And why does it hinder our work
The imposter syndrome is a psychological term referring to a pattern of behavior where people doubt their accomplishments and have a persistent, often internalized fear of being exposed as a fraud.
Imposter syndrome can affect both men and women. It’s the sense that you don’t deserve the accomplishments that have happened. Why do we have these thoughts that we aren’t good enough?
So why is it that we feel like a fraud?
There is a lot of research done into this and basically, it is a thing, no one’s denying that, so how does it seem that some people just don’t have it?
I think all that you can do is accept that others have it, they just don’t necessarily show it to you. Nor should they – that is their truth. You might see some of this behavior in others when they make excuses for their work, or if they are complemented, they will find a way to deflect because it is uncomfortable.
There is also another term that comes into play in the setting with imposter syndrome. This is called pluralistic ignorance. In social psychology, pluralistic ignorance is a situation in which a majority of group members privately reject a norm, but go along with it because they assume, incorrectly, that most others accept it. This is also described as “no one believes, but everyone thinks that everyone believes”. When combined with impostor syndrome where someone thinks they’re in the wrong place because they feel like a fraud – because everyone else seems to believe in what is happening or is saying! Can you see how derailing this is for our fuckedup brains?! We are actively telling it to go along with something it doesn’t believe and makes it feel wrong!
So now you’re there, in a meeting, with all these people who are throwing arounds words like ‘ let’s reach out and touch base with these so and so people about this *words that don’t make any sense but are now in the vernacular* and we will get the outcomes we want……. Yeah, nah.
So you’ve got a couple of options, keep you head down and go with the flow – realise you probably won’t get caught cause either no one else agrees or no one else knows what’s going on……OR speak up and own your truth. Ask those questions, bitch. Make it make sense to you and find concrete actions. This is a sure fire way to get you to stand out and feel less like an imposter. The first time you open your mouth, you’ll probably want to crawl under a rock because you think everyone else gets it –but I guarantee they don’t (but please don’t stalk me if I’m wrong!).
Performance reviews are again, good for this type of issue but the culture of asking for feedback in what you’ve done well and why, can be very daunting.
[snippet from my chapter on imposter syndrome]