Beyond Impostor's Syndrome and Why High-Achievers Still Doubt Themselves

Ways to reclaim confidence and courage - no matter who you are or what you're making

For some of us, confidence and ease come with practice and accomplishment, except when they don't.

Tina Fey: "The beauty of the impostor syndrome is you vacillate between extreme egomania, and a complete feeling of: 'I'm a fraud! Oh god, they're on to me! I'm a fraud!"

Who doesn’t experience some form of this? I’ve worked with people in so many different fields - accomplished scholars, VPs, corporate consultants, celebrities, established authors, professors, media personalities, restauranteurs, tech whizzes, spiritual guides, entrepreneurs, coaches, performers. And even at the height of their career, there is no guarantee they are going to feel 100% comfortable in your public or professional skin.

Over the years, I’ve identified three key “afflictions of the accomplished” that are types of Impostor’s Syndrome. If they go unchecked, they hold back numerous people from experiencing deeper fulfillment and having a greater impact.

#1 Impostor’s Syndrome

Impostor's Syndrome is perhaps the most common of all the afflictions and self-limiting beliefs. Take the VP who runs a tech firm team but feels as if she lucked into the position and fears being "found out."

It’s not unlike what accomplished speaker and author Charles Vogl shared with me on the Tracking Wonder Podcast when he worked hard to get into Yale. He said he kept waiting for “that moment.” That moment when someone from Yale would tap him on the shoulder and say, “Um, we made a mistake in admitting you here.”

Or the family relations expert promising whole and happy families whose family issues with his teenage children have erupted into an ugly mess.

Impostor’s Syndrome often arises in two scenarios. One, when an accomplished entrepreneur or professional feels that what she’s promising is inconsistent with what she’s doing or how she’s living. Two, he feels he's never "enough"- never qualified enough, never knowledgeable enough, never effective enough.

The research of Pauline Rose Clance and Suzanne Imes is perhaps among the most thorough in this field as they coined the term. They sum up the syndrome this way:

"Despite outstanding academic and professional accomplishments, women who experience the impostor phenomenon persist in believing that they are really not bright and have fooled anyone who thinks otherwise. Numerous achievements, which one might expect to provide ample objective evidence of superior intellectual functioning, do not appear to affect the impostor belief."

Do men experience this syndrome any more or less than women? According to social psychologist Amy Cuddy, the research is mixed, but men do experience this syndrome—although as a rule many of them may not express it or admit it.

Causes

Many people look up to accomplished leaders, creatives, and professionals. So they might feel an obligation to uphold an image of perfection. A professional might be unforgiving of his ever-evolving status in his professional and personal growth.

Many factors correlate, but fear of failure is the most common. More specifically, among entrepreneurs, leaders, professionals, and service providers, this fear of failure is often a fear of not being able to live up to one's own promised competency.

Remedy

The remedy depends. If you're an entrepreneur, leader, or anyone in charge of a brand or business, promise what you can deliver on and live out.

»> Refrain from promising a perfect permanent state. Promising “enlightenment” or “perfect health” or even “happiness” as a permanent state is not only unrealistic; it’s likely a lie. Promising such permanent states and perpetuating guru-like images of perfection also heightens people’s feelings of inferiority to you or repression of their own imperfections.

If you actually lack knowledge in your field, seek it. Don't fake it. Make it happen.

»> Shift your point of view. Your brand or endeavor or business is not about you. It's likely about your signature idea or your mission. Focus on that and deliver the goods. That's also the advice from thinker and entrepreneur Nilofer Merchant in her book The Power of Onlyness - someone who, incidentally, is not immune to going through her own personal and professional wilderness or who struggled to speak with her own voice when at first faced down by “supremely confident” mansplainers.

»> Acknowledge the paradoxes of your personality. When you recognize your contradictions as potential creative paradoxes, then you stop expecting your “self” to be monolithic and simplistic.

#2 The Field-Crossing Shame Affliction

Let's say you've earned your reputation in one field, and now you want to cross over. Why not? If David Bowie in his rocking days could test out acting and Pharrell Williams can test out furniture-making, why can't you test out another field in a way that's more than a hobby?

