357 - Impostor Syndrome
We’re all imposters
Imposter syndrome affects almost most of us at one time or another.
Impostor syndrome (also known as impostor phenomenon, impostorism, fraud syndrome or the impostor experience) is a psychological pattern in which an individual doubts their skills, talents, or accomplishments and has a persistent internalized fear of being exposed as a "fraud."
Imposter syndrome is more common than you might think. An estimated nearly 70% of individuals will experience signs and symptoms of impostor phenomenon at least once in their life. Some characteristics and facts about it include:
It causes one to think you have deceived others into believing that you are more competent than you actually are.
Has been recognized to affect men and women equally.
Impostor phenomenon is studied as a reaction to particular stimuli and events.
It is a phenomenon (an experience) that occurs in an individual, not a mental disorder.
Impostor phenomenon is not recognized in the DSM or ICD, although both of these classification systems recognize low self-esteem and sense of failure as associated symptoms of depression.
Can happen at a new job or academic setting. Happens to a lot of students in a new academic environment.
How it can affect relationships
Imposter syndrome can manifest in relationships as:
I’m not good enough for my partner.
I don’t make enough money.
I don’t have a job that will support us.
I won’t be a good enough parent.
Partner will like someone else more than me.
My metamours are cooler/hotter/smarter than I am.
My partner deserves better than me.
Behavior-wise, this can manifest as:
Withdrawal and emotional unavailability.
Comparison to others.
Anxiety.
Depression.
Low self-confidence.
Agonizing or obsessing over mistakes.
Looking for approval from others.
Lack of trust in others.
Doubting others around you.
Self Sabotage.
To combat it, try one of the following techniques:
Make a list of ten things that make you qualified for the job/relationship/success
Positive affirmations. Research has shown that adding your name to the affirmation is even more effective.
Own your accomplishments and don’t fall back on excuses.
Visualize success. This is something a ton of athletes and high achievers do.
Talk to a colleague or friend who will tell it to you straight how awesome you are.
Work on your confidence! Try to speak up, raise your hand or volunteer your expertise. Fake it till you make it.
Create a folder (on your computer or a hard copy) of all the nice things or praise that people have said or written about you. Pull it up if you need a pick me up or feel imposter syndrome creeping in.
Communicate with your partner. Try to identify if there is something you are lacking or need that will help you feel better about yourself in your relationship.
Transcript
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Jase: On this episode of the Multiamory podcast, we're talking about impostor syndrome. This phenomenon is something that affects so many of us in our day-to-day lives. It can be really difficult when you're asking yourself these questions about whether you actually are good enough. Good enough for your job. Good enough for your relationship. Good enough for basically anything in your life. Today we're going to be discussing all things impostor syndrome. What it is, how it can affect our relationships and how we can learn to combat it. Oh boy, get ready.
Dedeker: Yes, folks. This is a topic near and dear to our hearts. All three of us just love fostering a little of our own pet impostor syndrome complex just next to our hearts. To be totally honest--
Jase: Mine's named impi. Impi the impostor syndrome.
Dedeker: Oh, Impi's nice.
Emily: I like that.
Dedeker: What's yours named, Emily?
Emily: Oh, gosh, I don't know, Wilbert maybe.
Jase: That's cute.
Emily: It's the first thing that came to mind. I was going to say Fred and I'm like, "Wait a minute. No, that's from the Eric Cardos episode of the Yester Year." It can't be named that.
Dedeker: I think my impostor syndrome is named something with "The" attached. It's not a traditional name. It's the deceiver. I have a lot of that around me.
Emily: I like that.
Dedeker: It's more dark and spiky. Anyway, yes, let's be real with you folks. The three of us are right now in the middle of writing our book manuscript. We're in the last burst of getting it ready to hand over to our editor and we're exhausted and stressed out and also dealing with impostor syndrome on top of that because that's super, super helpful. I'm going through a breakup right now, which brings with it its own form of impostor syndrome about, am I good at relationships? Am I a good person? I don't know.
Emily: The answer to both is yes as your objective friend.
Dedeker: Sure, but the deceiver within my heart would take issue with that. Today we thought it would be helpful to, I guess, dive into this a little bit and see if we can understand it for ourselves at the very least. Maybe all y'all out there who also struggle with impostor syndrome can come along for the ride and find something useful as well.
Emily: Let's define impostor syndrome first and foremost, it is also known as the impostor phenomenon, impostorism, fraud syndrome, or the impostor experience. I love that. It's like you're going to go to your--
Jase: I like the theater piece, the impostor experience.
Emily: The impostor experience, like The Walking Dead experience or something, it's a thing that you get it at ComicCon perhaps.
Jase: Oh yes, that's good.
Emily: Yes, exactly. It is a psychological pattern in which an individual doubts their skills, talents, or accomplishments and has a persistent internalized fear of being exposed as a fraud. That sounds about right. When do you two feel this the most? Because I got to say something, for instance, that happened in my life is getting to go to China and sing over there. I feel very much and have felt very much like I'm an impostor getting to do that because I just happened to be in the right place at the right time.
