Impostor Syndrome and Reframing
The Harvard Business Review says imposter syndrome is: “intellectual fraudulence that overrides any feelings of success or external proof of competence”. Simply put, you think you suck when you shouldn’t and you shouldn’t because you don’t - you’re great.
Now, I have never been the smartest in the room but I have always been smart. I have never been the most sporty, but I have always performed well. I have never been the most popular but I have always been respected by my peers. Then, academically I have never been in the top 5% but I have always been in the top 20%. It is because of these things that all my life, I have been told “You’re great”, “You’re going places” and “I can’t wait to see what you do in the future”. It is this type of praise which has contributed to a sense of constant high expectation. An expectation that when internalised, has barely left me alone since perhaps the age of 11.
Now, internalised thoughts lead to mental patterns. To directing your personal narrative in a certain direction. These comments designed by those giving them as ego-boosting praise had the opposite effect. The effect of feeling unable to live up to the expectations set of me. A feeling that I am great and because I am great, I must achieve highly and even be perfect. Anything other than that is a failure. Which is fine, until you reach a stage of life such as attending university where being perfect or consistently meeting those expectations is increasingly difficult and even impossible.
Meaning, for me at university, it became impossible to feel like I wasn’t a failure. That I didn’t deserve to be where I was. I had become a full-time imposter. My self-worth had become tied directly into the grades and extra-curricular success I was achieving since it met my internal narrative. I told myself: “this is what I am supposed to be doing” because clear academic and extra-curricular success is what I have measured myself against since that age of 11.
So, here is one of many techniques that help me to manage my imposter. These work for me, try it on yourself but remember that everyone is different and so research some more solutions to help you individually and keep in mind that these are things that continually do - I still struggle with feeling like an imposter.
Reframing
Reframing is related to the idea of the frame of reference which describes how you perceive the world around you and how you fit into it. Consider the analogy of yourself looking at the world through a telescope. Your frame of reference is what you think you see at the other end but how you see it changes depending on how much you zoom in. Reframing is reminding yourself to zoom in and out.
So what on earth does that mean? Well, a recent example is achieving a 2:1 in my degree. I worked incredibly hard for it and by all rational measures totally deserve it. Yet, on the day of my results, my imposter crept up on me and told me “You’re average because loads of people got a 2:1”.
WHAT?!
A day four years in the making after thousands of hours, sweat, tears, hard graft and challenge after challenge...and my imposter has the audacity to say that I didn’t deserve it? Well, yes. That’s how imposter syndrome works as I hope I have shown you the irrationality of it - remember, that the “intellectual fraudulence overrides any rational feelings of success.
Reframing, then, is my response to that thought from my imposter. For, yes, maybe lots of other people did get a 2:1. But I’m sure they worked really hard for their degrees too and the hard work of others has nothing to do with the work I put into my degree. So, that thought is changed to “It doesn’t matter what other people got, I worked hard for my 2:1 and so I deserve it”.
In that way, I have taken the imposter’s negative thought and reframed it to be a positive one. I have ‘zoomed out’ and changed the nature of the thought by not agreeing with the imposter.
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This is an excerpt of a longer piece for MindMapper members only. I hope that you enjoyed reading, could relate and can take reframing forward as a technique to manage your imposter.