My Battle With Impostor Syndrome

How to gain credibility when you don’t believe in yourself.

Just to be clear from the getgo, in order to truly overcome impostor syndrome, you just need to stop feeling like an impostor. Obviously.

Easier said than done, you say? Yup, I know. But here’s what I’m slowly coming to learn.

We actually make a lot of assumptions in this life. One of those assumptions is that those whom we see to be successful have some kind of superpower that we aren’t special enough to have. They have the confidence, the diploma, the energy, the knowledge, the circumstances, the connections, the opportunities, the privileges, the pure luck.

We may have some of those things, but not all of them, so we might feel left out and we let self-doubt creep in.

Heck, you can have all the attributes you need and still feel like an impostor. So what really is the key ingredient to overcoming this very common feeling?

Your Thinking Habits Need To Change

You have the power to choose how you feel. You are your own genie.

Imagine that all your feelings are not yours. Imagine they are things you pick up from a shop. All your feelings are on display every single time you go through an experience or event. You then select whichever one you want and go with it.

Don’t believe me? Let me assure you that, your whole life, you have been choosing how to feel. It doesn’t seem that way because over time you have learned to react out of habit.

Dr Joe Dispenza explains that over time, we wire our brains one way and create a sort of thinking circuit that becomes default — unless we make the concerted effort to change it.

It means that when you react instinctively, your brain just follows the same circuit it knows, and thus, the previously formed emotions that arise from the circuit resurface. You feel them because that’s what you have programmed yourself to feel.

The sooner you become aware of this, the sooner you can start really applying the power within you to feel on top of the friggin’ world — and stop feeling like an impostor. Dispenza says,

“Neuroscience has proven that we can change our brains just by thinking differently. Through the concept of mental rehearsal (to repeatedly imagine performing an action), the circuits in our brains can reorganize themselves to reflect our very intentions.”

You can choose to feel courage instead of fear. You can choose to believe in yourself and not think you’re an impostor. But you have to change that pattern in your brain, and the only way to do it is by literally thinking the way you want to think.

You Decide Who You Are

My brother-in-law said in a speech the other week something that really hit home for me. He was talking about forgiveness, but it can be applied to every thought or feeling. He said something along these lines:

Forgiveness is not a feeling. It’s a decision. When you make a decision to forgive, the feeling attached to it aligns eventually.

Genius, right?!

If you want to feel happy, you put on a standup sketch on Netflix. If you want to feel motivated, you put on a Ted Talk or read a great self-development book. If you want to feel grateful, you think about the abundance of love and life around you.

If you want to stop feeling like an impostor, you have to act like an expert. And what do experts do?

They study. They read. They share their knowledge and wisdom. They are confident. The expression “fake it till you make it” rings true now, doesn't it?

It doesn’t mean that you fake competence, though. You can’t blag your way into becoming a doctor — but you can act like one by putting in the hard work of a doctor.

Amy Morin wrote for Psychology Today,

“Acting “as if” is a common prescription in psychotherapy. It’s based on the idea that if you behave like the person you want to become, you’ll become like this in reality.”

In order to start feeling one way or another, you have to simply decide to want to feel it, and act how you would if you felt it. The action comes and the feeling follows.

Use Your Impostor Syndrome As A Sign That You’re On The Right Track

There is something I have learned as a parent. The more we worry about our kids, the more research we do, the more we want to get it right. This is actually a sign of good parenting because we are trying to be aware of everything we do or do not do as parents that will be beneficial or detrimental to our kids.

Whether what we do is right or wrong at that point is irrelevant — the point is, we are trying, really f*cking hard. That’s what makes good parenting. And generally, the decisions are right anyway.

Questioning your ability to do anything demonstrates further the fact that you can do it because you’re assessing your own work — even if you’re doing so harshly. It’s better to be thorough than to assume you’re making great progress and then being disappointed when the results don’t come flooding in.

To help yourself get out of an insecure moment, try to separate feelings from facts. If you’re looking at your work a little too critically, it’s only fair to look at your progress. Counter argue with yourself about how bad you’re doing with the milestones. Ask yourself whether the feelings you have around failure are fair. What would you tell your best friend? Exactly. Be kinder to yourself. Be honest, but be kind.

For example, I sometimes wake up feeling disappointed that I haven’t reached got the number of followers I wish I had. But then I remember the hundreds that decided to click that follow button. I remember the hundreds that regularly read my work. The real fans. And I write with them in mind.

Other times I wonder whether the quality of my work is good. Then I read some of my old work and I’m in awe — “sh*t, I said that?! I said that! That’s genius!” When you’re able to recognise your own good work, that’s when you know you’re growing.

Also, be realistic about things. You will make mistakes. You will go through lows that might lead you to question yourself again. But you’re only human. Henry Ford put it beautifully:

“Failure is only the opportunity to begin again more intelligently.”

Every setback is an opportunity to learn something new. View it like this and failure won’t seem so bad.

Use Your Normalcy As A Strength

Another assumption we make is that to stand out, we can’t be normal. But, we don’t realise that in this world, everyone is normal. Or no one is. Basically, we all have something in common that makes us normal, but everyone is also different in some way, making us abnormal. Whichever way we look at it, we can conclude that everyone is special — or no one is. You decide that.

When you vote for a certain politician, it’s because you believe in them.

I don’t know about you, but when I am determining who I vote for, I think about who represents me and the people around me the most. I don’t usually like the guy who went to a private school and hangs out with the elite because it means he doesn’t have the full picture. If he hasn’t been through the mud and struggled, how is he supposed to help improve a system that inevitably puts people through it?

When you go to AA, you get a sponsor who is also an addict. You are supported by someone who has been there and done that.

I’m no psychiatrist and I don’t have a diploma in life coaching or parenting, but I sure as hell practice what I preach and I know what’s working out for me as a parent, and as a self-improvement writer.

Being normal is what makes you credible. Use it as your own strength.

Final Thoughts

Everyone has felt at one point or another like an impostor. When I worked for the local government helping to support the resettlement of Syrian refugees, the Home Secretary of the UK government visited. It was my job to show her around and tell her about the progress and the challenges the refugees had faced so far.

That morning, I rang my mother in a panic. I didn’t know who was coming to visit for security reasons, but I knew it was someone “important” from the central government. I felt like I was in over my head considering I was quite low in the ranking within my local government. My mum said, “they’re just people, like you and me.”

And that’s it, really. We are all just people at the end of the day. You just simply have to learn that you choose how you think, you choose how you act, and thus, you choose who you are. And everyone has that strength in them, it’s just about using it to your advantage.

“You become what you think about all day long.” ― Ralph Waldo Emerson

Think about whatever it is you want to be consciously and deliberately, every single day — and you’ll get there.

Sylvia Emokpae, thinker and philosopher, is passionate about self-love, relationships, and parenting. See more work like this.

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