# data[].attributes.headline
Postiive Intelligence | Saboteurs Assessment

# data[].attributes.subject
Postiive Intelligence | Saboteurs Assessment

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Your mind is your best friend. But it can also be your worst enemy. | Saboteurs

# data[].attributes.headline
How To Turn Imposter Syndrome Into Your Superpower

# data[].attributes.subject
How To Turn Imposter Syndrome Into Your Superpower

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
How to turn imposter syndrome into your superpower | Louise Curtis | TEDxWoking

# data[].attributes.headline
TED: What is Imposter Syndrome & How You Can Combat It?

# data[].attributes.subject
TED: What is Imposter Syndrome & How You Can Combat It?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
What is imposter syndrome and how can you combat it?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Even after writing eleven books and winning several awards, Maya Angelou couldn’t escape the doubt that she hadn’t earned her accomplishments. This feeling of fraudulence is extremely common. Why can’t so many of us shake feelings that our ideas and skills aren’t worthy of others’ attention? Elizabeth Cox describes the psychology behind the imposter syndrome, and what you can do to combat it. [TED-Ed Animation by Sharon Coleman].

# data[].attributes.headline
BetterUp: Imposter Syndrome | Definition, Symptoms, & Tips to Overcome It

# data[].attributes.subject
BetterUp: Imposter Syndrome | Definition, Symptoms, & Tips to Overcome It

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
"Any day now, they're going to realize what a mistake they made in hiring me. I bet they're already wondering." If this sounds like your inner monologue, you're likely experiencing imposter syndrome.

How often do thoughts like this one cross your mind? For some people - many people - they occur quite often. When they do, they bring a cascade of emotions, most of them not helpful.

These thoughts of being a fraud or having our enormous deficiencies exposed and the anxieties, insecurity, and dread that follow are all part of a phenomenon known as imposter syndrome.

Unlike humility, imposter syndrome can do real damage: anxiety, an inability to savor success, and, in some cases, a belief that one can't go on in their career.

This article will define imposter syndrome, discuss the different ways imposter syndrome shows up in our lives, and explore ways to deal with it.

What is imposter syndrome?

Two clinical psychologists, Pauline Rose Clance and Suzanne Imes , first identified and named the phenomenon back in 1978.

What is imposter syndrome?

Imposter syndrome is the condition of feeling anxious and not experiencing success internally, despite being high-performing in external, objective ways. This condition often results in people feeling like "a fraud" or "a phony" and doubting their abilities.

With imposter syndrome, a person doesn't feel confident or competent, regardless of what they achieve. They don't experience the joy of success because they are always waiting for their inadequacy and fraudulence to come to light.

Although Clance and Imes originally defined imposter syndrome to describe a condition they observed in professional women, research shows that men and women can equally suffer from imposter syndrome.

But humility is good, right? It's just realistic to acknowledge that no person knows everything. The world does change quickly, and problems or situations people face might be more complex than they seem at first. Yet, imposter syndrome is different from a healthy dose of caution of open-mindedness.

Humility and caution stem from an accurate assessment of one's own capabilities against a complex situation.

The imposter phenomenon, on the other hand, stems from a sense of inadequacy in the environment despite objectively being competent. It is notable in that it isn't about assessing the situation but about assessing themselves. They feel more inadequate than others facing the same complex situation, such that they don't belong there at all.

Imposter syndrome can cause people to feel a sense of time running out. It's as if people have been putting on an act and they can't keep the act up much longer. This is despite all evidence to the contrary. Remember, people often have these thoughts and feelings after achieving and overcoming obstacles throughout their lives. Why?

Many high achievers reach a point in their career where they feel like they are unable to keep going.

Maybe they can't keep going at the same rate as they have been, and that feels shameful. The shame makes people suffer alone and in silence. People don't realize how many others suffer from imposter syndrome because no one wants to admit it out loud.

What causes imposter syndrome?

Imposter syndrome is a cognitive distortion . It causes people to doubt their skills and accomplishments. They doubt others' high regard for them. They doubt their own history and track record.

But where do this doubt and distortion come from? Although it can drag at a person's mental health, imposter syndrome isn't an official psychological condition and it has a variety of causes. Research has shown that imposter syndrome comes from a combination of factors:

Family environment. Growing up, parents or other family members might have put outsized emphasis on achievement or been overly critical.

