The Imposter Syndrome (Episode 75)

In this episode Brent and Janis look at The Imposter Syndrome.  Anxiety and some self-doubt is part of life. But feelings of shame, fear or perfectionism can cause you to have a disconnect between how others see you and how you see yourself.  This results in the Imposter Syndrome. It is the belief that others view you as more capable and competent than you really are resulting in you perceiving yourself as a fraud. They talk about how to identify and overcome this false belief.

Transcript:

Welcome to Life and Love Nuggets, where licensed therapists Brent and Janice Sharp share how you can thrive in your life, your love, and your relationships. Hello friends, welcome back to Life and Love Nuggets. We're glad that you're with us today.

I welcome you. We are going to look at a very interesting phenomenon today that many of us may experience, and we may not know exactly what it is, or even realize that it actually has a title.

Yeah, it's a thing. It's a thing. It's called the imposter syndrome. So it's what is the imposter syndrome? We see it quite a bit in our practice, and it really is pretty common, but people don't always know that it is a thing. So my definition when I'm working with clients is it's the feeling that if people really knew me, they'd find out that I have no idea what I'm talking about. Psychologist Susan Albers says it's the feeling that everyone else knows exactly what they're doing, but you feel lost.

You have this fear that the people around you are going to figure out that you don't know what you're talking about, and they're going to our work background, our skill level, or even our degree of expertise. I was remembering when we had our first child, and we were in the hospital for a few days, and it was time to go home, and got the car seat, and yes, even back then, 40 years ago, you had to actually have a car seat. They were more like buckets, but yes. Yes, and the thought was, you're going to let us take this baby home? You think we actually know what we're doing? This is irresponsible of you. That's right.

You call yourself professionals, and you're giving this child over to us? Oh my gosh. He survived. Yeah. So anyway, where I really find this feeling sometimes is a professional counselor. I just kind of, you know, when people ask me about a certain thing, you know, because there's just always new stuff. There's new research.

There's new this or that, and people ask about a certain disorder, a certain treatment. They assume that I know everything about everything in our field, and so I feel that way sometimes. If I don't, if I've not just been up on the most recent thing. The snake oil that makes a difference. Yes, or whatever. I kind of have some of that feeling. Now this, again, might be my own perception.

They may not expect that of me, but that's kind of what I feel. I feel this pressure that I need to know everything, and so the reality is one study said that seven out of ten of us, so 70% of us, experience this at one point or another, so maybe we're not alone in this. Yeah. Interestingly enough, it's usually the people that are hard workers, that are high achievers, that are perfectionists, and it's oftentimes professionals. Doctors, lawyers, academics, celebrities that struggle with that feeling that they're a fraud. Even Einstein once said that he thought his research got way more attention than he thought it deserved. I mean, if Einstein can struggle with that, then I think it's not surprising that some of us struggle with it.

It suggested that 25 to 30% of high achievers, people that we would as the top in their field, feel like they are imposters. I think it's much higher, just the people that I have worked with. Maybe not all the time, but in spurts, people have this sense of, I don't know what I'm doing, or I'm not competent enough to do this, and it's confusing because from the outside, you would go, how could you possibly doubt yourself? Look at all that you've achieved. I mean, you're known as the expert in this area, or you're so good in this, but that self-talk that they have is self-defeating. Research in 2018 said the imposter syndrome is a form of self-doubt. It's a false belief that you're not as capable or as confident as other people perceive you to be.

And the worst part about it is that it can easily turn into this cycle that can have negative consequences. So we perceive ourselves as being imposters and are plagued with this kind of self-doubt. So what happens then is we don't really put ourself out there. We don't really step into new projects or take on new opportunities. We don't step out with confidence, which again can result in less effectiveness in our life. But the good thing is, as with all things, that's why we do this podcast, that's why we talk about this stuff, is if we can recognize it and kind of acknowledge it and bring that real reality of ourselves to the surface, there are some ways to get past this, and there are some tools that we can use. That's right.

