Imposter Syndrome
Today was a full day. It’s been six weeks since I was impacted by a reduction in force, also known as the obliteration of a beloved company my friends and I spent seven months building. Since then, our short-sighted, greed-motivated investors have laid off 95% of the company, burned the vendor and customer relationships we painstakingly built, and destroyed what looked like a clear path to a 9- or 10-figure valuation.
Tonight was a reunion dinner, Korean BBQ, with a handful of those of us who were impacted.
It turns out I’m busier as master of my own destiny than I was working for someone else. In six weeks I’ve landed a teaching engagement in my spiritual community, rebuilt my website, refreshed and relaunched my blog, launched my first digital product, restructured my coaching business, started building a second business with my partner, and launched a podcast.
So when I venture far from home, I make a full day of it.
I dropped Marlow at doggy daycare, treated myself to a massage. My shoulders, and this cold weather, needed the intervention. Then I drove 60 miles to catch up with friends and former colleagues.
Sitting in the conference room of one friend’s office, he mentioned some consulting, operations, and project management support they needed. Uncannily, though my brain often forgets the point I’m making mid-sentence these days, I remembered every detail of the work I had done for him seven years ago.
We talked through the projects, the gaps, the workload. I could step in, relieve his VP of Operations, and potentially help recruit and train a layer of middle management for longer-term support.
These were people I knew. People who knew my work. They sought me out.
And still.
As I pushed myself to talk about drafting a contract and naming my hourly rate, the voice in the back of my head started up.
What makes you think you’re worth it?
What do you really have to offer?
What makes you think you’ll succeed?
Oh, I don’t know. Maybe the fact that I have ultimately succeeded at what I’ve set my mind to every single time before.
We all know that voice.
Imposter syndrome.
So what is it? Why do we get it? And what do we do about it?
The concept originated, just like me, in 1978. Psychologists Pauline Clance and Suzanne Imes coined the term “impostor phenomenon” after observing that highly competent, successful women often attributed their achievements to luck, timing, or deception rather than their own ability. The issue was not a lack of capability. It was distorted attribution.
Since then, research has expanded to show that impostor feelings affect high achievers of all genders, especially during periods of transition. People experiencing impostor syndrome often fear evaluation, struggle to internalize success, discount praise, and either overwork or self-sabotage. It is associated with anxiety, burnout, and reduced job satisfaction.
Sound familiar? It does to me.
The good news is that impostor syndrome is not a mental disorder. It is a pattern of cognitive distortion.
Cognitive distortions are systematic errors in thinking that reinforce negative beliefs about ourselves, others, and the future. Because they are thinking patterns rather than personality traits, they can be changed.
So how do we shift them?
Beyond formal cognitive behavioral therapy, here are practices you can use yourself.
First, observe your thoughts in real time. Ask yourself, what thought just ran through my head? Write it down exactly as it appeared.
Second, label it. Are you mind-reading? Catastrophizing? Ignoring positive evidence? Basing your self-assessment on feelings rather than facts?
Third, examine the evidence. What objective evidence supports this thought? What objective evidence contradicts it?
Fourth, create a balanced replacement thought. Not toxic positivity. Not blind affirmation. Something grounded and true.
Fifth, practice repeating the replacement thought when the distortion resurfaces.
These steps create distance. They separate you from the story. They remind you that a thought is not an identity.
Everyone experiences impostor syndrome at some point. Facing it head-on and doing the thing anyway rarely goes wrong, and sometimes it goes very right.
There is a hidden well of vulnerability and strength in those moments. When we share them, we often discover we were never alone in the room after all. Maybe it was Albus Dumbledore, or maybe it was Nelson Mandela who said being brave is not the absence of fear; it’s being afraid and doing the thing anyway.
