From the Archives: Imposter Syndrome Does NOT Help You Improve Yourself
A very common question I get from clients is—
“I want to reduce my imposter syndrome. But I still want to find ways to improve and better myself. How can I balance the two?”
Contained within this question is an insidious assumption — that in order to get better, you need to feel bad about yourself.
Imposter syndrome is not the same as humility or openness to feedback.
Imposter syndrome is rooted in the idea that you are not good enough.
Not qualified enough, not experienced enough, not smart enough, not productive enough, not polished enough — that overall, something is wrong with you AS A PERSON.
And when you’re thinking that you’re not good enough as a person, every piece of feedback feels personal.
Whether it’s missing a target, failing at a goal, getting a rejection, or hearing someone tell you should have done it differently…
When you’re thinking I’m not good enough, your mind will interpret all those things as further, damning, indisputable proof that you’re not good enough.
Which will (very naturally!) create a sense of deep inadequacy and lack of belonging…
Which will then put you into fight or flight mode.
So your response to the feedback will look like this:
Fight: Get defensive, argue for why you’re right, refuse to see their side
Flight: Procrastinate, avoid, want to quit your job and run away
Freeze: Do nothing, feel paralyzed and unable to act
Fawn: Do everything they’re telling you to do, exactly as they say to do it
Frantic: Do everything you can think of to correct the error as soon as possible
None of these responses are an effective way to improve.
You may still make some improvements — you are smarter and stronger and more hardworking than you realize, so it wouldn’t surprise me if you’ve created gold in the past DESPITE being in fight or flight mode.
But this is an inefficient, scattered, and draining way to go about it. You deserve better. And you can get much better results at a fraction of the emotional cost.
Let me prove it to you right now.
Think about something that you feel secure and confident about.
Your area of expertise. Your personal specialty. The thing you have years of experience in, and know back to front. It doesn’t matter if it’s big or small.
Now ask yourself—
How do you react when you get feedback or an unwanted result in this area?
If I had to guess, here’s what happens—
You don’t take it personally.
You don’t make it mean that you’re not good enough as a person.
The question “Am I good enough?” doesn’t even enter the equation.
You get curious about what happened. “Huh, that was unexpected. I wonder why that happened…”
You lean on your own expertise. You go inward to your own knowledge and experience to interpret what just happened.
You’re open-minded…but not so open-minded that your brain falls out. You’re not defensive. You can hear other perspectives without feeling threatened. But you don’t let others supplant your authority either. Everything is filtered through: “Okay, but does that make sense to me?”
You get creative. Something unexpected happened. You learned something new. And you start coming up with different approaches to still get the results you want.
And by doing all of this — you improve and get better. You GROW your level of expertise. You GROW your body of knowledge. You GROW your creativity.
And none of this is possible when you’re in fight or flight mode.
Being curious, being creative, having the mental capacity to be grounded in your own authority while also considering opposing viewpoints…
All of that requires a deep sense of security and belonging.
You cannot do this kind of problem-solving when you feel like you are under threat.
And imposter syndrome, at its root, makes you feel under threat all the time, because it keeps telling you — “You’re not good enough. You don’t belong here. You’re about to be exposed and kicked out.”
It doesn’t help you get better, and it’s not something you need to “strike a balance with” in order to improve.
If you really want to improve and get better, you have to eliminate your imposter syndrome and uproot your sense of “not good enough” at the source.
Sound impossible? Not at all. That’s exactly what I help my clients do.
We take it one step at a time. We implement piece by piece. And we build the mental and emotional habit of believing you HAVE enough and you ARE enough.
It’s as simple and doable as any other habit. So let’s get started today :)