Example: Sam rushed home to tell her parents she received a 98 on her 8th-grade math test. She studied the terms every night for a week and is very proud of herself. Sam's parents always brag to their friends about her accomplishments. When Sam excitedly tells her parents the good news, they say, "What happened? Why didn't you get a 100?"

Social pressures. Being part of a social circle or group where approval or worth seems to be explicitly connected to achievement.

Example: Last quarter, Everett received his invitation to the monthly executive dinner immediately after surpassing his sales record and was the hero of the sales team. This quarter, his numbers are down. The executive dinner rolls around and the invitation is nowhere to be found. It's like he doesn't exist.

Sense of belonging. Part of imposter syndrome is the fear of being found out and cast out.

Any circumstance, even in the past, that made a person feel different or excluded from the group - language, ethnicity, gender, socio-economic status, religion, or physical or learning differences - can fuel the imposter phenomenon. The person can carry that persistent sense of not belonging long after the circumstance is resolved.

Example: At the weekly staff meeting, Tyler's manager calls on everyone else, despite having his hand up. When he finally calls on Tyler, with two minutes remaining, he avoids eye contact and dismisses Tyler's comment. None of Tyler's coworkers respond or acknowledge his insight. Tyler feels excluded and wonders if it's because the new shirt he got on clearance looks cheap. He grew up wearing hand-me-downs and the team can probably tell he's not one of them.

Personality. Some personality types are more linked to internalizing feelings of pressure, doubt, and failure . Times of stress or transition, even unrelated to work, can make it worse.

Example: Campbell has a highly introverted personality. She tends to process her feelings internally rather than work through them by communicating outwardly. When Campbell internalizes negative emotions, she ruminates . This habit of negative self-talk causes her to belittle her achievements.

The effects of imposter syndrome make it worth addressing. The feelings of anxiety and inadequacy can lead people to avoid challenges or opportunities that would let them grow and shine .

People may not seek out or fully explore useful relationships at work or school. Even if they do, the internal struggle necessitates a lot of energy. It can lead to frustration, shame, depression , and self-confidence.

Left unchecked, imposter syndrome has a negative impact on people's relationships , work, as well as job and life satisfaction. The effects can be worse for women and underrepresented groups .

Characteristics of imposter syndrome

We all doubt ourselves sometimes. So you might be wondering what imposter syndrome feels like. Here are the most common characteristics of imposter syndrome:

Self-doubt

Undervaluing contributions

Attributing success to external factors

Sabotaging self-success

Setting unrealistic expectations

Continuous fear of not living up to expectations

Burnout

Self-doubt

A lack of self-worth and self-efficacy results in persistent feelings of anxiety regarding their ability to succeed. Success at work is viewed as an unattainable and risky goal, not a reality that can be achieved with focus and dedication.

Undervaluing contributions

People experiencing imposter syndrome undermine the worth of their achievements, which results in a persistent sense of incompetency.

Attributing success to external factors

Imposter syndrome causes people to credit their achievements to situational factors beyond their control.

When team members offer positive feedback in the form of praise, raises, or promotion , people will struggle to accept responsibility for their success. Instead, they may attribute the positive impact they created to chance, coincidence, good luck, or the contributions of their coworkers.

Sabotaging self-success

Imposter syndrome reinforces feelings of inefficacy. It pushes people to go out of their way to make poor or risky decisions.

The imposter phenomenon causes people to experience a fear of success. They believe it is unattainable no matter how hard or often they try to attain it - success isn't meant for them.

Imposter syndrome also results in people psyching themselves out. They tell themselves their contributions will be sloppy, insufficient, or purposeless. This self-doubt can cause them to apply less effort, attention, creativity , and persistence until it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Setting unrealistic expectations

Imposter syndrome creates the sensation that our best isn't enough. It pushes people to set unrealistically high standards to accommodate for feeling inadequate when accomplishing realistic, timely, complex, and challenging goals.

Continuous fear of not living up to expectations

No matter what goals people set, imposter syndrome negates their ability to achieve them. It causes people to feel as if they are not able to fulfill expectations they set and others set for them, despite their best efforts. They perceive these expectations as a burden they cannot shake instead of a challenge they're excited to overcome.

