Impostor Syndrome

Have you ever felt like a fraud? Or that the praise other people give you doesn’t seem to match how you view yourself? We’ve all felt like this to some degree, and the higher our expectations of ourselves, the more likely we’ll be to feel this way. This experience is commonly referred to as “impostor syndrome.” While this phrase became popular over the past twenty years, it was coined by psychologists in the 1970s to describe the phenomenon of high achieving individuals who constantly doubt their abilities. 

For some people, this thought arises and passes very quickly through the stream of consciousness. Sometimes, having this feeling is helpful – it’s good to know your place and act with the proper amount of confidence. However, this thought often leads to further thoughts of inadequacy, which can influence a person’s behavior. The good news is that CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy) can help identify unhelpful thoughts and challenge them. In CBT there are different cognitive distortions which are thought patterns that alter the way that a person interprets reality. These thoughts can be challenged using cognitive modification.

There are two main cognitive distortions that come up when we’re talking about impostor syndrome.

• Discounting the positive – this is when a person dismisses positive actions and results by devaluing the importance of what they did. 

• Emotional reasoning – this is when a person assumes that feeling negatively reflects the reality of a situation. 

The first step is to recognize your thoughts. What is the thought that just passed through your head? The next step is to recognize what you are feeling: I feel shame because I had a thought which tells me that I am inadequate. Finally, notice what behaviors are stemming from your thoughts and feelings. I am stuck in an anxiety loop because I am feeling so shameful from my lack of experience in the field. Taking the time to work through your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors will allow you to consider them from a different angle. The more you are able to understand that this is just another thought, the sooner you can separate it from what you believe about yourself. Think about it. We have thousands of thoughts that pass through our minds each and every day. Some thoughts seem to pass right through while others have a tendency to get stuck. Reminding yourself that a thought that gets stuck is no different than all the other thoughts allows you to have space from it. 

The self doubt that comes with impostor syndrome doesn't line up with reality. Meaning, the doubts that you are having don’t fit the facts with how you are performing. Once you are able to separate the thoughts of being an impostor and recognize it as a thought, the next step is to shift your focus to the facts. You can do this by putting the thought on trial – what evidence do you have for and against your thought? While you may have a thought that you are unworthy of the position that you are in, the facts are that your performance says otherwise. You are meeting the deadlines, performance has been improving, and your co-workers are happy with your work. The more you practice shifting focus from thought to evidence, the more natural that process will become. 

So now you are focusing on the facts. But what happens when you make a mistake? It can be easy to throw away all that you have done and allow those mistakes to reinforce the thought that you are unworthy of your job/title/position. It may be true that you made a mistake, and even if you did, it doesn’t mean that you are a failure, it just means that you are human. Reframe for yourself that mistakes aren’t there to keep you down but are instead opportunities to learn and grow. 

Like changing any thought pattern, reframing thoughts of feeling like an impostor takes effort and time. Remind yourself that this is a process, and also something that you are in control of. The more you take the time to separate the thought, challenge its accuracy, and refocus your thoughts towards facts, the sooner you will break free from feeling like a fraud. Imposter thoughts may pop-up, but with using your CBT skills, you no longer have to accept them as truth.