Paul Lyons had an early encounter with the dreaded Imposter Syndrome some years ago but has now developed strategies to help others who struggle with it.
Early in my career I was appointed as a managing director and although I was reasonably conscientious and a hard worker, the appointment was a complete surprise.
I felt like I had won the lottery and although my colleagues were gracious and accepting, they surely knew I was a fraud — an imposter
I needed to quickly overcome this feeling of inadequacy and uncertainty to demonstrate to my manager, based on the other side of the world in London, and to those around me, that I was capable.
In hindsight I muddled through that initial period of confusion, if you are experiencing a similar feeling, try some of these simple strategies.
Silence your inner critic:
The situation I experienced above is commonly known as Imposter Syndrome.
This is an internal psychological pattern where an individual underplays their ability and accomplishments and has a persistent internalised fear of being exposed as a fraud.
Your inner critic is the root cause of your syndrome with persistent negative thoughts and feelings about your capability swirling around and causing self-doubt.
You need a mind-shift to silence your inner critic (in other words yourself) by ‘naming and shaming’ and challenging it to become objective and logical, rather than resorting to internalised hearsay and rumours.
The ‘objective and logical’ generally comes in the form of the ‘someone else’ that has appointed or promoted you because they see qualities in you that you don’t recognise.
This is the objectivity, the logical external validation that you can use to silence your inner critic.
Become more self-aware of who you are (and who you aren’t):
Self-awareness is critical to removing your imposter syndrome.
It’s important to discover who you are as a person and to understand your purpose, your strengths, preferences, motivations and weaknesses that will enable you to seize the opportunities that face you.
Reflect on your successes to date, especially this one, and understand why you were promoted and the qualities your superiors see in you and want you to use.
Self-awareness also helps you to develop your signature personality and authenticity which encourages people to interact more positively with you.
This is not only good for your self-esteem but also your leadership influence.
What does good look like:
Understanding ‘what good looks like’ — in other words how your superiors define a good performance, gives you clarity on your objectives.
This in turn helps you build confidence around what is required.
This focus on the ‘nuts and bolts’ of making things happen helps lessen the imposter syndrome as well as providing operational comfort to you as a leader.
Stay in control and be objective:
Imposter syndrome is out of your control (at least to begin with) and wholly subjective.
In order to counter this and to remove the feeling of being overwhelmed, focus on what you can control through simply taking action, which helps you stay calm.
Similarly it helps to stay objective in situations by not taking sides or making biased assumptions.
Finally, being positive really helps to counter your negative inner critic which is causing your imposter syndrome.
Work on finding the good in every situation because the more you can look on the bright side, the easier it’ll be to get through challenging times.
If you have a bad day or make a mistake, simply learn from it and don’t beat yourself up.
*Paul Lyons is a business leader, adviser and coach enjoying a diverse career across Australia and Asia. He can be contacted at [email protected].
This article first appeared on the Mental Toughness blogsite.