Burnout

To overcome a sense of incompetence, people push themselves. They expend their energy quickly. Work starts to become more of a chore than a source of meaning and purpose , and they lose much of their passion for what they do.

5 types of imposter syndrome

Imposter syndrome comes in many forms. Dr. Valerie Young defines five types in her book: The Secret Thoughts of Successful Women: Why Capable People Suffer . Let's explore these types, plus a couple more, below.

In reality, people may find themselves fitting more than one type over time. See if you recognize yourself in any of these patterns of thought and behavior. This way, you can work to overcome them.

1. The perfectionist

2. The Superwoman/man/person

3. The Natural Genius

4. The Soloist

5. The Expert

1. The Perfectionist

As the name indicates, this type has to be sure everything gets done with perfection. Achieving an outcome or completing a task is never enough.

The perfectionist is always hungry for more success, better outcomes, and higher prestige. Perfectionism results in feeling unsatisfied no matter how much hard work they do and ambitious goals they achieve.

Example: A manager is always asking a direct report for updates on the project progress. When she gets the progress report, she's constantly telling them how to improve their process and how the projects must be done every step of the way.

Underlying emotion: fear of losing control

2. The Superwoman/man/person

This type thrives in showing off their ability to take on a lot of work in a short period of time. They are willing to work overtime to achieve the validation of their colleagues and managers.

They are trying to prove that they are capable of handling anything.

Example: An individual contributor who takes her job very seriously and offers her time and support to her colleagues. She goes out of her way to take on work even during holidays or scheduled time off. She is happy to do the work, even on her own time.

Underlying emotion: fear of free time and taking time away from work for personal fulfillment

3. The Natural Genius

This type of imposter thrives on being so quick and slick in getting things done. They believe that they got it right the first time. Feedback cycles, critique, or rework is threatening - if they didn't get it right, they failed. They put minimal effort into their work yet often succeed.

This pattern of minimal effort and good results was likely there throughout their lives. They never have to put in the extra work, until they do.

Example: A new accountant who just graduated top of his class always found that the classwork came easily. He never had to spend late nights studying for anything. He gets into the workplace and feels overwhelmed with the expectations. He's not always able to get his calculations according to his manager's satisfaction.

When his manager asks him to spend some time with his colleague to learn the process, he feels uncomfortable and insulted. He doesn't need anyone to tell him how to do his work more than once.

Underlying emotion: shame of failing

4. The Soloist

Like the Natural Genius, this type is not interested in getting support from others to do their work. However, the soloist resents others altogether. The Soloist is not willing to ask for help, regardless of the situation.

Asking for help can leave them vulnerable and expose what they don't know or can't do.

Example: An HR Director has to present new organizational changes and reports to her C-suite. As the deadline approaches, she abruptly orders her team to gather up information in a specific way the C-suite wanted it. This creates some chaos for the team. She kept the information to herself until the last minute rather than sharing the requirements with her team because she thought that she would handle everything herself. Then she realized time was running out.

Underlying emotion: shame in asking for help

5. The Expert

"I must have all the credentials before I can even think of applying to this job." This type of imposter feels the compulsive need to have all the knowledge and experience before even attempting the job. They may be critical of others around them who "work to learn" or take aspirational roles, while also not recognizing that certainty and having all of the answers isn't expected.

In a fast-changing environment, no one is an expert in what to do next.

Example: A scientist working on a new drug discovery feels compelled to fully understand the results before sharing them with the team. The experiment nears the end of its funding and timeline. The scientist has not yet shared the progress updates.

Then, team members are uncertain and become restless. Worse, two team members have relevant insights that could have built on the scientist's results if they'd had a chance to work through them. With even more pressure is on the scientist now, because he is the expert in this process.

Underlying emotion: fear of inadequacy

There are two additional types of imposters that are equally important to consider.

Additional types of imposter syndrome

There are two additional types of imposters that are equally important to consider.

The Noticer

This type can't be proud of their work or themselves because they immediately notice things that still aren't perfect. Whether in a work product, a meeting or in the clothes they wear, the Noticer is forgiving of others but doesn't extend the same grace to herself. When a tough project ends, the Noticer feels relief, more deflated than elated.