It being in my Carolyn company and then eventually they just picked me and it was like, "Oh, well, I just elbowed my way in there somehow and I'm just lucky to even get that opportunity.
Jase: Instead of you're a really good singer, who's worked really hard for many years and wanted that for years before getting it and finally achieved it and wow, I did such a good job. Instead, you made that story that you just told us about. "Oh well, I was just lucky. It's wasn't me at all."
Emily: Well, I even feel like getting into the Carolyn company at all was because you taught me the music and were able to help me with that. I wouldn't have probably gotten in at all without you. There is another impostor syndrome right there.
Jase: You see, this is a great case study and how deep this goes. It's levels upon levels of impostor syndrome.
Emily: Definitely. How about you two?
Jase: For me, I think it shows up in a few or maybe all areas of my life.
Jase: Everything from, the obvious one is making a podcast and giving relationship advice to people and being like, "Oh gosh, there's someday they're going to figure out that I don't know what the hell I'm doing and no one should listen to me and I'm terrible and everyone should hate me." That's where we are.
Emily: You go straight to hating.
Dedeker: There's a deep vain in this mind of hatred, of everyone hates me. That's right where you go.
Jase: That is where I go. That is where I tend to default. You're right. Because it's that thing of there's all that guilt and shame that comes with it. It's like, if I'm really not worthy and haven't done enough or don't know enough or don't do things well enough or don't work hard enough, those are all the parts that go into the impostor syndrome. It's like if those are true and yet I still succeed at something it's like, "Oh, boy, when people figure that out, they're going to hate me." Or for me often in my head, it's like a lot of them have already figured it out, but they're maybe being polite and just not doing anything about it yet.
Emily: Really? Wow.
Jase: Yes, it's deep. It goes deep.
Emily: Yes, yikes.
Dedeker: For me, it probably shows up in the areas that are the most important to me and that I identify with the most, like being a writer or being a relationship coach, being a podcaster, that those are probably the main areas where it rears its ugly head to tell me, "You're not qualified enough. You don't have enough experience. You make mistakes in your regular life. Therefore, how dare you suggest that other people could do things differently or better."
Emily: Should listen to you.
Dedeker: Yes, exactly. Pretty much constant. I wouldn't say that it's like Jase where it's every single area of my life but--
Jase: There may be a few where I feel more confident. I can't think of them right now, but there's probably some.
Emily: I do find that interesting that all three of us pinpointed things that really, really matter to us, that it's not these benign random things that we're insecure about, but rather the things that really, really matter to us. I think that that's something for people to be aware of because unless you're just an absurdly secure human who understands and is fine with everything in their life, then I don't know. Maybe that's potentially going to be an issue for you.
Dedeker: Well, I wonder, and maybe you'll get into this later in the episode, but I think that the root of where at least impostor syndrome lies for me is I have this expectation of, "Oh, when I am competent and I am qualified and I am doing everything right, it's going to feel a particular way. That feels good and I won't have any doubts and I'll just feel 100% confident." For as long as I have any doubt or self-questioning or a lack of confidence, no matter how small that feels like it gets transmuted into, "Oh, I must be an impostor."
Which seems the trouble there is maybe in the expectation of how I expect that I would feel if I was actually successful or meant to be doing the things that I'm or worthy of the things that I'm doing.
Emily: That's fascinating. That's a broken expectation on your own internal part.
Dedeker: Here are some characteristics of impostor syndrome. It's estimated that nearly 70% of individuals will experience signs and symptoms of impostor phenomenon as they're calling it here, at least once in their life.
Emily: I think that seems low. There's actually 30% of people who are not going to experience this?
Jase: I'm like, "Who are these people? What's their life like?"
Emily: I know. Geez.
Dedeker: I wonder if there's any difference based on generations as well. I think I feel I've noticed that our generation, millennials, at least tend to be more open about impostor syndrome, if not more experiencing it more frequently but we talk about it a lot more frequently.
Emily: Well, I will say this, I spoke today to a person who's a very good friend of mine who was a boomer about impostor syndrome and he was like, "What is that? I've never heard of that before." I was just like, "Oh."
Jase: Maybe we're just more aware then.
Emily: Yes.
Dedeker: Yes. It could be more awareness.
Emily: I explained it to him and he was like, "Oh, okay." He's also an actor he was like, "That's just something all actress feel." I'm like, "Yes, okay."
Dedeker: It's fair.
Emily: Interesting that he didn't have a definition for it and maybe that's because the definition didn't happen until 1978 which we'll talk about momentarily.
Dedeker: Got you. There's a particular flavor to this where not only may you feel like, "Oh, my own skills and my talents, my accomplishments aren't worthy," or maybe I'm doubting them but there can also be a sense that I'm either actively or passively deceiving other people into believing that I'm more competent than I actually am. That can be a particular flavor that some people experience.
