Imposter Syndrome: Why You Feel Like a Fraud (And How to Overcome It)

Dr Marianne Trent (

00:00

):

Have you ever felt that you are not good enough despite all of your achievements? Like any moment

someone might find you out and realise you don't belong. That is imposter syndrome and it affects even

the most successful people. In today's episode, I'll break down exactly why this happens, how it can

undermine your confidence, and most importantly, how

you can stop it from holding you back. Whether

you're starting a new career or just feeling the pressure to be perfect, imposter syndrome can creep in,

but here's the truth, you do belong. And today we're going to talk about why stick around for some

prac

tical strategies which will help you change the way you think about yourself for good.

(

00:45

):

Hi, welcome along to the Aspiring

Psychologist Podcast. I am Dr. Marianne and I am a qualified clinical

psychologist. Now, you might be like, well, of course she doesn't have imposter syndrome, what with

being qualified and all, but this does happen for people in all walks of life and all

stages of their career.

And I can assure you it does crop up for me from time to time and people across all ages and

backgrounds and job roles can experience it and it can be really debilitating. It can of course affect

mental health, career growth and pe

rsonal development, and let's get to grips with it so that you can

take control of it rather than vice versa. So what exactly is imposter syndrome? Well, it's like an internal

sense that you are not enough or that somehow all of the things you've achieved

are not actually down

to you.

(

01:38

):

It's down to luck or chance or someone's done you a favour and you haven't earned what you

've

achieved or you don't deserve to be there. It might be that awareness that others are way more

qualified or more appropriate to speak or be doing what you are doing. It's basically a real focus on

everything you've got. Being down to external factors,

so things that are not internal, not within your

control, and that can leave us feeling quite diminished and quite small. And of course, if we feel that

way, it makes sense that we think that we shouldn't be there. And whatever your job role, perhaps

you'r

e working in mental health, perhaps you're working in the psychology field or perhaps you're doing

something completely unrelated. If you find yourself being praised for something or you are being put

forward for a new role, or perhaps even you've got a ne

w role, you've got a promotion, this can be really

common times that that sense of imposter syndrome come in.

(

02:41

):

If you a

re working in academia, perhaps you've got a book coming out or you published an important

paper and it can kind of strike you at key moments like that. So why does it happen? Well, firstly, it

happens because we're human. We've got an awareness of ourselv

es and where we fit in society, in

culture, in our families, in our social circles, in our workplaces, and we've got an awareness of where

others fit as well. We can create judgments about ourselves, but we can also create judgments and have

opinions of ot

hers, of course, whether we've had experiences in the past where we've been treated

nicely. Kindly, considerately compassionately can also impact on how our self

-

worth has developed.

Perfectionism, fear of failure and high expectations either from yourself

and or others, can all fuel

feelings of inadequacy of not being enough. And if when you were young, you were constantly

compared to siblings or others in your class or humiliated for not knowing certain things or not being

good enough or others being bett

er, you might find that that perhaps creeps in more as a sense of

imposter syndrome.

(

03:49

):

When things are going better for

you or when you do have kind of the trappings of things going well, like

a higher salary or I dunno, perhaps a nice car or a home that feels comfortable and safe and within your

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control, it can make you feel, well, who am I to have these things? Because I'

m just that kid did X, Y, and

Z and wasn't enough and people were laughing at or my parents didn't even think I was good enough.

And so if you are getting that feedback that actually you are credible, you are worthwhile, you are worth

listening to, that ca

n tap into the earlier roots that make you perhaps feel that you are not. And of

course there's cultural and societal influences as well, so your gender may come into play here. Is it safe

for women to achieve? Is it safe for men to achieve?

(

04:34

):

Is it safe for people of different ethnicities, different backgrounds to be in the role that you are in or to

be striving for the ro

le that you are in? If people are vocal saying that people of your background, your

bringing your wealth, your class should or should not be in particular areas, it can leave a little bit of an

achilles heel, a little bit of a weakness that can get in on a

bad day, on a day where you are feeling at a

low ebb and really give a chance for that imposter syndrome to ramp up and make you feel like you're

not enough. So what are the common signs of imposter syndrome and how might you notice if you are

experiencin

g it? So this is where the self

-

doubt and the negative self

-

talk might creep in can be really

helpful to just tune in to your inner voice and just imagine if this was someone in your team or in your

family or in your friendship circle, whether you would co

nsider them to be a positive person or whether

you think they might be somebody who tends to put you down and not always be that nice.

(

05:35

):

And if you think about carrying them around with you all the time on your shoulder or in your head, is

that someone that is actually on your side or is it someone that's making you feel bad about yourself

and all the situations that you mi

ght find yourself in throughout the day, throughout the week,

throughout the month, throughout the year? Of course, what we know is I Costa Syndrome is not just

linked or limited to our work. Our education settings can crop up in friendship circles. It can

crop up in

family circles. If you are a parent, it can crop up there, believe me, making you think, oh wow, how am I

old enough or experienced enough to be the one that has to know the answers for this? I was in London

recently with my children, one in ea

ch hand as we were navigating our way through the tube and it just

made me, I had this moment of, oh, how is this my job?

(

06:2

5

):

How am I the one that's in charge? How am I, the one that is looking at all the tube maps are working

out where to go? There's surely someone that is far more experienced and far more capable and maybe

more fun as a parent than me for doing this. So it

doesn't just crop up for our professional lives. You

might find that you are undervaluing your achievement, so if you've done something cool or big or new

like a presentation or got a new job offer or maybe even just smashed your trip out the park, taking

your

kids to London, you might undervalue those accomplishments. You might be like, well, anyone could

have done it, or there weren't enough people applying for that job and so there was fewer people to

pick from or it wasn't a real test because the train

s all ran on time.

