First of All, It's Not 'Imposter Syndrome'

I have read countless articles downplaying the urgency of the prevalence of what’s dubbed as “imposter syndrome”. Many have been insisting it’s just an excuse for being unproductive, or for not reaching your goals and satisfaction.

They’re wrong.

The pressure to do well during these stressful times has been pushing many to greater vulnerability. The social race to be most productive despite the discomfort and pain has only added to the psychological burden people are already coping with.

And if you’re anything like me, even after receiving all those congratulations for the little wins you must have achieved despite being pushed out of your comfort bubble, you let a higher power take credit for your work. If anything, the pandemic only amplified all those feelings of doubt and incompetence lurking inside your hypothalamus.

All that’s in your head is the thought that you may be “keeping up” poorly.

It’s impostor, not imposter; and phenomenon, not syndrome.

First things first: what you might be experiencing is the impostor phenomenon, rather than the imposter syndrome, as referenced by many writers and social media.

Having pursued a study on the matter, my co-researchers and I had to personally e-mail Dr. Clance to ask for permission to reproduce the test she formulated in identifying IP.

In the response sent on behalf of the renowned psychologist, it was highlighted that:

…Dr. Clance suggests that researchers use that specific terminology (e.g., Impostor Phenomenon) rather than using “Imposter Syndrome,” as that terminology (e.g., syndrome) refers to an official medical diagnosis, of which the IP is not…

The preferred spelling is “Impostor” — with an “o” at the end rather than an “e.”

Also, sometimes the word “syndrome” is seen in the social media rather than the word “phenomenon” — and use of the word “phenomenon” is the correct term to use when referencing the CIPS (Clance Impostor Phenomenon Scale) or Dr. Clance’s work.

Feel like a Fraud?

In a 2018 study on the prevalence of impostor feelings my colleagues and I conducted at our university, we found that a larger number of male students experienced the impostor phenomenon than females. However, the female students who did experience IP were affected by more intense feelings than males.

The term was coined in 1978 by psychologists Pauline Rose Clance and Suzanne Imes, describing it as “phoniness in people who believe that they are not intelligent, capable or creative despite evidence of high achievement”.

Here are some signs you might be experiencing this psychological phenomenon according to experts:

#1 You constantly doubt yourself.

#2 You deny your competence.

#3 You dismiss other people’s praises.

#4 You fear being unmasked or discovered.

#5 You credit your achievements to luck, extra work, charisma, misjudgment, or anything else but your abilities and intelligence.

#6 You de-emphasize the recognition you receive.

#7 You believe that you have fooled others into overestimating your abilities.

The current health crisis only emphasizes these fraudulent feelings as we struggle with productivity. The strain to not seem like we’re slacking off pushes many to work longer times and appear in more Zoom meetings.

Lisa Orbé-Austin, a New York City-based psychologist and career coach, says in an article that being faced with a challenging situation that pushes you out of your comfort bubble might trigger the IP.

When you’re pressured to perform well despite these setbacks, thoughts like “I’m not good enough to do this” flood your mind.

The impostor phenomenon occurs most commonly among high-achieving people. Societal and gender norms are some factors that may come into play, but we’ll get there later.

You’re Not Alone

You see, I was and still am a very competitive person. I hate it when I don’t get to stand on the highest podium. But when I do, I’d automatically start thinking, “What if they just messed up the list of names ala Miss Universe 2015?”

Oh, I can’t imagine how bad Pia Wurtzbach and Andrea Tovar must be having it if they had it. I just wish they don’t.

Upon discovery of IP when I was scouring for unexplored research topics, I was relieved for finally having a name to what I’ve been feeling for God knows how long.

On Dr. Clance’s website, she recounted how the impostor phenomenon was like for her during graduate school.

“I would take an important examination and be very afraid that I had failed. I remembered all I did not know rather than what I did. My friends began to be sick of my worrying, so I kept my doubts more to my self. I thought my fears were due to my educational background.”

If you’re convinced you’re indeed an impostor, I mean, experiencing impostor feelings, take some comfort — I know I do — in the fact that as many as 70% of people have this feeling of fraudulence at some point in their lives. Or maybe you’re in the 30% who experience it consistently.

Meryl Streep and Albert Einstein are just two of the many high-profile personalities known to be suffering from the impostor phenomenon.

Many others experience this, and here are celebrities on their thoughts about the feeling.

Meryl Streep

“You think, ‘Why would anyone want to see me again in a movie? And I don’t know how to act anyway, so why am I doing this?’ “ Streep told Ken Burns in a 2002 interview for USA Weekend.

Lupita Nyongo

“I go through [acute imposter syndrome] with every role,” Nyong’o told Time Out in 2016. “I think winning an Oscar may in fact have made it worse. Now I’ve achieved this, what am I going to do next? What do I strive for? Then I remember that I didn’t get into acting for the accolades, I got into it for the joy of telling stories.”

Kate Winslet

“Over the years, the stakes have become higher for me. Sometimes I wake up in the morning before going off to a shoot, and I think, I can’t do this. I’m a fraud,’” Winslet told The Mirror in 2009, adding, “What people really think of me is something I remain blissfully unaware of most of the time. I love acting and all I ever try to do is my best. But even now I always dread those emotional scenes. I’m there thinking, ‘Oh my God, I’m rubbish and everyone is going to see it. They’ve cast the wrong person.’ But I have come to realize that those nerves are all part of the process for me.”

Ryan Reynolds

“I went to a lot of events this year because of Deadpool, so you get into the tux and try and look like a grown-up,” Reynolds told Men’s Health in August. “But to be honest, I still feel like a freckle-faced kid, faking it until I make it.”