It's been recognized to affect men and women equally, we don't have data on studying people who are not in the gender binary, unfortunately, but I'm willing to bet. Probably just all human beings.
Jase: Everybody.
Dedeker: Everybody. Everybody can come to this impostor party. The way that it's studied, it's studied as a reaction to particular stimuli and to particular events. It's not classified as a mental disorder, it's not recognized in the DSM. Although in the DSM you will find that they do recognize things like a low sense of self-esteem and a sense of failure as being associated with symptoms of depression.
impostor syndrome, for calling it a syndrome, I think technically isn't classified as such but there are a lot of overlaps of the different facets of impostor syndrome that could potentially intersect with different mental disorders or poor mental health potentially.
Jase: I think that might be why there's these other terms like impostor phenomenon or the impostor experience, TMTM. Those might be there specifically to avoid using the word syndrome which seems to imply something more clinical.
Emily: That's a good plan.
Dedeker: For a lot of people this most commonly happens when entering a new job, entering a new academic setting, it happens to a lot of students that are in a new academic environment, going to a new school or entering college or things like that. I feel like anecdotally I've heard a lot of people report impostor syndrome sometimes when entering a new community, or sometimes when taking on or discovering a new identity.
For instance, taking on a new type of relationship that sometimes people get that sense of, "I'm not X enough whether that is I'm not polyamorous enough, I'm not queer enough, I'm not geeky enough, or I'm not progressive enough," or whatever it is for this particular community or identity that I'm taking part in.
Jase: Yes, definitely.
Emily: Totally.
Jase: I think that's important to note that even though a lot of the research is focused around academic settings and workplace settings, these things show up a ton in our interpersonal relationships in our communities so just something to be aware of. Of course, the researchers often work at universities, and they do their studies on university students so that's going to be where they're looking like that's where they're most acutely aware of this phenomenon.
It absolutely happens across the board in all sorts of situations. Now, please join me in a little time machine, and we're going to go back to 1978 when the term impostor phenomenon was introduced in an article titled, The impostor Phenomenon in High Achieving Women: Dynamics and Therapeutic Intervention by Pauline Rose Clance and Suzanne Imes.
Emily: I just want to say that I guess it was thought initially from what I've read, that women only were the ones who experienced impostor syndrome but then upon further research they have found that it experiences basically across the board in everyone.
Jase: Wow.
Emily: That's why the first people that they looked at were all women for this, which is really interesting.
Jase: Yes, that's really interesting. In this particular article that they published, they defined impostor phenomenon as an individual experience of self-perceived intellectual phoniness, and that impostor syndrome may be accompanied by anxiety, stress, rumination, or depression.
Again, they're looking at this in more of an academic setting there which is why that intellectual phoniness, even though as Dedeker pointed out in more modern-day we're aware that it shows up in all places, like being not clear enough or progressive enough or whatever it is.
The researchers, they investigated the prevalence of this experience by interviewing a sample of 150 high-achieving women in the United States. All the participants had been formally recognized for their professional excellence by colleagues and had displayed academic achievement through degrees earned and standardized testing scores.
Emily: Despite this consistent evidence of external validation, the women who they looked at, they lacked the internal acknowledgment of their accomplishments. They talked about how their success was a result of things like luck or other people maybe just were overestimating their intelligence or their abilities.
The two people who did this article, Clance and Imes, they believed that this mental framework for impostor phenomenon, it developed from factors such as things like gender stereotypes, or early family dynamics, just a person's culture, things like that. I looked at a different study that was also done by these people and they talked about how two siblings might be at odds with one another and their parents within a family structure because one sibling might be thought of as the golden child.
The other sibling might also have high achievements in a different area but if a parent perceives one sibling as being more intelligent or more accomplished than the other, then that may bring on feelings of impostor syndrome in either sibling because if the one who is high achieving academically perhaps feels as though, "Oh well, maybe I don't deserve this," then they might feel that impostor syndrome.
Or if later on in life the kid who achieved in something else didn't get that external validation from their parents that might also bring on impostor syndrome. It's interesting, that's a way in which family of origin and can bring about these feelings of impostor syndrome.
Dedeker: Just get you coming and going?
Emily: Yes, seriously.
Dedeker: Wow.
Emily: Again, they just determined that people felt also depression and generalized anxiety, and low self-confidence. Those who experienced impostor syndrome also felt those things as well, this anxiety and low self-confidence which is understandable.
Dedeker: Now we're going to hop back in our time machine and fast forward to 1985. In 1985 that's the first time that we get an actual research model, a scale to be able to measure these things. The first scale that was designated to measure characteristics of impostor phenomenon was designed by Clance in 1985 and called appropriately the Clance's impostor Phenomenon Scale or CIPS.
Emily: CIPS?
Dedeker: Yes.
Jase: CIPS.
