Imposter Syndrome
Am I qualified for this role?
This is a question that frequently weighs on me.
Am I qualified to lead this workshop? Am I qualified to be a managing director? Am I qualified to write this blog post? Am I qualified to make $X per hour? Am I qualified to receive praise from the person who just complimented me? Am I qualified to call myself a good older brother?
This question shows up in my life in big ways and small ways. It shows up when I have a role that is important to me and when I perceive my value in that role as being in doubt.
In receiving some coaching from my partner Rasanath on this topic, I have come to see that my relationship to my roles is a little paradoxical. On one hand, I like having a role. It gives me an identity. It gives me an outlet for my value to be seen.
On the other hand, I live in fear that I may not be able to live up to the role. I fear being exposed as a fraud.
I want the role. But I don’t want the role. I want the recognition. But I fear not being able to get the recognition.
This contradiction leaves me feeling out of sorts. Underneath the contradiction is a feeling of shame for being so dependent on the validation that comes from having and maintaining the role.
It’s a double dose of shame. Shame for not being good enough at the role. And then shame for being unable to happily live with myself if I didn’t have the role.
This is imposter syndrome.
Evidence for Being an Imposter
At any given time, I have lots of good evidence for my being an imposter. This evidence might include any number of the following:
1. I am riding someone else’s coattails
Throughout my 11 years at Goldman Sachs, I had a few bosses who were considered “rainmakers.” In other words, they made tons of money for the firm. The thought that my success was largely due to my being a part of their team, rather than my own ability, made me feel like an imposter.
And more recently, as a coach at Upbuild, I often feel like “I am where I am” because of the charisma and wisdom of my partners, and all of the relationships they cultivated prior to my joining the organization.
2. They don’t know me well enough to see the truth
I am adaptable. I know how to play to the crowd and play to my strengths. This makes me doubt whether others know the real me. I assume people can’t perceive all of my flaws, or at the very least, can’t perceive the extent of my flaws. If they could see my flaws more fully, I assume they wouldn’t be supportive of my maintaining the role.
3. It’s not worth it for them to rock the boat by giving me negative feedback or getting rid of me
When people accept me in my role or give me positive feedback, I often chalk it up to that being the path of least resistance for that person; maybe they want to avoid having a difficult conversation or maybe it’s difficult to get someone else for my role (the sunk cost is high). I sometimes feel this way in my marriage. That my wife might be better off without me, but the hassle of separating from me is too high.
4. I have insufficient training or domain expertise
In my time at Goldman, when I looked around at other traders, I never felt “quantitative” or “technical” enough to lay claim to the role of derivatives trader. In my role at Upbuild, I coach a handful of founders and leaders of startups, some of whom are older than me. The idea of a coach who is older and wiser and has already succeeded at whatever the client is doing makes me feel like an imposter.
The definition of imposter syndrome (from Oxford) is “the persistent inability to believe that one's success is deserved or has been legitimately achieved as a result of one's own efforts or skills.” Therefore, the predominant method for overcoming imposter syndrome, as espoused by the self-help world, is to convince yourself that you are worthy of your roles. Just give yourself lots of pep talks about how you deserve to be where you are, and eventually you will believe it, and then the imposter syndrome will go away.
The problem with this approach is the rather large detail that we don’t believe it, which is the reason we are feeling imposter syndrome in the first place.
While most of us know emotionally what imposter syndrome feels like, have we ever dug a little deeper to ask ourselves the question: What am I an imposter to?
Consciously or unconsciously, we have an idea of who we think we should be. This identity is often informed by individuals who have been successful in the arena we are competing in AND who are similar enough to us that we consider them within reach.
For example, if we are working in a product team at a tech company, this identity might be informed by successful product managers at other tech companies, co-workers at our company whom we deem to be a few steps ahead, people of the same age and from the same university who have become successful in tech, or tech bloggers we follow on LinkedIn.
We usually look for people who have similar demographics and ambitions. This is why most of us don’t feel threatened by Steve Jobs’ success but can be sent into a tailspin when we see on social media that a major news outlet wrote a story about our college friend's professional success.
