Imposter Syndrome, we do NOT claim!
As spooky season is upon us, we take a look at one horror that haunts us… and not in a fun way! We are talking Imposter Syndrome. We talk facts around our experiences in the hope to help you.
As a 19-year-old who is currently sitting in a co-working office space, I get you. You do not feel as if you belong where you are, neither do I, it’s called imposter syndrome and its honestly, a b*tch.
But what is imposter syndrome? According to Healthline it is, “feelings of self-doubt and personal incompetence despite your education, experience, and accomplishments.” Simply, it is the irrational feeling of not thinking you are good enough. A common belief is that you did not earn your success and instead it was an external factor, like luck, timing etc. This feeling can affect any ‘role’ you take on whether that is in your job, as a friend, as a daughter/son, as a student, as a parent, as anything you identify with. Often the actions that transpire from these emotions are detrimental, over-working along with holding yourself to unreasonably high standards, all this leading to burnout and declining mental health.
It is said that there are five types of ‘imposters’, and identifying yourself as one of them can help in starting to accept how you feel and that it is not true but just something in your mind. The first one is the perfectionist, a person who does not look at the big picture of the accomplishment but instead nitpicks the small things that are not quite right, so therefore feels like a failure. These people will often avoid new things as they feel like they will not be able to do it perfectly the first time.
The second imposter is the natural genius. These people have always been good at picking up new skills with minimal effort, so when something is found to be difficult, they feel like a failure, feel ashamed and often feel embarrassed as it should have just come naturally to them.
Moving on, the third imposter is the soloist, the one that believes that they should not need any help and to be successful everything must be done on their own. When they eventually do need help or accept help they feel as if they are showing themselves as a failure to the people around them.
Penultimately, we have the expert, the person that thinks they need to know everything about anything to be considered successful at it, meaning that if a question is asked they cannot answer they feel like a fraud and punish themselves for not working enough as they should have known the answer.
And finally, the last type of imposter is the superhero, the one that links competence to their ability to succeed in every role. Navigating the demands of all these roles is what they believe will make them successful, not being able to do this is what causes the feeling of failure. These people will push themselves to the limit and expand as much energy as possible to try and meet all their ‘requirements’ from all their roles.
I'm sure that reading about the five types of imposters you might have recognised yourself in a few, but more importantly I am confident you recognised your peers in all of them. We all know the friend that nothing is ever good enough, the friend who is good at everything, the friend who never accepts help, the friend who is a know-it-all, and finally the friend that spreads themselves too thin. And if you can’t recognise your peers in one of them, then maybe you are that friend.
Being able to identify yourself as either one, two or a mixture of these types of imposters can start to help you feel more confident in yourself. Four easy steps to help you work through imposter syndrome is to acknowledge your feelings, build connections, challenge your doubts and avoid comparing yourself to others.
I know that just listing the types of imposters and telling you ‘four easy’ steps to feel better might sound futile and honestly a little patronising and that is why we’re going to discuss how we experienced imposter syndrome and how we managed to work through it.
Make sure to stay up-to-date as the next blog post is going to be talking about our experiences (leaving you on a cliffhanger I know!)
Peace and Love,