Pt. II 3 Ways to Battle Imposter Syndrome + What The Imposter Cure Taught Me

I recently finished reading an amazing book called The Imposter Cure, and I thought it’d be perfect to revisit this topic of imposter syndrome, diving into some of the practical tips that the author spoke about when it comes to battling imposter syndrome.

If you’re not familiar with imposter syndrome, it’s basically the title given to describe the way someone can feel when they’re experiencing feelings of being a fraud in their life or career. Usually with imposter syndrome, you feel as if you’re struggling to keep up or do a good job. While everyone around you praises you for a job well done or exceeding expectations, you’re now worried about how you’re going to keep them from finding out that in actuality you have no idea what you’re doing.

Welcome to adulthood?

While reading the imposter cure, there were three different suggestions from the author that I really identified as things that have helped me with imposter syndrome. Don’t get me wrong - there are days when I still have to battle the inner ego voice that tried to convince me that I'm a fraud. However, these 3 things have helped me immensely since picking up this book.

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MAKE A LIST OF YOUR ACCOMPLISHMENTS

In one of the earlier chapters of the book, the author asks us to make a list of all our accomplishments up until now. She asks that we don’t label something as too small, but instead list it all - anything that comes to mind. I remember sitting at the train station after attending a conference for work and making my list on my iPhone notepad. I started off humbly, struggling to think “What have I accomplished up until now? What have I truly done?” wracking my brain for award winning worthy activities.

Then, I started to relax a bit. I wrote down everything from graduating from one of the top universities in the country to going on to graduate from one of the top graduate programs. I wrote down the jobs I’ve landed at noteworthy companies. And then I opened up even more and wrote down the businesses I started, even though they’re no longer. I wrote about the courage it took to keep getting up even when I felt like I’d failed again. I wrote about the inner work I’ve done to expose my traumas and heal them. And 30 minutes later I had a long ass list of things that I looked at with awe like “Damn, I did all this”. 

This exercise was simple as all hell, but truly a game changer. Once I was done, not even I could sit there and feel like an imposter because I could physically see a list of every single thing I’d already done at the age of 25. To me, graduating, securing jobs, starting businesses was, required, and not to be truly celebrated in any spectacular way. Y’all I really had to sit with that and realize that I’d spent so much time (and often time still do) chasing the next thing that I forget to clap for how far I’ve already come.

GIVE THE MEAN VOICE IN YOUR HEAD A NAME

The next thing this book talked about was giving the voice in your head a name. I’ve talked about this before on social media and this is  something I love doing because it helps you to dissociate yourself from the low self worth talk that can easily spiral if you let it. When that mean voice comes up in your head, attempting to convince you that you are not worthy enough, smart enough, talented enough, giving it a name helps to remove it from you and identify that these are not thoughts that serve you. Not only that, but giving it a name and telling it that it does not serve you, having a compassionate, but firm conversation with this ego voice and letting it know that its word are hurtful and simply not true.

I’ll have days where I become conscious of this voice in my head attempting to put me down and I’ll literally sit there and be like “Bish now you know that’s not true”. I do so in a firm and calm way, as if I’m talking to a bully who truly doesn’t know any better or truly understand how his or her words are affecting someone deeply. I’ll have a conversation with this voice and really make my case for my talent or my worth, which brings me to point three…

REMEMBER: YOUR FEELINGS ARE NOT FACTS

Your feelings are not facts. This is something that I’ve come to learn that has truly made a difference in not only my interactions with myself, but my interactions with others as well. You see, often when we feel this imposter syndrome, we feel unworthy or we feel like we’re not doing a good job or keeping up, while others may see the complete opposite. And no matter how much someone tells you “You’re doing really great!” or “You’re an inspiration, keep it up!” you’re convinced that your feelings are the truth in the matter. You’re so convinced of your feelings being fact that you’ll attempt to make sense of what others are telling you, feeling as if they’re only sharing kind words and positive feedback with you because they pity you or because they don’t know how much of a fraud you truly are.

In those moments, you can refer to the list you’ve made (the one we talked about earlier) and use that to combat. Those are the facts. Those are literal things you’ve done and accomplished. Your feelings may be fleeting, but those accomplishments are not.

FINAL WORDS

Okay y’all if you haven’t read the imposter cure yet, I highly recommend you do. It has some really great insight to help you identify what occurrences in your childhood helped cultivate your imposter syndrome and how you can deal with it from day to day. And, thank you again to Madison for recommending it to me!

I hope you guys enjoyed this post - for more on imposter syndrome, listen to the podcast episode above!