(

07:11

):

There might be things that you are using to undervalue the fact that you did really well and you held it

together and you had a good result. Another sign of imposter syndrome might be that sense that you

are a fraud, you should not be doing what you're doi

ng. It's just luck that you are. Maybe you feel like

people can see it on you. Perhaps your skin feels marked and people are talking about you behind your

back. There can be a little bit of paranoia creeping in there as well. Of course, what we know about

people that rise up through the ranks is that sometimes people will have things to say about you. They

might well be saying some of these things, but it doesn't make it true. If you've got evidence of your

success, there has to be a time and a point and a

place where you begin to lean on those, where you

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begin to believe, connect and kind of hold those achievements, those successes could put them under

your belt.

(

08:05

):

Use them as scaffolding to help you know, feel that you do belong, that you have earned your stripes.

Another sign of imposter syndrome might be over preparation or perhaps what we call procrastination,

kind of do

ing everything apart from the thing that is going to move your project across the line or get it

to a point where it could come to reality. That can be a little bit like getting in our own way or not

wanting to do the thing, prepare the thing for fear of j

udgement or for fear of it not being good enough

for fear of that being then open to ridicule or public comment. So now we have noticed the symptoms,

the signs of imposter syndrome, what are we going to do about it so that we can take control and have

it b

e shrunk down to a more manageable size? Firstly, we're going to acknowledge and reframe our

thoughts and our thinking.

(

08:58

)

:

We're just going to notice when those thoughts crop up initially, we might find it helpful to note them

down just to kind of get a little bit of an overview over the days or the weeks of what kind of thoughts

and feelings crop up. We are then going to en

courage a reframe of them. Try to imagine what your best

friend or someone close to you might say to help you feel differently about them. If you have a feeling

that something is happening or should be happening or shouldn't be happening. We're going to tr

y and

turn down the volume on that a little bit and we're going to try to look for more reliable, predictable

external factors. We're going to look at facts, not feelings, because facts are more measurable. We're

also going to be encouraging you to talk ab

out this, to talk about this with your friends, to talk about this

with your supervisors, to give it some oxygen, to give it some air because what we know is that things

that hide in the damp in the dark and have a tendency to breed to become bigger becaus

e when we

take control and we talk about them, it absolutely can help them to diminish, to shrink and for you to be

in control and to kind of have all the evidence you need to feel like this is not true, that you do belong,

that you do deserve to be there

and you can do what you're striving to do.

(

10:15

):

I absolutely hope and think that when you do give that the airtime that you

need to honour yourself,

you will be getting the message of just how common imposter syndrome is. Other people will drop in

examples of their own and validate and normalise your experiences, which can be so important. Another

way of grappling with this an

d overcoming it is that we're going to begin to celebrate our successes no

matter how small. Even if you are really enjoying a dinner that you've cooked for your family or your

friends, you're going to say, I really love this. I think I've done a great job

here. It might feel really

uncomfortable to begin with, but also if you've done a big thing, if you have submitted a really

important assignment or you've got a great mark back from something that you've put in or you've had

a grant approved or you've got

promotion or you've got an interview, we're going to celebrate those

steps no matter how small or inconsequential they might be because they're worth celebrating.

(

11:14

):

They are markers of our success, of our progress through whatever life stage or career you find yourself

in. It isn't arrogant, it isn't braggy. It's really important that you begin to show up for yourself posi

tively

with compassion, with grace, with praise and admiration, not just criticism, shame and derision. And our

last tip is that we're going to develop what's called a growth mindset. We're going to reduce

perfectionism and we're going to allow what mistak

es in and know that that's a really important

learning journey, and that happens for a reason. We need to be able to learn from setbacks along the

way and to talk about them and to reframe them and to own them as well. We don't get to high stages

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of our ca

reer without making some mistakes along the way that is normal, that is part of being human,

but of course we need to learn from them too.

(

12:05

):

I'm reminded where we were having a roof redone on our house and a trainee roofer fell through the

ceiling and I was told it only happens once because we learn from our mistakes, we learn from that pain,

and we learn to kind of look an

d be more cautious about where we place our feet. And whilst I hope you

won't fall through a roof, the same is true from what you are doing in whatever job role you are into. If

you are experiencing imposter syndrome, please know you are not alone. It is s

uper, super common.

Everyone faces self

-

doubt at times, but that doesn't mean that you are not deserving of your successes.

It doesn't mean that you can't pass go that you can't collect 200 pounds and go to the next stage of your

career. Little monopoly re

ference there as a little action point here, why don't you write down three

things that you've done recently that you think have been good enough or that you are proud or pleased

have happened.

(

13:00

):

Really reflect on what it's taken from you to achieve those things, to get them in the bag to make them

happen. Thanks so

much for your time in tuning in today. If you are watching on YouTube, please do

subscribe, like drop me a comment and share with anyone you think might find this useful too. Please

do come and connect with me on my socials where I'm Dr. Marianne Trent ev

erywhere and join my free

Facebook group, the Aspiring Psychologist Community, which is the unique home of Marianne's

motivation and mindset sessions. If it is your time and you're ready for the next step in progressing your

psychology career, please also

do consider checking out the Aspiring Psychologist membership, which

you can join with no minimum term from just 30 pounds a month. Thanks so much for being part of my

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