It's interesting because it's not an official psychiatric diagnosis, so you're not going to find it in the diagnostic manual, but it's something that people are dealing with all the time. So there's five types of the imposter syndrome. Dr. Valerie Young is a researcher that has come up with these five different types of the imposter syndrome, and I think a lot of us would find ourselves in one of them. The first one is the perfectionist. This type of imposter syndrome involves believing that unless you were absolutely perfect, you could have done better. You feel like an imposter because your perfectionistic traits make you believe you're not as good as other people think you are.

And I'm sure as an Enneagram One that this has probably been one of my Achilles heels in my life from time to time. As a matter of fact, with the podcast, I don't ever listen to it. I don't want to hear myself talk. I don't want to listen to it after we've actually done it and released it. I don't know that that's a good thing, but I actually did the other day. I was listening to another podcast, and how they do, they just roll over to the next one on your feed, and ours came up. And so I was thinking I was running, and so I just listened to it for a while. And I found myself just waiting for the first mistake that I had made or something didn't make quite enough sense or something.

And with this pressure that we've already released this into the world, so I can't do anything about this. Actually, I was actually a little bit pleasantly surprised. I thought, not too bad. This is pretty good. So I guess, honey, I guess it's okay if we just keep doing this for at least for now. Okay, well, but did you check to see if I messed up? Okay, we'll go on.

That's not my work to do. That is not your work. Okay, the second type of imposter syndrome is the expert. The expert feels like an imposter because they don't know everything there is to know about a particular subject or topic, or they haven't mastered every in a process. Because there's more for them to learn, they don't feel like they've reached the rank of being an expert. Yeah. So that's that feeling I was talking about at the very beginning of the podcast, that sense that people feel like that people assume that we know everything in our field that is to be known.

The reality is no matter how much continuing edge you do, which we do it constantly, there's always more to know. There's always something that we haven't heard yet. And most counselors or really whatever field that you're in, most people specialize in some part of the field. They might be experts in that, but not in everything. And yet sometimes we feel this pressure that if we don't know everything there is to know in our field, then we're an imposter. So I remember early, I'm sure you remember this. We had our kids in, our kids all had ear tube problems. Okay. So we had this ear, nose and throat doctor that we- We saw a lot.

We knew him very well. He knew us very well. We might've put one of his kids through college. We probably did. Yes. Maybe that nice car he's driving too. And so we were in there for an ear checkup and we wondered if they didn't have an in their chest or something. Yeah. Pneumonia. Pneumonia. Pneumonia or bronchitis or something.

And so we said, can you tell whether they've got an infection there? That cough is an infection. And he was like, oh no, no, no, no. I don't handle that. You're going to have to go to your pediatrician for that. And at first I thought, what? Really? It's like, can't you just listen to his chest?

Can't you just, you went to medical school, you know? But I get it more now. Yes. Again, this was long, long time ago. I get it more now that he was an expert in that world, but recognizing that he didn't, he wasn't an expert in everything, you know? And so that's why even in medicine, we see more specialists now, you know, everybody, there's just a limit to what you can know. And we know as counselors, one of the best things we can do is refer to someone if it's outside our expertise.

If it's like, gosh, I don't deal with that particular area, but let me let you know of somebody that does. I do remember with him though, walking out thinking, gosh, I hope he doesn't come on my car, come upon my car accident. He'll check my ears and go, the ears are fine. You know, she may be bleeding, but not from the ears. They're great. So the next type of imposter syndrome is the natural genius. With this one, you may feel like a fraud just because you don't believe you're naturally intelligent or competent.

If you don't get something right the first time around, or it takes you longer to master a skill, you feel like an imposter. This is one that I think could come a lot from childhood. Sure. Yeah. And I, my goodness, I, I, I relate to all of these, every one of these so far. I've always had to work really hard at stuff. I, it just stuff just didn't come naturally to me.