Dedeker: CIPS whatever. The scale was used to determine if characteristics of fear are present and to what extent. The aspects of fear that they were looking at include fear of evaluation, fear of not continuing success, and fear of not being as capable as others. I think even breaking it down, that way is really really interesting because those are also these other particular flavors of impostor syndrome that seemed like they could be going underneath the surface.
The scale was designed to measure the concept that individuals are successful by external standards but have an illusion of personal incompetence. The scale would assess components of the phenomenon such as ideas about self-doubt and ideas about achieving success by chance.
Jase: In that same paper in 1985, Clance explained that impostor syndrome has six dimensions to it. The first of those is what she calls the impostor Cycle. Essentially, the way this cycle works is you have some achievement-based task. Doing well at a new job, being good in a relationship, writing a book, making a podcast, or whatever it is, you have something that's achievement-related.
Then that leads you to have self-doubt and anxiety. I'm worried about this thing and then as a result of worrying you will either over-prepare or procrastinate or potentially both because you're really so scared of screwing this thing up. Then you do the thing and generally speaking, it goes okay, it goes better than your fears were almost all of the time. Because your fears are the worst thing that could possibly happen. It does well, you feel a little bit of relief. People give you positive feedback, but then you discount it. You come up with some other reason for it. In her particular model, she identified, if you went the over-preparation route, then your excuse is, "Well, I worked really hard on it. It's not actually that I'm good at it." Then if you went the procrastination route, people tend to attribute it to luck, "I guess I got lucky or I just happened to find the right thing to say," or something like that. You discount that positive feedback, which then loops back around to feeling like you're a fraud that you fooled people, you have depression and anxiety, and then you go onto your next task and it loops back around. That's the impostor syndrome cycle. That's the first of the six dimensions.
The second one is the need to be special or the need to be the best. The third one is the characteristics of what she calls Superman or the Superwoman, which, I think is that same idea of, "I should just be able to do everything. If I were actually good, I would be able to just show up and do it like Superman can." Then there's the fourth one, is a fear of failure. The fifth is a denial of ability. We talked about like, "It wasn't me. It was some other factor." Then the last part is feeling fear and guilt about any successes that you do have. Clance noted that the characteristics may vary a little bit, but by her model for an individual to be considered to experience impostorism, at least two out of the six have to be present. That's a pretty low bar to clear, I'd say--
Emily: All of them?
Dedeker: I could knock that out in an hour.
Emily: Yes, exactly.
Jase: I'm just realizing that maybe the one area that none of us have impostor syndrome is on our ability to experience impostor syndrome.
Dedeker: Oh, yes. Pretty confident there.
Jase: Because we all felt very confident. Like, "Yes man, I got this on lock. No problem."
Emily: Amazing and horrifying.
Dedeker: Who does the secret sauce? Is that the secret ability that helps?
Emily: Yes, there you go.
Dedeker: Because at least you got something going for you, right?
Jase: I could do one thing well, yes.
Emily: All of you listeners out there, I'm really interested to hear which of you have never experienced impostor syndrome or experienced it very minimally and please tell us your secret, write us, or write on our Instagram or something and tell us what your secret is. Thank you. I want to know
Jase: We want to go on to talk about how impostor syndrome shows up specifically in relationships and how it can manifest what the effects can be as well as some techniques and tools that we can use to try to combat impostor syndrome or impostor phenomenon or the impostor experience, whatever you want to call it, impostorism. Before we do that, we're going to take a quick break to talk about some of the sponsors for this episode. We really appreciate all of our sponsors for helping to keep this show going. We appreciate all of you for taking the time to listen and maybe check them out, if any seem interesting to you.
Emily: All right, we're back. Yes, boy, oh boy, can impostor syndrome affect our relationships? This has definitely happened to me. I'm not sure if it has happened to all y'all out there, but what can this look like? It can look like things such as feeling you're not good enough for your partner. Maybe you feel like, "I don't make enough money, so I don't have a job," or some way that will support us or support all of the things that we want to do, that my partner wants to do. Eventually creating a family, stuff like that.
Jase: I think that-- What's interesting about how all those tie together there is that the way they tend to show up is someone thinking, "Well, I'm not something." Maybe that's a true thing that they're not like, "Maybe I don't make a ton of money," or, "I don't have a ton of free time," or, "I'm not very sexual," or whatever it is, there's something and maybe there's some truth to that thing.
Then it feeds into this loop of, "Well, because I might not be this, therefore, someone can't love me. If they do say they love me, I'm fooling them somehow, or they're just being nice, or they're lying nict. Or I've tricked them into it or I'm just working very hard and I'm not going to be able to maintain it or--." Right?
All that stuff we talked about in the cycle before that whatever thing it is that for you is the thing you're insecure about, tends to be the one that because of this, no one going to be able to handle me, it's because I'm polyamorous no one's going to be able to handle me. Or recently I've heard more and more people being like, "Because I'm monogamous. I feel like no one's going to love me."