This is not to say that we don’t also base our identity of who we think we should be on celebrities. It’s just that it can feel a little more acceptable (for some of us) not to be famous. Also, as Rasanath points out in this Upbuild podcast on imposter syndrome, most people will never admit to trying to be Steve Jobs because of the stigma that comes with having such a grand vision, but when we look underneath the surface, expectations like these exist. It’s a little cringeworthy to admit this, but I have some notion of myself as part Tim Ferris, part Brene Brown, and part Tony Robbins.
No wonder we feel like imposters. Because we are. We are imposters to who we think we should be.
Working with Imposter Syndrome
The effects of getting stuck in imposter syndrome are well known: anxiety, guilt, envy, disconnection from others, less intimacy, less risk taking, procrastination, overpreparation, and prioritizing the wrong things. It is also a rather unpleasant feeling, like walking around with rocks in your shoes.
So, if pounding your chest and winking at yourself in the mirror doesn’t work, what can we do about it?
The key is to remove the ego. This, of course, is not such a simple task and can feel abstract as a goal. So, to get more concrete, what we can do, as my partner Vipin highlights in that same podcast, is do the work of separating the truths from the distortions. Within the various pieces of evidence that we have for being an imposter, there are truths (facts or beliefs based in reality) and there are distortions (beliefs that are based on misrepresentations or exaggerations of the truth).
For example, underneath the thought that “I am riding someone else’s coattails,” there is the truth that in every aspect of life, in all circumstances, we are benefitting from and dependent on the success and contributions of others. We would not be where we are if it were not for our associations. Rather than using that as evidence of our unworthiness (a distortion), we need to take time to orient towards the gratitude we feel for those contributions (even if we can’t immediately feel that gratitude) and be generous in our acknowledgement of the contributors.
So, in my case, rather than feeling like a fraud because my partners at Upbuild are good at what they do and because their work opened doors for me, I can acknowledge that truth first to myself (by journaling about it, meditating on it, etc.) and then thank my partners for their contributions. When our dependency on others lives in the light rather than the dark, it enlivens rather than shames us.
As another example, when imposter syndrome is brought on by the thought that “I have insufficient training or domain experience,” the truth is that there are certain qualifications that are necessary for us to properly do our roles. It is also true that we could always become even more qualified for our roles. The distortion occurs because the ego misrepresents or exaggerates the items on the so-called “checklist” of necessary qualifications, often because of comparisons with who we think we should be.
When I was a trader, did I really need to be as quantitative as the guy with the PhD in math sitting next to me? My ego sure thought so. And this thought was the painful seed of my imposter syndrome for more than a decade. That was a distortion.
In my current role as a coach, do I need to be older and wiser and have already been successful at my client’s job? My ego often thinks so. That’s a distortion.
And this kind of distortion doesn’t only show up when we have roles. It also induces imposter syndrome for our other identities.
For instance, I consider myself a very “responsible” person when it comes to personal spending. This identity was called into question when, for Father’s Day a few months ago, my wife bought me not one, but two pairs of $200 jeans. The jeans fit incredibly well and fabric was oh so soft, and I knew my wife had spent a lot of time picking them out. In spite of this, when I received the gift (which had the receipt in the bag), I could barely manage a “thank you” or a smile because the thought of not returning them gave me a mini identity crisis. If I kept them, my ego reasoned, I’d be an imposter to my identity of “responsible spender,” and this distortion was the reason why I showed up with less presence and less gratitude in a moment where there could have been meaningful appreciation for a loved one. (And just In case you are wondering, in the end, I kept the jeans to preserve my other ego identities of “fashionable guy” and “grateful husband.”)
Summing Up - The Ego as the Ultimate Imposter
When imposter syndrome arises, it can be a reminder of the truths that other people contributed to us in significant ways and that there are certain competencies that would be beneficial for us to work on. Our egos distort these truths in various ways and make them mean that we are not worthy of our roles and our identities. The way to work with imposter syndrome is therefore to separate the truths from the distortions. And while there are many distortions that we need to look out for, the biggest distortion of them all is the conscious or unconscious belief that we need to be someone that we are not. After all, the ego is the ultimate imposter.