The Noticer is hyper-aware of the competition, real or imagined, and secretly believes that she will always miss the bar.

Example: An account manager works with her team to prepare a working session with the client. The team works hard on it for several days, and the manager spends every night making it better.

Despite changing direction more than once, they ultimately create a workshop that the client loves. The team celebrates but the manager can't stop thinking about where her presentation was awkward and how much more charisma and comfort the other project lead had.

Underlying emotion: fear of not belonging

The Discounter

The Discounter automatically rationalizes away evidence of their own competence, achievement, or high regard. "People think well of me because they really don't know what they're talking about." This type of imposter doesn't value or trust their network of supporters very much.

They doubt the quality or level of competition in any effort that they succeed at and are ashamed to share something that "anyone could have done."

Example: A newly-promoted Project Manager gives a well-received and engaging presentation on a planning process. Several peers congratulate him and thank him for making a formerly dreaded process more useful and relevant. Instead of feeling proud, he thinks about how no one values his group and how low their bar was - they were saying it was good, for their team.

Underlying emotion: not being enough

What kind of imposter are you? 15 questions to help you find out

Is this you?

You might be ...

1. Have you been told that you micromanage?

The Perfectionist

2. Do you feel your work must always be perfect no matter the price?

The Perfectionist

3. Do you stay late in the office to get work done even when everyone else has left?

The Superwoman/man

4. Do you work on future projects to get ahead and not have downtime?

The Superwoman/man

5. Do you reject work that you are not good at or that seems challenging?

The Natural Genius

6. Do you sometimes choose to not give something your best effort because you're afraid that your best effort wouldn't be good enough?

The Natural Genius

7. Are you uncomfortable when others see your work in process?

The Soloist

8. Do you resent offers of help or even status requests?

The Soloist

9. Do you feel shaky and restless when someone refers to you as an expert?

The Expert

10. Do you stick with what you know and make sure you know it best? Are you always in search of the next certificate/degree?

The Expert

11. Do you find it difficult to accept compliments and celebrate accomplishments?

The Noticer

12. Are you often in "self-improvement" mode but feel embarrassed to tell anyone else?

The Noticer

13. Do you answer a compliment with "Thanks, but..."?

The Discounter

14. Do you often think others are "just being nice"?

The Discounter

15. Do you often wonder how much longer you can keep up the Act?

All of them

Note: If you're a leader or manager, you might suspect that one of your team members or proteges suffers from imposter syndrome. For early warning signs to look out for and ways to help those who report to you, see this useful article on why imposter syndrome can be a competitive edge.

How to deal with imposter syndrome

Trying is exhausting . It depletes rather than energizes. Yet people can, and do, keep going.

How do you keep going when you hit that brick wall? And how do we regain some joy in the work and our accomplishments?

First, understand that imposter syndrome is a form of saboteur. You are not helpless against it.

Also, don't try to ignore it. Instead, tame the emotion by acknowledging its presence. Be aware of its impact on your body.

The SBNRR technique (stop, breathe, notice, reflect, respond) technique can help you slow down and consider the situation - and your own thoughts, feelings, and reactions - more mindfully.

Stop: Allow yourself to stop in your tracks and take a moment to pause.

Breath: Give yourself a deep breath and let your thoughts go and not be attached to them.

Notice: Notice your feelings, your body, your surroundings, your peers, the situation, your reaction, and anything else that you can notice.

Reassess: Evaluate the situation and the reason you felt a need to fall into the imposter syndrome.

Respond: React intentionally. It can be more informed and composed now that you have calmed yourself a bit.

In addition to this technique, there are several tips to overcoming imposter syndrome.

10 tips for dealing with your imposter syndrome

Here are some other tips you can use when struggling with any version of feeling like an imposter.

1. Refocus on values. Take your focus away from outward signs of success or achievement and remind yourself of what really matters to you.

2. Reframe around growth. Life and a career are a journey . You can't grow, learn , or make progress without stretching yourself.

3. Get out of your head. Rumination, a pattern of circling thoughts, goes hand-in-hand with imposter syndrome. Find someone to talk to or write down your fears - they are less powerful when they aren't circling.

