Imposter syndrome is a real experience for many. Feelings of self-doubt, inadequacy with no substantial evidence to back it up or what some call intellectual fraudulence.
Why on earth do we think these things about ourselves?
It’s a common misconception that people or circumstances “make” us feel a certain way. In actual fact, we have control over how we think. It may not seem like it, but our emotional state is driven from the meanings we attach to our thoughts.
We feel the way we think, and we act on what we feel.
More often than not when situations are uncomfortable or difficult we attach meanings that are unhelpful, or really weighted against us, in other words negative and not necessarily realistic or accurate. We do this because we are hard wired to protect ourselves. Negativity is our way of being prepared for danger, threat or risk.
Would it be fair to say you have jumped to a wrong conclusion as some point in your life? Of course you have, we’ve all done that. Your brain is trying to protect you.
A basic and somewhat silly example:
Mary goes on a date with Bob
Mary likes Bob
Bob says he’ll call her, Bob doesn’t
Mary concludes she must be ugly and incapable of holding down a relationship
Is this a reasonable conclusion to make? Probably not. Mary has no facts to back up the meaning she has attached, the conclusion she had arrived at.
Mary decided on an extreme conclusion based on perhaps her own fears, this is what we tend to in imposter syndrome. We fear failure therefore we project that feeling and come to a conclusion that we are inadequate.
The good news is that we can train ourselves to perceive a different meaning. When you change the meaning, the conclusion, you control the narrative and therefore the emotions or feelings.
We start by asking 3 questions:
- Am I taking a relatively simple event and drawing a harsh conclusion about myself?
- Am I deciding that this one thing defines me entirely? (Like Mary)
- Does the conclusion lead me to feel better or worse about myself?
If you can answer yes to any of those questions then it’s likely you are experiencing distorted thoughts. To put it a simple way, you are thinking unhelpfully.
Step two is recognising the type of thought distortion. Check out our article to see if you recognise any of the types described.
