Imposter Syndrome is often seen as primarily a female issue and is often talked about on IWD. First things first – I replace the word ‘syndrome’ to de-medicalise it and then shorten and reduce Imposter Thinking to ‘it’ in lower case capitals to give ‘it’ a smaller place in my clients lives!
The Big Idea
Feeling like you don’t deserve your success and that someday soon you will get caught out and revealed as a fraud is not just a female phenomenon. However, I do think it being perceived as such could be down to the collective courage of more women trailblazers sharing openly that they felt ‘it’ when they first pushed through the glass ceiling.
On International Women’s Day we should thank them because so many of us now openly share that we feel like a bit of an imposter sometimes. Research suggests over 70% of us will experience ‘it’ our lives.
However, perhaps being in a minority whether at work or life in general does play a part? In my own experience, I often discuss ‘it’ with men who aren’t generationally established as middle class or clients who belong to a minority group of some sort – whether that be due to a disability, neuro diversity, ethnicity or anything else. I also support clients who experience it and wonder if it is because they were outliers in their families – perhaps they were first in their family to go to University or it is unusual in a friendship group to take on a big corporate role.
Feeling you belong to a minority connects with some recent neuroscience that helps to explain ‘it’. Our brain runs on extremely complex ‘wiring’ that’s fuelled by a cocktail of chemicals, and a reliable flow of blood, oxygen and biochemical energy to operate – even just to stay still. Developing our thinking, our skills or creating new habits requires extra energy to make the new neural pathways needed, whereas despite our ambitions for ourselves, our brains like existing pattens and the status quo because they are simply more energy efficient.
Our role models and our external influences can shape these internal patterns. If you have have first hand knowledge of people ‘like you’ who have experienced success – despite you knowing them to be human, vulnerable and ‘normal’ – then it stands to reason that your brain won’t resist similar success quite so hard because it sees a pattern that it recognises. What is true for them can also be true for you. If you are in a minority, it can be harder to find those role models. This means your brain has to work harder to create that and to create the neural pathways that make achieving your potential feel possible.
A little bit of science knowledge can be a really good thing…Just because your brain is wired to prefer the status quo to conserve energy and to put off doing something today that could be brilliant for your future, doesn’t mean that you have to put it off until tomorrow – which we all know never comes!
Perhaps use today – whether you identify as a female or not – to take a brave step forwards to help build your dream and to thank the women that confessed to ‘it’ before you. Pause see that you probably richly deserve the success you have already, because you were humble and intelligent enough to feel a bit of ‘it’ and have the capacity to reflect upon about what brought you here. And probably did a lot of hard work along the way!
Dulcie Shepherd Swanston is the author of It’s Not Bloody Rocket Science and the owner of Top Right Thinking which provides Executive Coaching and training that sticks. She is also an Associate Director of the global talent and coaching business, People Untapped.
Blog 2 to follow shortly: The Science of Imposter Syndrome featuring neuroscientist Dr Iain Price.