4. Keep failure in perspective. Instead of focusing and defining your failure in the abstract, take time to write down the likely outcomes if some part of your effort fails. Rarely is it the end of the world. Try learning from your failures instead of letting your failures define you.

Bias and imposter syndrome

It's important to consider systemic influences on imposter syndrome, the ones operating outside of your head. Biases exacerbate imposter syndrome . These prejudices result in discriminatory views, policies, and procedures for people of color and underrepresented populations.

When managers and team members treat people differently based on race, socioeconomic class, religion, gender, and sexuality at work, they create a company culture of second-guessing, self-doubt, and stress.

This causes people to question their ability and worth in the workplace, resulting in a greater prevalence of imposter syndrome.

Equally, when diversity isn't done right when it results in "tokenism," it can make a person of an under-represented group feel both as if they don't really have the skills to be there and at the same time cause them to set even higher standards for themselves to prove to everyone not just their own value but the value of their entire group.

Combined, these two tendencies create an impossible situation. They feed imposter syndrome and are detrimental to the person's mental health.

The prevalence of imposter syndrome and why it matters

Imposter syndrome is common among workers, especially those who are driven to achieve. It stems from low self-esteem, but it can be easy to underestimate because people hide it and soldier through. Close-minded, cut-throat, or biased work environments make it worse.

Imposter syndrome can also be amplified in work environments with surface-level diversity . Whether intentional or not, organizations engaged in this type of diversity appear all-inclusive by hiring people who represent various demographics.

But their leaders don't understand or value what those differences can offer and don't invest in lifting employees of all backgrounds up once they are hired. The good news is that imposter syndrome can be recognized and addressed.

To overcome imposter syndrome, recognizing your capacity and worth is not enough. Your executives, leaders, and teams must also do so. They must prioritize your mental well-being and well-being just as much as your physical skills and performance.

Leaders must recognize opportunities for investing in mental health and personal growth. This means investing in resources that support people beyond therapeutic intervention or psychotherapy.

Virtual, digital coaching and group support, as well as inclusive leadership that encourages vulnerability, can all lessen the experience of "feeling a fraud." It also means fostering company cultures that push all people forward by recognizing their worth.

Work environments must foster inclusion, belonging, and advancement for all .

Join BetterUp in determining what real diversity looks and feels like at work and how each person can use their discomfort and challenges as opportunities for growth. The workplace can become a place where your people can reach more of their full potential.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Imposter Syndrome: Definition, Symptoms & Tips to Overcome It

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Many people suffer from imposter syndrome but few talk about it. Find out what imposter syndrome is, how to identify if you have it, and how to manage it.

# data[].attributes.headline
Positive Psychology: Imposter Syndrome 14 Test & Worksheets

# data[].attributes.subject
Positive Psychology: Imposter Syndrome 14 Test & Worksheets

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Haven’t we all had it?

It’s that feeling that we have misled others about our abilities and don’t deserve to be here. Perhaps it’s not so much what we said about our degree of talent but what we didn’t.

Imposter syndrome is linked to feelings of self-doubt and intellectual fraud and can lead to failure (Villwock, Sobin, Koester, & Harris, 2016). It is also associated with introversion and trait anxiety and is made worse by overly harsh criticism (Langford & Clance, 1993; Murugesu, 2020).

So, what can we do about it? This article explores techniques and worksheets to help identify and overcome imposter syndrome directly and indirectly by confronting what prevents us from believing in ourselves.

Before you continue, we thought you might like to download our three Strengths Exercises for free. These detailed, science-based exercises will help your clients realize their unique potential and create a life that feels energizing and authentic.

This article contains:

6 Ways to Overcome Imposter Syndrome

Assessing Imposter Syndrome: 2 Tests and Questions

9 Helpful Worksheets

Combating Imposter Syndrome at Work: 4 Tips

PositivePsychology.com’s Tools

A Take-Home Message

References

6 Ways to Overcome Imposter Syndrome

While we may intuitively feel we understand the idea of imposter syndrome, a recent review of research from 1966 onward suggests otherwise. Not only is there little clarity regarding its definition, but there is also limited clinical guidance on either diagnosis or treatment (Bravata et al., 2019).

