like you’re missing out on opportunities can cause guilt and depression, but it can also lead you to believe that you’re unable to recognize and act on opportunities. As a result, you look for them less, or you don’t act on the ones that you do recognize. As a result, you may not progress the way that you’ve imagined that you would or should. You may stop believing in yourself, creating a scenario where you’re no longer progressing.

Impostor Syndrome doesn’t necessarily affect the work that you do. Remember, you’re experiencing impostor syndrome despite a history of good outcomes and quality work. It does, however, affect the work that you choose to take on. It does affect the opportunities that you recognize and act on. If you believe that others have “gifted” you your current circumstances, then you may very well be waiting on others to gift you your next opportunity.

It’s in ways like this, and so many others, that impostor syndrome doesn’t just negatively and inaccurately affect your perceived value, but also where you look for growth, how you look for it, and when you look for it.

Understanding Your Impostor Syndrome

How do you know that you’re experiencing impostor syndrome? This self assessment will help you to understand your own impostor syndrome. There are several different assessments, and no “gold standard” has been developed and reviewed yet, but the Clance Impostor Phenomenon Scale is as good a self-assessment as any.

Take this self assessment, and assess where you are on the impostor syndrome scale. It will help you to recognize areas in your life where you may be experiencing impostor syndrome. When you’re done, journal your thoughts, and try some of the following strategies.

Combating Your Impostor Syndrome

So, what do we do about all of this? You understand impostor syndrome, you know some of the symptoms, you know some of the root causes, and you know where you are on the impostor syndrome scale. So, now what?

There are plenty of strategies for combating impostor syndrome. Here are just a few.

Understand Your Saboteurs

Understand your saboteurs. Take the positive intelligence assessment to uncover your saboteurs that keep you from advancing. Saboteurs are the voices and personas in your mind that create cognitive distortions. They’re automated patterns of thought that drive how you think, feel, and respond.

Understanding your saboteurs will help you to understand your personal impostor syndrome. Understanding this will help you to know what to focus on to start to manage it better.

Positive Intelligence, the creator of the assessment, does offer a program to conquer your saboteurs, should you choose to do that. Otherwise, there are more strategies below.

Recognize the Difference Between Fact and Opinion

Positive Psychology offers a list of statements and asks you to determine which statements are “fact” and which are considered “opinion”. Doing this exercise helps you to understand which of your own thoughts could be considered fact, and which should be considered opinion. When you can identify statements that are fact and opinion, you can apply that practice to your own thoughts.

Recognize Cognitive Distortions

When you experience a cognitive distortion, or feel the symptoms of impostor syndrome, take time to journal the cognitive distortion thoughts, emotions, feeling, and your response.

• Ask yourself what cognitive distortion did you experience? Label it as fact or opinion and give it a name.
• Ask yourself what led to the cognitive distortion you’re experiencing, and what caused the feelings that you’re having.
• Write down the evidence that what you’re experiencing is true and the evidence that it’s not true.
• Come up with a more adaptive and positive response.
• Consider the most realistic scenario now moving forward.

When you experience a cognitive distortion related to impostor syndrome, take some time and journal to understand it better.

Practice Mindfulness

In it’s most simple form of practice, when we meditate we take time out of our day to focus on only our breath, allowing thoughts and feelings to come and go by labeling them, and gently brushing them aside, returning to the focus on our breath. This exercise helps reinforce using a similar approach to working and living day-to-day. When we learn to:

• Focus on our breathing
• Recognize when thoughts and feelings arise
• Acknowledge them
• Then let them go as we refocus our breathing

We can apply the same pattern of thought and approach as our meditation to our day-to-day lives.

Practicing mindfulness can be more than the simple steps listed above. You can choose to further explore the practice of mindfulness. Headspace is a great resource for this. They do a great job with not only guided meditation, but education around mindfulness.

Refocus on Your Goals

Understand your own personal purpose, and approach it with a framework to help you focus your thoughts and efforts. The Make Room framework helps you to focus on your goals and align your actions with your vision and your goals. Learn more about the Make Room framework.

Leaving Your Comfort Zone

Experiencing impostor syndrome may also be a sign that you’re leaving your comfort zone. If you’re experiencing fear and doubt, you can embrace that discomfort to grow into the unknown. We typically try to run away from discomfort, but exploring it and being curious about it can help us to struggle well.

Discomfort is the uncertainty we feel when we experience something new, uncertainty, risk, or exposure. Discomfort is not necessarily a bad thing. How can the universe play a role in your life if, out of the discomfort you’re afraid to feel if things don’t go the way you think they should, you don’t go beyond your comfort zone? By focusing on the process and not the outcomes, you focus on your growth rather than the outcomes that you may or may not achieve in the way that you think you should.

You may be experiencing impostor syndrome because you’re growing and leaving your comfort zone. Take some time to reflect on how you’re leaving your comfort zone. As you grow, there’s a good chance that you’ll experience discomfort.

Yes Theory is all about seeking discomfort. They have a podcast episode dedicated to “Why We Seek Discomfort” that is worth the listen if you’re into that sort of thing.

You’ve Got This

If you’re experiencing impostor syndrome or know somebody who is, hopefully this can help serve as a resource and a starting place. Remember that you’re experiencing impostor syndrome and cognitive distortions despite the incredible work that you’ve already done and despite your knowledge, skills, and abilities.

If you’re experiencing impostor syndrome, you’ve got this. Understand it, understand your personal experience, and try some of these strategies to help work through it.