Emily: Whoa, really?
Jase: There are all sorts of ways it can look
Emily: Wow, fascinating. I think something else that comes up and that's interesting in our millennial generation as well, is this idea that like, "I don't want to have kids because I don't think that I'll be a good parent," or, "I didn't have good role models."
Dedeker: That's 100% my thing.
Emily: Really? Yes.
Dedeker: I mean, that's not the only reason that I'm choosing not to have kids, but that's definitely a place my mind has gone is thinking that, that I think if I had kids, I would just not be a good parent or wouldn't be a good enough parent.
Emily: Sure, yes.
Jase: It's funny because I like to think that I'd be a really good parent, but I also don't have kids and I've made the decision not to in my own life, but I can tell you with 100% certainty that if I did, that would be the area of the worst impostor syndrome in my whole life of doing a bad job of raising a kid. For sure. Because it already comes up for me with Dedeker's niece, nephew, or with my grandson. I get twinges of it. I'm like, "If I were the actual parent though, boy, that would be--."
Emily: What does that manifest say? I'm curious because I have no idea what that would look like.
Jase: Like this thing of second-guessing anything that I ever say to them or do in front of them like, "Oh God--."
Emily: Am I going to screw this kid up?
Jase: I probably taught them a horrible thing. Or seeing some little thing and being like, "Oh gosh, that's, that's probably my fault that they thought that was okay to do." Or I should've better modeled for them not to do that. Or like, "Oh, this little thing happened. I think they hate me now. I think these kids hate me."
Emily: Of course.
Dedeker: Already what happened. I think this has freshen Jase's mind because we were just with my niece and nephew, we were visiting my family and we were staying in an Airbnb separately and we took my niece and nephew back to the Airbnb with us on separate nights. Just to have one on one time essentially so they could stay the night and we could have a sleepover.
Emily: Oh, fun.
Dedeker: Jase in bed at night, turns to me and he's like, "Oh do, your sister and brother-in-law, do you think they hate us for taking their kids away?"
Emily: They love us for taking their kids away, are you kidding me?
Dedeker: I mean, yeah, I was like, a single parent that would hate someone for taking their kids away? Unless it was non-consensual. But I think we're in that clear.
Emily: That's amazing.
Jase: Gosh. yes. I also did go into the weekend worrying that Dedeker's niece didn't like me and I came away feeling like, "Oh, actually I thought we got along really well and maybe she's warmed up to me some."
Emily: Good.
Jase: I'm sure I'll find a good excuse for why that was so that I can feel anxious about it in the future.
Emily: Definitely.
Dedeker: I feel by the time you're seeing her again, you'll come back right back around and be like, "Oh, she probably hates me."
Jase: Right. yes. Moving back to relationships and not Jase's hangups, are some other ways this can show up in non-monogamy or really monogamy too, is this fear that, "Well, they're going to like someone else more than me. Maybe they like me, but I'm not good enough to--." "As soon as anyone else expresses interest, they'd have to go with that, right? Because basically anyone would be better than me," or with non-monogamy, my metameres are cooler, hotter, smarter than mine. Maybe my partner's just with me because they were with me before and if they had a choice, they wouldn't.
Emily I definitely felt this Dedeker upon meeting her for the first time.
Dedeker: See, because I felt that about you when I met you for the first time Emily, but--
Emiy: Well, that's fine. Then we can just cancel it out that we're both cool and smart and fun, play video games well and are nerds enough.
Dedeker: Yes.
Jase: Then all of those underneath it is that idea that my partner deserves better than me. Maybe even if I don't think my partner's going go with someone else or they'll leave me for someone else, but that really I'm holding them back somehow, that their life would be better if they had someone besides me.
Dedeker: I think another way this shows up in relationships, is I think sometimes this is at the root of not being able to accept compliments or other forms of love from your partner. The way that it's sometimes shown up in my life is if a partner says to me something really nice or really sweet or a big compliment, in my head I'm like, "Oh, well they're not in my head. They don't know the things that I've been thinking or they didn't see me how crappy I looked at this particular moment or whatever. They don't know what they're talking about and hopefully, they never find out, they'll probably find out. I probably don't deserve for them to say this nice thing to me."
I think that maybe we can make the case that some impostor syndrome is underneath-- Maybe one of the blocks that prevent us from being able to receive love open heartedly.
Emily: Yes.
Jase: Yes, no, I think that makes sense. It's like the whole thing of not being able to receive a compliment just in general, not only in our relationships, but it's all related. It's all part of that same seed of, "Ah, no, oh, this old thing?" No, you can't compliment me. I'll fight you. We've got this feeling and how does it manifest? How does this show up? What does this cause us to do?
Some first things that come to mind is withdrawal or emotional unavailability. It's like, "Well, they're going to find me out so I should just stop because then I can protect myself from getting hurt once I get found out." Comparison to others, like we were talking about really beating yourself up over that as we talked about, and as Clance defined in that cycle, that anxiety coming up to future tasks, future achievements, future relationships that like, "Oh gosh, what if this one figures me out?"
