I have had clients who have told me that their life has changed literally overnight when I have shared what I have learnt about Imposter Thinking – or ‘it’ as I prefer to refer to it, to make it physically smaller and thus metaphorically easier for clients to manage. I have seen a sense of real liberation in too many clients to ignore when they realise ‘it’ was not just something they were experiencing alone and that they are in excellent company!  Many other, extremely successful people feel this way too.

Sheryl Sandberg who before Facebook, went to Harvard and used to be chief of staff for a US Secretary of state says, “There are still days when I wake up feeling like a fraud, not sure I should be where I am”. Howard Schulz who was Chairman and CEO of Starbucks and has a net worth of $4.3 billion described how the experience doesn’t diminish if you get more senior. He said that having known many CEO’s over many years that when they become a CEO “very few people, whether you have been in the job before or not, who get into the seat and believe, today, that they are qualified”.

It’s not in corporate life that we feel this way. Maya Angelou, who wrote one of the best books I read during my English degree has won Tony’s, Grammy’s and been shortlisted for the Pulitzer Prize says “I have written 11 books but each time I think “uh-oh” they’re going to find out now. I’ve run a game on everybody and they’re going to find me out”.

In short, if you feel ‘it’, there is some comfort in knowing you are in excellent company! It’s really not just you. When I researched the neuroscience of why we might experience ‘it’, I came to understand that it some ways it is a very human reaction – and an almost inevitable consequence of success – particularly when you have just taken on that new job or a fresh challenge.

Neurologically speaking but put simply, ‘it’ is a normal and natural reaction to your brain experiencing something new and resisting feeling a bit stretched. Our brains like to conserve energy so it notices

when something feels different – and then raising it’s concerns by encouraging you to tell yourself some

potentially unfounded stories about your abilities. It’s only in the recent history that neuroscientists have confirmed that our brains can’t always be trusted to tell us the truth. If something doesn’t fit the existing patterns we have created for ourselves, it is quite normal for us to distort what we see and feel in order to make a better ‘fit’ what we already believe to be true.

So the next time you tell yourself that you ‘can’t’ or ‘shouldn’t’ or feel that something isn’t for the likes of you, remember that senior person that you admire the most had a first day at work once where they knew nothing. Or your favourite person in public life was once not even vaguely famous outside their own family. Then ask a friend you trust or a professional coach or mentor to help you unpick your thinking and work out what evidence you have that you might fail – and what you could do if you believed that you could succeed?

The chances are, what you want from yourself is entirely possible. All you might need to do is convince your own brain to get out of your way!