Summary

The author reveals a personal struggle with Imposter Syndrome, sharing their journey towards self-acceptance and offering insights for others facing similar challenges.

Abstract

In a candid and vulnerable essay, the author confesses to suffering from Imposter Syndrome, a psychological pattern where one doubts their accomplishments and fears being exposed as a fraud. Despite external success, the author grapples with feelings of anger, weakness, insecurity, and failure. The piece delves into the prevalence of Imposter Syndrome, with approximately 89% of the working population affected, yet most sufferers feel isolated in their struggle. The author emphasizes the importance of community, self-awareness, and understanding one's worth as key factors in overcoming this mental roadblock. They advocate for deep connections with others and the reconditioning of the mind to dismantle limiting beliefs. The narrative concludes with a message of hope, as the author has found tools and support to rebuild their sense of self-worth and live life fully.

Opinions

The author believes that Imposter Syndrome is a common yet isolating experience that affects a significant portion of the working population.
They suggest that traditional approaches to dealing with Imposter Syndrome, such as medication or endless discussion of trauma, may not be as effective as creating a supportive community and engaging in deep self-reflection.
The author emphasizes the transformative power of vulnerability and openness about one's struggles, particularly within male communities where such discussions are often stigmatized.
They assert that personal worth is not tied to professional success or societal expectations but rather to a deeper understanding of oneself.
The author credits their personal growth to the support of a new community that embraces openness about failure and personal worth.
They advocate for the importance of creating cultures where failure and mistakes can be discussed openly, allowing individuals to seek help and overcome feelings of impostorism.
The author is grateful to those who have helped them on their journey to self-acceptance and the rebuilding of their mind, body, and inner self.

I have a confession to make… I am an Imposter.

My honest, vulnerable battle with imposter syndrome + a little help for others suffering.

I want to tell you something important… I am an imposter. I believed for the longest time that I was happy, that I was strong, that I was confident and that I was “successful”. The truth is that I was angry, I was weak, I was insecure and I was a failure.

I failed…

For the longest time I failed to see how good I had it, how amazing this life was, how valuable I am and how worthy I was of doing great things.

Truthfully, what I suffered from was called Imposter Syndrome.

Many of you have heard of this term, it is nothing new. But I’m writing this piece today in complete vulnerability to break down the stigma, explain my view of this mental ailment and offer up some help to anyone else suffering from it.

The Crazy Truth About Imposter Syndrome

Imposter Syndrome, if you’re not familiar, is a debilitating psychological pattern where you doubt everything you’ve accomplished and constantly internalize a fear of being exposed as a fraud or someone unworthy of success despite external evidence of your competence and obvious success.

Imposter Syndrome makes you feel like you don’t deserve all that you’ve achieved, makes you think everything you’ve accomplished is mostly just luck and keeps you from owning what it is that makes you great, keeping your true potential buried deep.

Sound familiar?

What’s crazy is that about 89% of the working population suffer from Imposter Syndrome, but almost 100% of those people who suffer think that they’re the only ones and that this mental complex is something only they struggle with. ( ref)

I’m here today to tell you that I have suffered with Imposter Syndrome for years and that you are not alone!

My Battle With Imposter Syndrome

For as long as I can remember I suffered from Imposter Syndrome, I constantly struggled with success, battled with fear and never felt good enough. Mix in a little depression, anxiety and feelings of complete worthlessness and you’ve got a recipe for disaster. That’s a good way to put it actually…

I was a disaster. Every day was filled with dread, doubt and complete emptiness.

Like many of you reading this I’m sure can relate, stuck in this mental anguish is not fun, it is not easy and while you’re putting on a brave face, deep down it doesn’t feel all that good. Beautiful little life moments are passing you by, bigger successes are happening and you can’t even celebrate and people around you aren’t sure why you’re so hard on yourself. If you’ve read up on Imposter Syndrome, or worse, went to see any sort of doctor about it, they might tell you that it is incurable and that you may have to take some sort of antidepressant to curb the depression-like symptoms.

I’ve been there. It fucking sucks, but I can tell you that there is a cure and that it’s not as hard as you think, as long as you’re willing to go inside and find some truth, work hard and deal with some uncomfortable feelings. Like I said in the beginning, this is going to be vulnerable. But anything worth doing should be hard.

Community Cures All

One of the fastest and most effective coping mechanisms to ditching my imposter was to share it, tell people about it and talk about my failures. This is where vulnerability comes in. As a man it isn’t easy, through the crowded sports bar, or over the Monday Night Football game to share your biggest internalized fears with another man. We don’t accept vulnerability as “manliness” and unfortunately that stigma creates a lot of sadness among us.

The way I got through it was I searched for people outside of my existing circle that I could start fresh with, share the darkest depths of my struggles with and be there to listen to theirs as well. It’s taken a long time to build up a good core, but the reality is that I’m always searching for deeper connections with people who I can be real with. The beauty is that once you go deep on this with a new crew, your old community starts to see it and opens up as well.

There is a study out of Brigham Young University that studied a group of students and found that once students reached out to groups outside of their social circle for support they were able to understand themselves more holistically, rather than focus so intensely on their feeling of lack fear of unworthiness. ( ref)

It is true, you are the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with. If you’re sitting around never dealing with your shit, the other people in your group are probably doing the same. If you feel they aren’t willing to go deep, then go find new people.

“It’s important to create cultures where people talk about failure and mistakes. When we create those cultures, someone who is feeling strong feelings of impostorism will be more likely to get the help they need” — Jeff Bednar, Professor and BYU

Awareness & Worthiness Are At The Core

The centre of my Imposter Syndrome was a complete lack of worth and an inability to understand myself. Limited awareness of who I truly was and what felt like a never ending battle with potential kept me from ever beating this mental roadblock. What changed things, after 30 years of spinning around this rock, was a complete breakdown of who I am as a whole and a rediscovery of my true worth. This has nothing to do with work, or my identity revolving around the question of “what do you do for a living?”. I’m talking about the deep parts of what makes me, me.

It all starts with reconditioning the mind to dismantle the stories that have been created about who you should be and what makes you successful. This is the hard part, because these tools aren’t readily available and a lot of modern psychology points to pharmaceutical drugs and long visits of revisiting the same trauma and stories over and over again. You may also have people in your life that created these stories for you that are still around adding new chapters. It is important to go deep on those stories and those people to find your truth.

The truth for me is that it did take many years, many long nights and many new friends to really understand what I bring to the world and that I am worthy of everything and everyone in my life, but now that I have these tools to unpack my stories, trauma’s and false beliefs, I have everything I need to disarm my imposter self and get back to living life fully on purpose with a smile.

Thank you to my army of awakened and worthy bad asses that helped me along the way!

This post is part of a series of articles about my $100,000 journey into re-building my mind, body and inner-self through a series of uncommon experiences that completely transformed my life. Head over here to view more.

Originally published at https://www.linkedin.com.