I remember in one of my classes in college, and this is undergraduate, but there was this guy in our class that just acted like he knew everything. Now, now maybe he did, maybe it's one of those people that just had a, you know, photographic memory and remembered everything he ever read. And the teacher would call on him and he would stand up and I'm like, I know you didn't read that. And he would sound like he knew it all. He faked it really well.

Oh my God. Yeah. I secretly hated him.

You can repent now. And after those classes, I just felt just so dumb. I mean, I need to be like that to, to be competent, you know? And so, um, boy, this is one that I can relate to. So I don't know, did, did we pick this topic just to kind of do a deep dive into me? You know, I might've been the one that brought it up, but no, no, but really, I don't have the statistics in front of me, but we all know that somebody that had to work harder to learn more in school tends to develop the discipline and the habits that are good as a, as a worker in the future, because people that things come easily to them oftentimes don't have the self-discipline and they may be able to wing it for a certain period of time, but it catches up with them.

Well, thank you. That helps me feel just a little bit better. Yeah. I just totally made that up. No. Okay. The next one is, and maybe you don't relate to these, so it's okay.

The next one is the soloist. It's possible to feel like an imposter. If you had to ask for help to reach a certain level or status, since you couldn't get there on your own, you question your own competency and abilities. The next one is the super person. This type of imposter syndrome is believing that you must be the hardest worker or reach the highest levels of achievement possible. And if you don't, you're a fraud. I think about Enneagram threes with this.

I also think about some clients that I've had. And one in particular that, I mean, I think her work ethic, she could do 50% of what she does and be way ahead of anybody else because she's incredible. And one of the things that I joke with her about is she'll say, I made a mistake or I didn't do this right. And I'll go, oh yeah, I keep forgetting that you're not human and you're supposed to do things perfectly without risk or without mistakes to where sometimes now she'll go, remember, I'm not human. And so we make jokes over it. But whichever ones of these that you relate to the most, we have to remember those are only our thoughts and feelings. That doesn't mean they're reality.

Sometimes we forget the fact that what I think or what I feel isn't the reality. And we get caught up in that negativity. Yeah, it's all just our perceptions. And so now some anxiety, some self-doubt, it's just going to be a part of life. I think everybody has some sense of these things, but where it turns into feelings of shame or fear or perfectionism can really cause a disconnect between how others see you and how you see yourself. And again, as we mentioned, it can cause you to not lean into being your full self, to step in if you're on a work team that you'll just hold back because you feel like you're an imposter and you'll be exposed, whatever those things are. And it becomes this self-fulfilling prophecy which we talked about where we try less, we put less into it, we don't try as often or something.

If we know, unless we know we can do it just right, we don't do it at all. And so eventually that can lead to unfulfilled dreams and goals and desires. And so if it turns into kind of a crippling anxiety or keeps you from enjoying your strengths or successes, we really need to address it. And there are some ways to address that. Yeah, yeah. I mean, the good news is we can change it because we change our self-talk, which really helps retrain our brain to have a more positive view of ourselves. Becoming more aware of our self-talk is one of the keys to it.

I mean, we have to. We've talked about this before, but we have so many thoughts running through our brain that we're not aware of. We really have to take time to stop and have some self-reflection, journaling some about how we're feeling, talking to other safe people to just say, I'm really struggling with this. Helps all of our self-talk, our awareness of who we are come to the surface so that we can talk back to those negative thoughts and the things that are bothering us. And then since normal feelings of some self-doubt and some anxiety are normal, then just normalize it. Right. Just embrace it and just realize, okay, I'm feeling a little bit insecure here, wondering what people are going to think, but keep going.

And simple, we're just suggesting recognize it, normalize it, and ignore it. That actually reconditions your brain that I can actually do things that I don't feel perfectly competent at. Now, we're not suggesting that we all start doing brain surgery, okay? I don't know if you know this, Brent, but I am not good in brain surgery. Oh, really? Well, I haven't tried it yet, but... That we should refer on, okay?