So, before we explore ways to overcome it, let’s briefly consider what we mean when talking about imposter syndrome.

What is imposter syndrome?

According to psychologists Joe Langford and Pauline Clance (1993), imposter syndrome is the idea that our “accomplishments came about not through genuine ability, but as a result of having been lucky.”

The media broadly sees the syndrome as tied to behavioral health, limiting professional performance and contributing to burnout (Bravata et al., 2019).

From their research, Bravata and colleagues (2019) concluded that while not recognized as a psychiatric disorder by the American Psychiatric Association, it is very real. Bravata et al. suggest that imposter syndrome describes high achievers who “despite their objective successes, fail to internalize their accomplishments and have persistent self-doubt and fear of being exposed as a fraud or imposter.”

But while research focuses on high-achieving individuals, what about the rest of us? Aren’t we all plagued by questions such as:

Am I good enough?

Why should anyone listen to me?

Doesn’t everyone know more than I do?

Put simply, we think we are fake.

Those of us facing imposter syndrome (sometimes referred to as the imposter phenomenon) find it difficult to attribute positive performance to our skills and competence. And bizarrely, it can feel worse when we are doing something really well.

Back in 1985, in her book The Impostor Phenomenon: When Success Makes You Feel Like a Fake, Pauline Clance began by associating the condition with successful, professional women. But it has since become clear that feelings of inadequacy appear equally across gender, profession, and ethnic and racial group (Clance, 1985; Bravata et al., 2019).

While its clinical diagnosis remains uncertain, and there are no agreed-upon clinical interventions, we know some of the traits that people with the syndrome share. After studying 284 research projects, including over 14,000 participants from various backgrounds, Bravata and colleagues were able to conclude:

Men and women are equally affected

Some evidence suggests the perception of imposter syndrome reduces with age

An association with depression, anxiety, low self-esteem, and social dysfunction

Early research by Gail Matthews and Pauline Clance (1985) suggested treating imposter syndrome by validating patients’ doubts and fears and providing group therapy to overcome associated feelings of isolation.

Langford and Clance (1993) suggested that the phenomenon may be in response to insecurity, self-doubt, and attempting to live up to an idealized self-image. The study recommended building self-worth, strengthening the client’s acceptance of who they are and exploring fears of catastrophic failure.

Imposter syndrome is a problem for perfectionists setting themselves impossible goals and risking failure. After all, an expert may be used to feelings of control, and they may hold off applying for a job unless they meet all the criteria, fearing they never know quite enough. And soloists (most comfortable working on their own) may be inhibited from seeking help, believing it to be a sign of failure (Bravata et al., 2019).

Indeed, we may feel that success is an all-or-nothing endeavor and experience stress when we do not live up to our overly harsh expectations. We need to let go of such self-criticism and ask ourselves, does that thought help me or make matters worse?

Instead, we must learn to think like a non-imposter, value constructive criticism, seek help when needed, and share uncertainty with our peers.

So, how do we overcome imposter syndrome?

Success in addressing, or at least reducing, imposter syndrome most likely results from supporting our internal constructs and can be helped through a focus on:

Growing positivity

Adopting a growth mindset

Practicing visualization

Use of positive self-talk

Utilizing mindfulness

Adopting positive coping mechanisms

Assessing Imposter Syndrome: 2 Tests and Questions

Mak, Kleitman, and Abbott (2019) identified several tools that can help identify imposter syndrome, two of the most effective ones are mentioned here.

Clance Imposter Phenomenon Scale

The Clance Imposter Phenomenon Scale contains 20 statements assessed on a scale between 1 (not at all true) and 5 (very true).

For example:

I can give the impression that I’m more competent than I really am.

When people praise me for something I’ve accomplished, I’m afraid I won’t be able to live up to their expectations of me in the future.

I’m afraid people important to me may find out that I’m not as capable as they think I am.

Sometimes I feel or believe that my success in life or my job has resulted from some kind of error.

I often worry about not succeeding with a project or examination, even though others around me have considerable confidence that I will do well.

Scores of 40 or less indicate few imposter characteristics, while those over 80 suggest intense experiences.