Well, maybe because of The Field-Crossing Affliction. It comes about when someone accomplished in one field wants to advance in another field. It also arises when a CEO, professional, or creative wants to advance to a different stage in a career and in so doing might break from their established persona or from the path that got them to their level of excellence.

If you've established yourself as an award-winning author who wants to integrate meditation into your writing workshops, who are you to do so? Well, Dani Shapiro for one. (Seriously, 10 or so years ago, when she first entertained this idea, other writers gave her pushback.) If you're an effervescent and established business strategist who wants to integrate mindfulness into your approach for advising people to pivot in their careers, who are you to do so- and to do so with full-fledged vulnerability? Well, ❤️ Jenny Blake for one.

This affliction is not yet addressed in much psychology literature. That deficiency might be because it is a relatively new pattern given our changing economy, human beings' increased average longevity, and our capacity for accelerated learning.

It’s been my experience in working with so many entrepreneurial and executive types in this arena that these factors give more people greater flexibility in their middle and later decades to test out new careers or endeavors.

Causes

Creative entrepreneurs and professionals, even those with master status within their fields, find it challenging to submit to new knowledge, frameworks, and concepts in a new field. They feel they should know what they’re doing. They’re used to being in charge and being the ones with the answers. Sometimes accomplished professionals who feel shame for not knowing about brand-building, marketing, or authoring a book don’t recognize that these endeavors each require a different yet complementary skill set.

In either case, it's not unlike what I identified a while ago as The Apprenticeship Gap. It’s a gap between where we are and where we want to be. A gap between how long we think it should take us to arrive at our desired horizon and the reality of how long it takes to learn and assimilate a craft or skill set.

Remedy

»> If you want to enter a new field or excel in a new field, break down the skills you need to learn.

»> Find models and study them. Practice and prototype over and over.

»> Find a mentor or resources you can trust, and open up.

»> Ask more questions, test out, and remember what it felt like to be an inquisitive, experimental, open-minded beginner.

»> Recognize that field knowledge and domain knowledge change so rapidly in the 21st century that at some level we all should perceive and present ourselves as perennial amateurs and apprentices on our path to increased mastery of work and life.

Some of the most successful, gratified, and influential entrepreneurs, leaders, and creatives I’ve met and worked with do so.

The Intra-Field Knowledge Affliction

This common affliction has to do with what gets in the way of an accomplished professional, executive, or entrepreneur advancing authority and thought leadership within her existing field.

The psychologist with a solid reputation cannot open up to new evidence because it might threaten his intellectual "stake" and brand. The award-winning author of novels resists guidance in writing her first memoir. The successful serial entrepreneur cannot hear feedback on how to advance a startup differently.

Causes

An accomplished person’s reputation might be built on comparable knowledge. For me or someone else to come along and suggest that there’s more to know or a different if not better strategy can be threatening.

Remedy

»> It takes a confident person to submit to new knowledge. When someone presents a potential new way of looking at an “old” idea, open up and see what insight you might take away. An open intelligence, that’s the operative mindset.

Open Intelligence is the talent to receive what is there without judgment or projections or opinions. It’s what happens when you recognize the possibility of an idea or project, often where other people are put out or grumbling.

It’s a unique intelligence that we adults can cultivate. It’s the intelligence of beginner’s mind but more nuanced than what Zen masters describe.

You're Completely Normal

Here's the thing. We all feel this way. Rather, any of us who are putting our signature ideas out there and who are experiencing some degree of recognition, respect, and success feel one or more of these afflictions. And sometimes they never completely go away.

Tina Fey for the round up: "So you just try to ride the egomania when it comes and enjoy it, and then slide through the idea of fraud. Seriously, I've just realized that almost everyone is a fraud, so I try not to feel too bad about it."

Life is an experiment. Keep testing out your best ideas and nudge yourself to the deep end, just where you feel a little over your head and know that everyone around you is also trying to figure out the best way to swim.

Your Turn to Wonder

»> How have any of these “afflictions” shown up in your life and work?

»> If you get curious if not wondrous about “impostor’s syndrome” in your life and work or in that of others, what comes up for you?

Thanks for running with me,

Jeffrey