I would refer brain surgery to someone else. But within your field of what is normal for you, just don't stop being you. Don't stop doing what you do or being who you are. And that actually reformats your brain that we can do things that we don't feel perfectly competent in, in all ways. We feel that imposter thing coming up, but we went on and did it and it was fine. Yeah, oftentimes I tell people to make a list of their strengths. You know, everybody has strengths and weaknesses, but sometimes when we have a lot of negative thinking, we've diminished our strengths.

We don't think about them as much. So I encourage people to make a list of their strengths and then think back to a time that it's like, oh, I did that and that went really well. So I need to remind myself of that when I start to have some of this fear. Your brain, because it has that negative bias, will bring in, yeah, but there's the time you did this and this and this and this. And we have to pull it back and go, everybody makes mistakes. I have strengths. There are some times I've had successes in this and it's worth pushing through.

There's a good chance I may have a success in this new thing, too. Yeah, good. And then when you make a mistake, as all humans will, just remind yourself that failure is part of the learning process. So it's the idea of changing your relationship to failure. See it as a learning and growth opportunity rather than a confirmation that you're an imposter. See, you shouldn't have done that, you know, because you don't know what you're doing. So turn it into a growth mindset.

As a matter of fact, most people would say in their lifetime that they learn the most from their mistakes. And it is an opportunity to learn and grow and develop some new tools and strategies. And so just flip that script and see it differently. And if you find yourself even questioning your strengths, like, do I really have any? I guess I occasionally will have people in and go, I don't know that I have any strengths. Then ask people that are close to you. Ask people that are safe.

Don't question what they say. If they say, well, I see you strong in this, this, this, and this, don't go, oh yeah, no, that's not really true. They don't know what they're talking about. Get some positive feedback from people that are around you. Write them on a list and read them over and over again if you're in a period of self-doubt. Now, there may be some areas of expertise or some skills that you feel like, yeah, I'm really not that strong in that and it might help me if I was. Then go get training.

Go take a class. Do some more reading. Find an online- Keep learning. Yeah, keep learning. But just know you're not gonna master everything and anything you work on is gonna take time. You're not gonna read one paper and be a brain surgeon. I'm trying to get you to laugh.

I'm also not gonna be an FBI agent. I just wanna let you know, I'm limiting some things in my future. You'll probably have to read at least two papers. So hopefully you're grabbing something here today. Don't do this alone.

Talk to a friend. If you're struggling with this, as if it's gripped you and it's keeping you from being your full self, then talk to a friend, a safe person, maybe talk to a therapist that can help you challenge those negative beliefs. If you're having a hard time doing it yourself, do it in relationship. That's where the strength comes in. And if you have somebody that is talking to you about this, make sure that you realize that this is a true feeling for them. It's not reality, but it is their feeling. And so don't go, well, that's ridiculous.

Do you know who you are? Well, stop having that stupid thinking, but be reassuring and going, you know, it's hard to feel that way. But you know, I see a lot of strengths in you. And I think about when you did this, and this, and this, and this. So you affirm them in that instead of discounting. Back to that validation word, lead with that. That's why we talked about, make sure you're reaching out to a safe person. Yes. Not one of your fixer friends that's just gonna go, that's ridiculous.

Just stop thinking that way. But that can sit with you in it, but then help you challenge that. And so remember that each and every one of you have been made in the image of God. You're a reflection of a part of the wonder of God in the world. And as you live in the world as your true, honest self, with all your God-given strengths and weaknesses. Yes. It comes with both.

The world's better off when they experience all of you. Yes. And so don't let the imposter syndrome limit you or paralyze you in any way from allowing the world to be blessed by your life. So grab ahold of something here. Realize that you can make a difference in how you're thinking about it. And so for today, go in peace.

Blessings as you go. The Life & Love Nuggets podcast is a 501c3 nonprofit and is supported by gifts from people like you. To donate, go to lifeandlovenuggets.com slash donate. This podcast is produced by Clayton Creative in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The content should not be considered or used for counseling, but for educational purposes only. The Life & Love Nuggets Podcast is a 501c3 nonprofit