Harvey Imposter Scale (HIPS)

HIPS is a 14-item questionnaire, scored between 1 and 7, where a high score indicates a high level of imposter feelings (Bravata et al., 2019; Edwards, Zeichner, Lawler, & Kowalski, 1987).

Items on the questionnaire include:

People tend to believe I am more competent than I really am.

Sometimes I am afraid I will be discovered for who I really am.

I have often felt I am in my present position or academic program through some kind of mistake.

I tend to feel like a phony.

I often feel I am concealing secrets about myself from others.

Research suggests that both scales are legitimate and valid ways of measuring imposter feelings and useful additions to any therapist’s toolkit.

9 Helpful Worksheets

While there is some uncertainty regarding clinical diagnosis and treatment of imposter syndrome, there are several constructs that, if promoted, are likely to offer support either directly or indirectly.

The following worksheets help improve our mental environment and encourage feelings of self-worth and self-belief. The aim is to enable clients to move forward rather than let a sense of being an imposter restrict performance.

We have the power to reshape our lives for the better, writes Barbara Fredrickson in Positivity: Groundbreaking Research to Release Your Inner Optimist and Thrive (2010). The magic ingredient is positivity. It grows as we experience positive emotions such as gratitude, joy, interest, and inspiration and reject negative thinking.

1. Dispute negative thinking

Increasing positivity over time reshapes our life by changing how we view ourselves while promoting self-confidence.

Use the Dispute Negative Thinking worksheet to capture negative statements and practice disputing them. As you work through each one, become surer of yourself and more confident in what you can achieve.

2. Build positive emotions

Fredrickson (2010) also suggests building a portfolio of positive emotions.

Use the Build an Emotions Portfolio worksheet.

Write notes for positive emotions (joy, gratitude, serenity, interest, hope, pride, inspiration, awe, love, etc.) based on memories, images, and even songs that come to mind.

Ask yourself a series of questions for each emotion to prompt your thinking, for example, hope:

When have you felt full of optimism and hope?

When have you feared the worst but still believed something good would happen?

When have you found an inventive way to try to create a better future?

Keep the portfolios up to date and create one for each emotion. Engage with them at regular intervals to think “more expansively and compassionately” (Fredrickson, 2010).

3. Adopt a growth mindset

When we adopt a fixed mindset, we don’t handle change well and are less equipped to deal with challenges and criticism. We also tend to stick to what we have been doing even if it isn’t working.

Adopting a growth mindset means we not only cope better but actively look for opportunities for learning and growth (Dweck, 2017). We are less likely to feel like an imposter when we consider ourselves to be a work in progress rather than a finished article.

Move to a growth mindset by completing the Adopt a Growth Mindset worksheet, replacing fixed mindset thinking with growth mindset thinking.

For example:

Avoiding challenge becomes embracing challenge, and being defensive and giving up transforms into persisting despite setbacks.

4. Visualize success

We cannot underestimate the importance of being able to bounce back. When we are criticized, we need to consider others’ thoughts as an opportunity to learn and grow.

Visualizing successful performance can help us become more resilient in the workplace to both criticism and change. Indeed, one of the best ways to rehearse a task, feel more confident, and believe in what we are about to do is to mentally play it through (Clough & Strycharczyk, 2015).

Athletes often visualize what it feels like to step up on to the podium and receive a medal at the end of a successful race.

Try out the Visualize Success worksheet.

The more real the visualization, the better. See yourself as the actor in the scene – not passive but engaged and relaxed.

5. Replace negative self-talk with positive self-talk

Words are powerful. They can bring up images of success or failure and significantly affect how we approach tasks and overcome obstacles and challenges (Clough & Strycharczyk, 2015).

Use the Replace Negative Self-Talk worksheet to identify negative self-talk examples and replace them with their positive equivalent.

When faced with difficult situations, repeat the positive self-talk equivalent to change your mental outlook, for example:

I’m feeling overwhelmed versus I know how to control these feelings; I need to focus on relaxing myself.

6. Track and measure success

We are much better at remembering what went wrong rather than what went well.

And when you feel like an imposter, one of the most difficult things to grasp is the role you have had in your own or others’ successes.

Whether keeping a digital or a handwritten copy, use the Track and Measure Success worksheet to complete a record of all that has gone well, and then review regularly or before a forthcoming challenge.