Dedeker: Of course, related to that, I think anxiety goes hand in hand with depression often, if there is this heavy, internalized sense that I am deceiving everybody, and I'm not worthy of this, that that could be a very depressing thing. Of course, the low self-confidence. I think the very negative self-story attached to that can really grind you down. You could spend a lot of time agonizing or obsessing over your mistakes. This is where they really get you. This is where they really get you because --
Emily: Who they?
Dedeker: Yes because-- They, the people who developed impostor syndrome.
Emily: I think we developed it internally ourselves. They just defined it.
Dedeker: impostor Experience Inc. Who rolled out the impostor syndrome thought it was going to be so great. That's how they really get you, those fuckers because the fact that as human beings, we all make all the freaking time, big ones and small ones, and especially in our relationships we're constantly making little mistakes.
We're constantly stepping on people's toes. We're constantly making choices that are maybe a little bit selfish or unintentionally hurting people. If you already have a baseline of impostor syndrome, any mistake that you make adds onto the pile. It's further evidence that I'm really not cut out for this, and really shouldn't be doing this. Especially if you're someone who struggles with some hyper functioning, over perfectionistic tendencies, it's even worse.
Emily: You're talking about yourself?
Dedeker: Yes, I'm talking about myself.
Jase: This whole episodes is about ourselves.
Emily: I'm sorry. Wow, not only do we have impostor syndrome, we're really selfish and yes.
Jase: Gosh, no. Yes, boy, little boy.
Dedeker: On the flip side of this, you could also be constantly looking for approval from others. Looking for that sense of, can someone validate me? Can someone tell me that actually I'm okay? Can someone tell me that I'm competent? Can someone tell me that I deserve to be here? That's not necessarily a bad thing.
I actually think that it could be a great thing to go to your friends, go to your loved ones or go to your boss if they're a good boss or whatever, and find appropriate ways to get reassurance or to get a reality check. I think that's fine but if it's something that you're finding yourself constantly relying on in order to avoid handling those feelings of impostor syndrome, that could be a problem.
Emily: When I perform, oh boy, is that a big one for me. I'm like, "Please tell me you love me. Please tell me I was good."
Dedeker: Oh.
Jase: Yes, chasing that high from the approval, but then immediately flipping back around to be like, "But they must just not have been paying attention."
Dedeker: Exactly. Then that's the other part of this, the way it shows up in behavior is there can be a complete lack of trust in other people, you can be doubting other people around you, I think that's where you get almost a little bit of this delusion of, "Oh, everyone's just being nice to me and really, I was truly horrible. I really wanked that and everyone is just trying to protect my feelings or maybe they're laughing at me behind my back," can really, really go to some weird places.
Jase Lastly it can show up as self-sabotage. This comes from that fear of withdrawing that we talked about before. It's like, "I'm going to get hurt when someone realizes that I'm not good enough for them, or they finally find there's someone better. I'm going to make sure this crash and burns before that. Then I'm at least in control."
That's that maybe things are getting a little tough or I see this show up when people go through a stressful event, like losing their job or something like that. It heightens some insecurities they may have already had about how worthy they are of their partner. Then in all that stress, they tear it all down. They start being nasty. Maybe they start cheating.
They find other things that maybe are simultaneously trying to validate them in some areas while also giving them an out from the one thing that they are really scared about like that relationship that means a lot to them or something like that. It could show up in all sorts of ways, professionally as well, but that's how I've seen it play out and have experienced it play out in relationships.
Dedeker: Well, here is the ultimate question. Is this fixable? Should we try to fix it? Before we dive into what the research says about ways to combat this, I want to hear from the two of you, have you tried to deal with impostor syndrome before? Have you tried any hacks or tips or tricks either adaptive or maladaptive to deal with your own impostor syndrome?
Emily: Yes, I think sometimes time and talking yourself down a little bit does help, at least internally that has helped for me. Yes, I got a call from a friend that said that they were going to introduce me to a new agent potentially and that was really exciting but initially once I got that call from him like, "Oh, call this agent on this day." Immediately I felt awful. I felt like, "You're totally not somebody who deserves this. You don't have enough credits or enough, whatever, you shouldn't be looking for this. You don't deserve this essentially."
It took me two days to really get over that internally in my brain and just flip the switch and try to move in a direction of, "Okay, look at the things that you have done, be proud of your achievements and move on from there. However, the chips fall, that's how it's going to be and that's okay." You don't have to tell yourself that you suck at everything but yes, I think sometimes getting away from the initial emotion is a good way to combat it. That just takes a little bit of time and self-soothing in whatever manner best works for you.
