Imposter syndrome has always sounded like some kind of complicated spy disease to me. Like maybe you’re an imposter so long you don’t know who you really are any more. I don’t know if this is a thing that happens, I’m betting if you were undercover for long enough it might be hard to define where you end and your persona begins or at least that’s what Hollywood leads me to believe. Of course, Imposter Syndrome is a different and certainly more common beast. For the purposes of this post we’ll define Imposter Syndrome as “the persistent inability to believe that one’s success is deserved or has been legitimately achieved as a result of one’s own effort or skill”. It’s the feeling you get when someone says something like, “Wow, you're such a good artist!” or “your company is so successful, you’re doing such a good job!”. You know the one, you’re smiling back but really just clenching your teeth. You say, “Oh thank you so much that’s so nice!” Inside your head though, there’s that voice saying, “They don’t know the real me. The me that has no idea what she’s doing and has just lucked into the moderate success she has.”
Imposter Syndrome is so insidious because we’re taught that being modest is the way to go. To not worry about what people think of you and to not brag. In many ways, this is true. There is something hugely satisfying in knowing that you are strong, smart, and capable no matter what other people think. It’s only satisfying when you know those things about yourself though. Most of the time you don’t even notice that you’re down on yourself until you’ve been doubting yourself for weeks, months, even years. It’s easy to convince yourself that you’re just being modest. There’s a difference though. Of course, most people didn’t get to where they are in life on their own. We have help in the form of mentors, friends, family, teachers, etc who help point us on the right path and keep us on it when it feels like we’re spinning out of control. That’s the modesty bit. Most people’s success is a combination of skill/talent, luck, and determination. What we so often forget, is the skill/talent part. It’s true that a lot of people own successful dog walking companies. Many more successful than mine. This doesn’t take away from my own success and what I’ve built. I built something that no one else could. Because no one else is me. The experiences I’ve had colored every decision I made and since there’s no other me, there can’t be another Pawsitively Pooches.
Last week, we talked about trusting yourself, especially after the trauma of making bad decisions with big impacts on your life. During all the bad decisions I’ve made, or while I was living through the consequences of these decisions, someone has told me I’m doing a great job. I didn’t believe them. I knew the truth, I was a fraud. I didn’t know what I was doing and they just couldn’t see it because I had so cleverly disguised myself. This made it even harder to believe them when things were going well. If they didn’t see it before, what if now I’m just fooling myself too? The truth is that I was doing a good job, just not a perfect one. No one is doing anything perfectly. Even olympic athletes rarely get full points. Think about that for a second. The best of the best, are almost never perfect. So why on earth would you expect yourself, an excellent person but likely not the best of the best, to be perfect? Be your best, not everyone else’s.
Imposter Syndrome is a big and challenging state to live in and to overcome. In my experience it never truly goes away, but it does get better. We will talk more about it in future blogs. For now, I’d love for you to share your stories with me. Please feel free to email them to lauren@laurenpiner.com if you don’t want to share publicly. Our next Imposter Syndrome post will be a deep dive into a real life situation.
Thanks for reading as always! Stay tuned next week for Bite Sized Self Care