What May Be Causing It

Driving factors of the impostor phenomenon are commonly categorized in researches and insights from experts.

Self

In the results of our study, the category “self”, among all other factors we tested (society, peers, and family), showed a greater contribution to the occurrence of intense feelings of IP.

Research shows that pressures of perfection, social comparisons, and fear of failure are all contributed factors to the impostor phenomenon.

Perfectionists set very high standards for themselves. And when they fail to achieve this, self-doubt consumes them. Whether they realize it or not, sometimes, the root of this behavior is their tendency to compare their achievements with others — believing they should always triumph in this game. And then they struggle to move on to doing other things for they fear that only failure awaits them.

Although, this might not be true to all cycles, or not a cycle at all to some perfectionists.

Valerie Young, Ed.D., an internationally-recognized expert on impostor syndrome and an author, suggests in the five competence types she enumerated that perfectionism makes for feeling unsatisfied no matter how high you achieve.

Personality traits also play a big role in contributing to impostor tendencies. According to this study published in the Journal of Business and Psychology,

“A relative weight analysis indicated self-efficacy as the most important predictor, followed by maladaptive perfectionism and Neuroticism.”

Family

As a child, I was raised with the idea that being the best is the only way to go — standing on the second spot only means I failed. Funny enough, this is not because all my other siblings were the very best during their years, but because I was actually the one who has always been.

So I struggled “keeping up” with this persona of being the best that I developed anxiety. I actually find it hard to believe that the category “family” ranked as the least contributor to impostor feelings in our study’s results.

Clance, in her book “The impostor phenomenon: When success makes you feel like a fake”, highlights four key elements that might be affecting your response to success:

(1) as children, impostors believe their talents are atypical for their family, race, or gender;

(2) the feedback these children receive from teachers, peers, or neighbors is inconsistent with family feedback;

(3) family members do not recognize or praise these children for their accomplishments and talents; and

(4) family members convey to the children that it is very important to be intelligent and successful with little effort

Greater family achievement orientation, lack of support, rule-shaped communication tendencies and behaviors, and family conflict may all contribute to a person’s difficulty in internalizing success.

Reading these factors felt awfully familiar that I didn’t know how to react. Should I feel relieved that an expert validated my feelings about my upbringing? Or should I feel even more miserable, that experts point to my family’s environment as a key factor to what I’m feeling?

Society and Environment

Studies also reference gender and societal norms as primary contributors to the prevalence of the impostor phenomenon. In the exploratory paper published on Science Direct, the researchers note that:

Assuming that traditional gender role norms hold, male IPs may have exhibited stronger negative reactions because they believe that society at large values males who demonstrate high competence, and, at the same time, do not believe that they can fulfill this standard.

Another study also found that a third of millennials suffer from this psychological phenomenon at work and that it is characterized by feelings of anxiety.

Two in five millennials suffer from a fear of presenting, while 40 per cent of female participants noted feeling intimidated by senior people, compared with 22 per cent of males questioned.

What You Can Do

Honestly, having a name for what I’ve been feeling for so long seemed to do the trick for me. Acknowledging it was the impostor phenomenon sneaking into my system again helped me keep it from completely taking over.

In fact, Valerie Young, the author of “The Secret Thoughts of Successful Women: Why Capable People Suffer from the Impostor Syndrome, stressed how recognizing these feelings can help.

But if you still struggle with coping, here are some of the best advice I sourced from experts and my experience. Good news: the impostor phenomenon is not clinical, so you don’t necessarily have to undergo medical treatment to overcome it unless it causes more complex conditions such as depression and anxiety.

Don’t beat yourself up

Kimberly Bowen, an executive career coach with Executive Career Designs in Arnold, emphasizes the importance of not beating yourself up more for having the feelings. Rather, acknowledge its presence and understand that you can cope with this struggle through these strategies.

It’s okay to be feeling this way. Instead of thinking to yourself, “I’m so weak for feeling this way, how nice must it be to be[whoever] to just be living in confidence”, which rather makes your IP worse (guilty), think, “Okay, here it goes again. Seriously, when will you stop ruining my mood, IP?!”. Okay this just got cringe-worthy but the message stands: just don’t beat yourself up.

Acknowledge these feelings and reframe your perspective

Young suggests that “one of the first steps to overcoming impostor feelings is to acknowledge the thoughts and put them in perspective”.

Have a regular self-check. Especially when you feel like these fraudulent feelings are trying to invade your system again. Acknowledge its presence instead of trying to fight it or bury it inside your mind.

Learning to value constructive criticism, understanding that you’re actually slowing your team down when you don’t ask for help, or remembering that the more you practice a skill, the better you will get at it can all help.

Replace negativity with data

It helps to create a list of your achievements laid out so you can have something to go back to when you’re feeling phony. Having an evident, objective statistic to rely on when self-doubt surfaces is a good way to cope with and banish impostor feelings.

I found that following author Austin Kleon’s advice on his book “Steal Like an Artist” of keeping a “praise file” helped me a lot. So, every time I get a compliment whether it be in person or online, I immediately save it in a file I called “doubt no mo, u da best”.

Consider joining a peer group

Sheila Cox, an executive coach with Performance Horizons in Towson, suggests that “when people see for themselves what kind of background and skills their peers have, it can help them realize that they really do measure up”. Associating yourself with peers that share the same passion or abilities as you, helps in encouraging thoughts that you are deserving of your success.

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In a nutshell, the best advice anyone can really give is tracing where these feelings are coming from and fixing it from there.

The pandemic may be an added burden to the thought that you don’t “measure up”, but acknowledging its presence is a start to banishing it from your system.