Jase: I have two examples. The first one, I'm not sure-- I'm honestly, not sure if this was a good plan or not, but the first one is something that I've been doing a lot since I started a new job maybe five months ago, something like that. I'm gradually being given more responsibilities, but also needing to prove myself to the more senior people in this position so that they can eventually sign off and say, "Yes, Jase is good enough, that he can do this thing on his own. That he could his presentation on his own without us having to shadow him or something like that."
A technique that shows up there for me is trying to do stuff sooner. Tim Ferris talks about this, of setting unreasonable deadlines of trying to fight procrastination.
Emily: Like our book, you mean?
Jase: Like our book, yes, but setting a deadline of tomorrow, for example, for a project instead of a month from now, because it's that idea of, if you just are forced to do it now there's no room to procrastinate. You spend less time feeling anxious about the fact that you're procrastinating, but here's the part where I'm not sure if this is maladaptive or if this is a good plan, because it also gives me a little bit of a mental excuse for if I do feel like something didn't go well. It's like, "Well I was the one who signed up for the first slot. I didn't have as much time."
If I did have more time, I probably could have done better. I don't know if that's just making excuses, but it does help for me at least to take a little bit of that edge off of, "Oh my gosh, I prepared for this thing for a month, and I still feel like I didn't do as well," then that helped. That's one. Then the second one, this came up with a therapist that I had years and years ago, who would do EFT tapping, emotional freedom technique tapping while also doing the counseling coaching stuff.
This would come up a lot when I would do music performances, I'd say something like, "I felt everyone there just could not wait for my set to be done because it was just awful and they didn't like it and I was just wasting their time by being there." She would tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap. "Did anyone say that to you? Oh, what evidence do you have that, that was the case? Did you see anyone making faces like that?" Gently asking those questions of, do you actually have any evidence and then asking the other question of, do you have any evidence to the contrary of, did anyone say it was good? Did anyone seem to be enjoying themselves and looking at that. It never got me to the point of going, "Yes, you're right. People loved it," but it got me to this point of, "Okay, I don't know. Maybe I don't know anything," and that was better than where I was before.
Emily: I'm going to put myself down in a different way.
Dedeker: I guess for myself, when I really sit and think about it, I think the way that I've coped-- I don't know if this is healthy or unhealthy, but usually, just means I need to work harder, means I just need to study harder. I need to learn more things. I need to become more competent if I'm feeling less confident or less or less competent or less confident, I just need to do things to make myself get there. I think it's good on the one hand, because it can be motivating for me to learn new things and to branch out and acquire more skills, but then on the other hand that doesn't actually tend to help in the long run.
Jase: It does, it's not actually solving the problem.
Dedeker: Yes. It doesn't really solve the problem. We have a list here of some things to try. I think this seems like the thing where I think everybody's impostor experience is slightly different. It's going to sprout based on different insecurities, different contexts that you come from, different background. I don't know if all of these tools are necessarily one size fits all, but these are some things that you can try on and just see if it helps to shift it even a little bit. The first one is to make a list of 10 things that do make you qualified for the job or for the relationship or for success in general. However you define that.
Emily: The next one is positive affirmations. We've talked about that somewhat on the show. Something that the article that I got these from, which was from New York Times, talked about is that research has shown that adding your name to the affirmation makes the affirmation even more effective. It's something that high achievers and people that do. They'll say like, "This is best for LeBron James." They used him as an example, which is interesting. I don't know, I wonder if that is almost separating yourself from the feeling or putting it together more, I'm not sure.
Jase: Maybe tricking yourself into this is a thought that came from externally. This came from an external source. They're talking about me and third person, I wonder.
Emily: I don't know.
Jase: That's interesting.
Emily: Adding your name is a good thing for a positive affirmation. Like, "Karen is worthy or Jase is loved by people," things that.
Jase: Yes. Emily is loved by agents, see? It's uncomfortable, but that's good. That's actually a really good one to practice though because I think that's something that has come up for me in some workshops and things I've done is when you stumble on something like that feels really uncomfortable. There's something there. If it's that, "Jase is loved by his godson," or something that. That freaks me out a little bit to say it, that's a good one to focus on and get yourself more comfortable with it.
Another one is just taking the compliment, avoiding that tendency to make excuses. We've talked before on our episode about micro-scripts of the micro-script of, "Why, thank you," as a go-to response, when someone gives you some compliment or a partner says something nice to you is, "Why, thank you," instead of, "Oh no I look terrible. My hair is all greasy today," or whatever else you might be inclined to say.
Emily: My partner said to me the other day. He's like, "I just wish you would, let me give you a compliment." I looked at him and I was like, "Why, thank you," I'm like, "I'm sorry," because he was trying to give me a compliment. I totally was like, "No, I don't, I'm not, la la la." I had to redeem myself.
Dedeker: Yes. Normally I'm a lot better about this, but because I'm in the throws of a breakup, it's been real hard for me to take compliments from Jase. Real, real hard. I'm sorry about that. Something else that you can do is you can visualize success or what success looks like. I think this is something that gets covered a lot in the sports psychology world about athletes and other high achievers visualizing a successful move or successful play, often it's related to physical things.
