How to stop being self-conscious about your success. 4 ways to fight imposter syndrome

Devaluing yourself and your accomplishments, insecurity in your work, inability to start desired activities for a long time, fear of being exposed as incompetent – all these can be signs of impostor syndrome. If you have found at least a few of these characteristics, follow our advice and you will be able to turn the situation to your benefit.

Sergej Savinov

psychologist, specialist in integrative and applied psychology

Impostor syndrome is a psychological defense that hides underneath the uncertainty in one’s own abilities. Most often the condition is associated with work and manifestation of oneself in society. Fortunately, there are ways to cope with it.

Causes of imposter syndrome

Behind the exclamations, “No one needs my work,” “No one will buy this from me,” “I’m not capable of anything,” very serious psychological problems are hidden. These phrases hide what is really going on inside. For example, behind the phrase “People don’t need my product” may lie the fear of earning a large amount of money, which in the internal picture of the world of a person is impossible, dangerous, shameful to have.

Thus, the impostor syndrome protects a person from stress, which will arise in case of violation of the personal psychological paradigm. This is the first reason for the formation of the syndrome.

The second reason lies in the devaluation of the personality. Situations from childhood affect everyone differently due to personal peculiarities of the structure of the central nervous system. Sometimes in childhood there are situations when the child’s achievements are criticized. And not everyone copes with it adequately for a number of individual reasons. As a result, a gestalt can be formed, in which it is necessary to prove something to others.

For example, if a boy has formed such a pattern, he will definitely choose in the future a woman who will devalue his efforts (or it will seem so to him) in order to be constantly in a state of “proving his competence”. In this case, by all criteria, the man will be successful, but internally it will seem to him that he has achieved nothing and all his achievements – the fruit of luck, no more.

If you are familiar with this, praise yourself more often, and there will always be a reason. Read more about it here.

This pattern will work until the person closes this gestalt with the specialist and builds a new identity. The person will constantly choose those people who do not give them praise, and even if they do, it will seem insufficient.

How to defeat imposter syndrome?

Learn to define success on your own

If you want to learn to define personal success on your own and minimize your dependence on the opinions of others, learn to set goals and reflect on their achievement. The goal should be measurable. Clear criteria for achieving an outcome help you determine for yourself how successful you are.

When you objectively evaluate the results of your actions, it is possible not to consider yourself an impostor, but to appropriate the experience. If the result is what you wanted – what does it matter who thinks about it?

To make it easier for you to set a goal, we suggest following this plan:

A goal has an achievement script. The scenario consists of mini goals, which should also have criteria. After each mini-goal, evaluate what you have done and how well the results match your own plan. Focus on simple actions. Every evening, do an audit. How far did you get toward the goal? What exactly did you do to achieve it? What results did you get for the day relative to your scenario? Then build a plan for the next day.

Form an identity

Your self-image will change over the course of your life if you are an active and engaged person. It’s important for the psyche to register these changes in order to evolve. This doesn’t always happen automatically. Evolution requires a plan and the ability to integrate lessons learned.

Compare what you want with the outcome

• What skills did you solidify, pump, gain in the course of achieving your goal? What did you do and what did you learn? What made it possible to achieve the goal?
• Who were you while you were on your way to the result? Who are you now when the result is achieved? Who are you now and who are you no longer?
• What can you do now? What goal will you realize next with what you can do now?
• What further step is needed when you have integrated the experience and found a new identity?
• What do you need to do to realize the new goal and what skills do you need to master, strengthen? What do you need to strive to become?

Example. I mastered the skills of financial accounting, charting, analyzing information. Thanks to what I learned, I was able to qualitatively perform more complex tasks. I used to be a beginner in finance who earns 400 units.

Now I am becoming a finance major and am no longer a beginner. My next step is to get a job in a big H company with a salary of 1000 units. To do this, I need to learn the skill of working in specialized programs and gain experience working with new counterparties. I need to strive to become a leading specialist in my department.

The more specific, the better. If you systematically perform this exercise, you will systematically develop and feel competent.

Learn to get away from manipulation and stop thinking for people

Most people will devalue you and drive you into guilt and shame just for their own benefit without realizing it. For example, when you feel guilty about the cost of your product, you may start to believe that you’re charging completely unreasonable money. Sometimes all it takes is an oblique glance from a customer. Some people just don’t want you to evolve, as it’s always easier to pull someone else down to your level rather than try to grow to the next one.

You can read about other things that keep us from reaching our goals here.

The benefits are different for everyone. One important thing to remember is that few people really want your success, people are mostly focused on personal needs. Those who wish you success are far fewer in number. To effectively evade manipulation, you need to master this skill and undergo quality psychotherapy. No matter how much you learn the technical aspects of manipulation, you will still get caught up in the underlying traumas if they are not practiced.

It’s also not a good idea to think for people. We often fantasize about the thoughts and needs of others. Before you conclude that you are considered incompetent or no one needs your product, try to get real feedback. You can ask others leading questions or analyze your relevance by implementing activities.

Sometimes we think that the product we offer is absolutely insignificant. But in fact there is a huge number of buyers and connoisseurs of your skills. Just because you know and know how to do something doesn’t mean that others know and know how to do it too.

By embracing these three simple ways, you will qualitatively improve your sense of self and to some extent get rid of imposter syndrome. In order to find out and eliminate the real causes of the syndrome and get rid of it for good, it is worth contacting a specialist.