How to overcome imposter syndrome

Many people understand the feeling of imposter syndrome, where you put your achievements down to luck or other external influences outside of your control, rather than taking credit for the effort that you put in which should be accredited to yourself.

It could be argued that the reason for this common occurrence is that the symptoms of imposter syndrome can be associated with three of the five traits from The Big 5 personality model used by psychologists and psychiatrists worldwide, so the likelihood is fairly high that a sizeable number of people will experience this issue at some point in their life.

1. Neuroticism

The personality trait with the most connections to imposter syndrome is that of neuroticism.

People with higher-than-average levels of this trait tend to be self-critical, so are unlikely to take compliments or credit for a notable achievement.

If this behaviour is part of your own imposter syndrome then it's something that once identified can be worked on. This could be by simply saying 'thank you' when receiving compliments. I know from experience that this is easier said than done, as I found that it was part of my natural instinct to bat away nice words by others. Over time and by regularly reflecting, I was able to build my self-awareness to catch myself before I rejected a compliment, then accept it instead.

This took a while to engrain this new behaviour, although it does need to be practised regularly or you're likely to return to your default state.

Part of this barrier for me is my introverted nature, so any attention from others is something that triggers the self-critical aspect of my neurotic trait, and I reflexively want to diminish that focus as quickly as possible.

If you're an introvert too then this could be a contributory factor to your own imposter syndrome, however, this also means that you're likely to be good at self-reflection to build your self-awareness, so use that introversion for your benefit rather than let it work against you.

Another neurotic behaviour associated with imposter syndrome is low self-esteem which can make you feel unworthy of any accolade directed at you.

Even though the effort to accept compliments already outlined above can help to increase your self-esteem, one very effective solution that helped me was regularly practising positive affirmations.

This became part of my daily practice, both with and without meditation, for a couple of years.

I started to notice an improvement in about two weeks of practising daily positive affirmations, and studies have shown that my own experience isn't just anecdotal when bespoke affirmations are used rather than generic ones.

The third and fourth traits of neuroticism linked to imposter syndrome can be almost combined, as being highly sensitive to feedback is very much a strong indicator of a fear of failure.

To the highly sensitive individual, even constructive feedback can be interpreted as an indication of failure and evidence of their low self-worth.

The two biggest areas to focus on in order to deal with being highly sensitive and having a fear of failure are practising self compassion through positive self-talk, and using grounding techniques to reduce overthinking.

Whenever you notice yourself going down a negative thought spiral, the first thing to do is stop.

Interrupting this pattern gives you the power to turn things around and move your thinking from the subconscious to the conscious. Either tell yourself that you can achieve what you're aiming for, a bit like the bespoke positive affirmations we discussed earlier, or contradict your negative thoughts with their opposite.

Pairing this with grounding yourself back to reality can also be an extremely effective way to regain control of that negative thought process.

2. Conscientiousness

Outside of neuroticism, the trait of conscientiousness is also a key aspect of imposter syndrome, often appearing as perfectionism. Giving yourself such impossibly high standards is asking for trouble, as you'll never be able to hit the mark, which is evidence to yourself that you'll never be good enough, so no wonder you have imposter syndrome.

Reframing your mindset is one of the key solutions to perfectionism, through setting yourself realistic and tangible goals, rather than comparing your progress to an idealised vision of where you'd like to be in a perfect world. This will reconnect you with reality, which again is something that's easier said than done, but having the awareness of what's going on puts you in a much better place to both tackle and beat it.

Another aspect of conscientiousness is a strong drive to master all of the skills which you use, whether that's professionally or personally. It's good to have a diverse range of skills at your disposal, but it's not possible to actually be great at all of them, even though there's certainly some merit in that pursuit.

However, in reality, there needs to be some level of balance obtained between the time spent on reaching that high level for each and every skill one uses and spending time on other areas requiring one's attention, as there are never any more than 24 hours in a day, which limits our ability to spread that time equally amongst every single thing we deem important.

Reminding yourself of this reality and perspective can help to manage the expectations that you're setting for yourself, and are causing some of your imposter syndrome.

3. Agreeableness

The final personality trait involved in imposter syndrome is agreeableness, which often results in the behaviour of people pleasing.

Using other people's perceptions of yourself to validate your purpose in life is not a healthy way to be. This might naturally resolve itself through the work on self-esteem, as that's very much linked to people-pleasing behaviour, although separately it can be addressed by practising saying “no” to other's requests.

This can be achieved by using prioritisation and having a clear view on your own priorities, so you can explain to someone that you can't help them right now because you've got bigger priorities. This is something you can start off by telling yourself before you volunteer your time so freely to others.

You need to learn how to balance your own life's progress before that of others.

With all that being said, imposter syndrome doesn't have to be such a mystery anymore, and you now have the practical steps you can take to overcome it. If, however, you think you might need a little more support with managing imposter syndrome, reach out to a coach to find out how they can help you.