Overcome imposter syndrome in a surprising way

Caitlin: All right, healers. Now, without sounding like a cheesy late night commercial, how many of these ring true? Do you stress over minor mistakes or imperfections in your work? do you believe your success is due to luck or external influences? Are you highly sensitive to constructive criticism?

Caitlin: Do you feel like it's only a matter of time before you're exposed as a fraud? Do you undervalue your own expertise, even in areas where you're genuinely more skilled than others? If you nodded your head along to a few of those you probably guessed that you may have experienced imposter syndrome, or I prefer to term imposter phenomenon.

Caitlin: And I wanted to chat a bit about that today and maybe shine a little bit of a light and explore what's really going on. So the term was actually coined back in the seventies by a few researchers, Pauline Plants and Suzanne Imes. And they noticed that many, many high achieving women felt like their success were due to luck or charm, but not their own abilities.

Caitlin: So basically there's alwaysthis ever present baggage of self doubt

Caitlin: when people are always worried that someone will see through the facade. Well, let's have a bit of a chat about why people might feel this way or what's going on.

Caitlin: Now, being a psychodynamic therapist I can't help but think of it as in the context of like a defense mechanism where the phenomenon is actually protecting an individual from even deeper feelings of inadequacy or even fear of success. So by maintaining a belief in someone's own fraudulence or they're going to get found out.

Caitlin: And so really those early experiences can potentially lead to, yeah, shame and contribute to the development of imposter syndrome. And of course, family dynamics could even play a huge part,

Caitlin: or it could be, as a result of trying to gain self esteem by living up to an idealized image.

Caitlin: Interestingly, there's some research, though, that people with imposter phenomenon often have a okay self esteem in general, but they struggle specifically in areas of achievement. So some people with imposter phenomenon are driven by like performance goals and wanting to look smart rather than actually, learn and grow, which of course would lead to anxiety and stress and their self worth is tied to that external validation.

Caitlin: Like I said before, leads to, can lead to shame.

Caitlin: to people who have basically played a role their whole life and constantly adjusted their behavior to fit what they thought was accepted or admired rather than acting from a place of what they wanted.

Caitlin: And when I think about it, a lot of that in terms of like the, as if personality or concept was. Definitely mirrored in my experience in masters where I felt like I had to act as if I was a psychologist, like even though I was one, right. And that led me to behave in a certain way that was against my personal ideas of psychology and therapy and the type of therapist that I personally wanted to be.

Caitlin: And so where does that leave us? So interestingly, there's a concept called self efficacy and basically self efficacy is the belief in someone's own ability to succeed. And there's research showing that imposter phenomenon is negatively correlated with self efficacy. So, which basically means that the higher our imposter phenomenon is, the lower our self efficacy is, or vice versa.

Caitlin: The higher our self efficacy is, the lower our feelings of being an imposter are.

Caitlin: podcast and interviewing guests. It's one of the common threads throughout the conversations. So people talk often about starting a business and doing something so wild they never thought they would be able to do that. And it's that sense of, I can do it, I can achieve it.

Caitlin: And then that's had

Caitlin: effects in their other, other domains of life where they've felt like they have a bit more confidence and maybe have less imposter syndrome because they have been able to achieve really big goals in other areas of their life.

Caitlin: So I guess, listener, where does this leave us? Like, are we stuck with this icky feeling forever? Are we doomed to do power poses in bathroom stalls and giving us pep talks in the mirrors the rest of our lives? Well, I'm sure you're probably wondering, what can I do? And, as a therapist, my answer is always, understand yourself.

Caitlin: And it's also really common for people to think that we're somehow different, we're the exception to the norm. Like everybody else is doing this over here, but for some reason Where the one person that's different,

Caitlin: but also I know it's a bit uncomfortable, but even maybe leaning into the feeling of imposter syndrome or imposter phenomenon. So leaning into that feeling, what is that feeling actually telling you? Because it might, there might be something in there. It might be some truth in there. Not necessarily about you as a person, but maybe.

Caitlin: And that's where therapy can be super helpful. I might be biased, but

Caitlin: so really, I think. Any emotion is like basically little internal messages that are trying to communicate something to us that isn't right or something that needs to be explored. So maybe next time you feel that way, take a little moment to pause and reflect and ask yourself what the feeling is really about.

Caitlin: What's it trying to tell you? Are you afraid of failing? Or being rejected, or is it just something that you haven't done before? And so it makes sense that you're feeling like a little bit of a fraud, or is it maybe in certain situations or with certain people, even that you feel a sense of feeling like an imposter or a fraud.

Caitlin: And that's interesting to maybe teasing things out about that,

Caitlin: I also think something that's wildly underrated is surrounding yourself by supportive people. And I don't mean people who are just like, Whoa, whoa, whoa, you're the best! I mean, people who are honest and share their struggles. So

Caitlin: you can also have a sense of that. It's okay if you're struggling as well.

Caitlin: Yeah. And I think really when it comes down to it, what matters the most is keep showing up and keep doing what you love.

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