I think that something that might be helpful here, because like I talked about at the beginning of the episode. Part of the reason that I think my impostor syndrome comes up is because I visualized a version of my own success, where I visualized myself feeling much more confident or feeling differently. I wonder if more helpful visualization might include, "Yes, I'm successful and it feels a little scary and a little shaky, but I'm still successful in this way, that maybe there might be something there."
Emily: I like that. Also you can talk to a colleague or a friend or a mentor or someone who cares about you, but also as someone who's going to tell it to you straight. About how awesome you are, about how high achieving you are, about all of the things that you do well in your life. Hopefully someone that you trust that you're like, "Well, this isn't just my mom it's going to tell me that I'm the most amazing person," but somebody who's opinion you value and trust. Not that I don't value and trust your opinion mom, because I must certainly do, I'm just throwing that out there.
Jase: Yes. Another one here, that came from this New York Times article is about work on your confidence and it says specifically, try to speak up, raise your hand or volunteer, fake it till you make it, it's the idea there and it's funny because I read this and I thought about that idea of setting unreasonable deadlines or being the first to do something. I'm going to just get this done and get it over with, so that I'm spending less time feeling anxious about it. Hopefully you also get that feeling of, "Okay, I did it."
Maybe after you've done things enough times, you might start to believe that you can do that thing. At least that has been my experience. I have found that in certain areas where I do feel more confident, about being able to give a demo or a presentation explaining something, that is something I feel relatively confident about, even though I'll still have impostor syndrome, but it's also something that I'm usually the first one to be like, "Okay, yes. I'll do this thing, I'll sign up to take the first slot to do that. I'll do those," and you have that evidence for yourself about, "I've done this so I know I can do it again."
Dedeker: Yes definitely, something that I love. I love creating the stash. That's what I call it. I've talked about it on the show before, but it's this idea of create a folder on your computer, in your phone or you could do old fashioned hard copy style of having a journal or a physical folder, but just keep track of nice things that people say to you, praise that people give to you or have written about you, really wonderful, loving, complimentary things that your partner says to you. It can be really good to have that and to reference that just as a little pick me up or when you're feeling the impostor syndrome creeping in, to have those around as reminders, I really love this technique.
Jase: Just to throw this out there. I really appreciate any of our listeners who do write in our comment to us about things from the show that have been meaningful to you or have been helpful. We will--
Emily: Let's just cry.
Jase: Yes, it makes me cry often, but we will often send those to each other when someone's feeling down or struggling more, it'll be like, "Hey Emily, I just saw this comment that someone said about the episode that you planned or this thing you said on an episode. Check it out, you're good. See? Even other people get it."
Emily: Then I call those other people a liar also and I throw them in the garbage. No, I'm kidding and now we really appreciate it, definitely.
Jase: It is helpful.
Emily: Yes. Finally, another thing that you can do is just communicate with the people around you and especially your partner. If it's specific to something in your relationship that's causing feelings of impostor syndrome. Maybe you need to examine and look at, is there something internally that's going on that I feel I'm lacking in the relationship or that I feel I could be getting more of? That can manifest in a lot of different ways, but through communication with your partner, maybe you can identify that, maybe you can look and develop strategies or some thing that will help with that feeling of impostor syndrome.
Like, "I'm worried that my partners going to leave me for another person. Maybe it's just that I want to have more quality time with this person. Wanna go on more one-on-one dates, want to feel loved and appreciated and reminded of that."
Jase: I want to give us one last little bonus one, that this is something that Emily and I were actually just talking about earlier to day. I saw this somewhere once on Twitter or Instagram or somewhere a couple years ago, but it was this idea of instead of feeling impostor syndrome, to instead think, "I'm the greatest con artist that's ever lived."
Emily: Yes.
Jase: Maybe I'm fooling everyone, but I can be proud of that instead of ashamed and afraid. You know? That's fun. I like that.
Emily: Yes, I really like that. That's excellent, and a nice way to reframe everything and make it into a positive as opposed to a negative. Yes. Alrighty, everyone. Well, that was fun. We took a deep dive into impostor syndrome. I hope that all of y'all out there learned a little something, and maybe just realized that these three chuckleheads on this podcast that you listen to every week also feel impostor syndrome very intensely and that you're not alone in feeling that way if you yourself feel it.
We're going to go on and record a bonus episode for our patrons. We're going to actually use the Clance IP Scale, the impostor Syndrome Test on ourselves and determine how much impostor syndrome-y we are. What is it called?
Jase: Who's the best impostor?
Emily: Yes. Who's the-- There it is, I love that. It's a contest. Who's the best impostor? I think it's going to be a tight race between the three of us, quite frankly.
Jase: Oh boy.
Emily: Yes. Alrighty. We would like to know from you on our Instagram this week, how does impostor syndrome show up in your life? We told you all the ways it shows up in our lives.