7. Dealing with anxiety: Reverse the Rabbit Hole

When we are anxious, the words what if can bring to mind a series of negative images. Use the Reverse the Rabbit Hole Worksheet to identify a plausible positive outcome for every possible negative one.

8. The “What If?” Bias

The “What If?” Bias worksheet is an excellent companion to the above worksheet and helps us to regain a balanced perspective by listing both positive and negative “what ifs.”

9. Breath awareness

Sometimes a simple breath awareness activity is all it takes to ground ourselves and see our situation in context. Try this breathing exercise to reduce stress and anxiety and regain composure when imposter syndrome symptoms begin to derail us.

Combating Imposter Syndrome at Work: 4 Tips

Confidence in what you say, especially at work, can come from the posture you adopt.

Amy Cuddy wrote Presence – Bringing Your Boldest Self to Your Biggest Challenge (2018), following her incredible success with her TEDx Talk. Based on her research, Cuddy (2018) claims that tweaking our body language can help change our mindset and bring our best selves to our biggest challenges.

She differentiates between powerless poses (slouching, arms tightly crossed, head held low) with powerful ones (standing up straight with arms beside our body like Wonder Woman or Superman, arms open or up high).

Assertive body language – confirmed by her research – is linked to high assertiveness and low anxiety. Both of which can be negatively affected by imposter syndrome.

“Expansive postures also reduce anxiety and help us deal with stress,” says Cuddy. People using such postures tend to use fewer negative words, report less fear, and speak more positively (Cuddy, 2018).

Try out some expansive rather than contractive poses (modified from Cuddy, 2018).

Adopt a power pose and hold it to gain confidence before a meeting, presentation, or difficult conversation:

Hold a confident Wonder Woman or Superman pose (hands on hips) for 60 seconds.

Raise your arms like a starfish or victory pose and hold.

When presenting, be sure to:

Stand up straight

Keep your shoulders back and chest open

Maintain a slow and deep breath

Keep your chin up and level

Move around to energize yourself

Adopt open gestures with your hands and arms

Harness the power of the pause

Relax the muscles in your throat

Imagine a power pose. Even if it’s not possible to take up a positive physical stance, picturing it can help.

Visualize being comfortably confident, grounded, strong, and poised.

Sitting

Sit erect with shoulders back (rather than slumped)

Avoid the iPosture (i.e., hunched over a phone, tablet, etc).

When repeated and combined, even small changes to how we speak, stand, and behave can significantly improve our confidence and degree of self-belief.

3 Interesting podcasts

Imposter syndrome and self-doubt – Listen to clinical psychologist Dr. Jessamy Hibberd on Deliciously Ella for some fascinating insights into imposter syndrome and how to create a mindset to celebrate achievements.

The Imposter Syndrome – Dr. Valerie Young, author of The Secret Thoughts of Successful Women: Why Capable People Suffer from the Imposter Syndrome and How to Thrive in Spite of It, explores imposter syndrome and its links with overachieving.

Imposter Syndrome – This fascinating BBC podcast, presented by Afua Hirsch, explores what it’s like to feel like an imposter and why it affects so many of us.

PositivePsychology.com’s Tools

Our free Strengths Exercises Pack contains a selection of three tools from the PositivePsychology.com Toolkit© that can assist with overcoming imposter syndrome:

Red and Green Activities
This exercise explores the difference between activities that utilize our strengths and those that rely on our weaknesses when it comes to energy and engagement. As part of the activity, clients take one week to track and reflect on different activities’ effects on energy to help increase strength awareness and utilization.

You at Your Best
This exercise invites clients to tell a story, illustrating a time when they performed at their best or did something exceptionally positive. In this, clients will get to savor the positive experience and systematically explore the role their strengths played in producing this optimal outcome, which is so often needed for those struggling with imposter syndrome.

Strength Regulation
This exercise helps clients consider the different degrees to which we can use our strengths in different situations. In particular, clients select a personal strength and recall the consequences of times when they over- and underutilized it, as well as a time they used this strength at an optimal level.

You can access all three exercises for free by downloading our Strengths Exercises Pack.

If you’re looking for more science-based ways to help others develop their strengths, this collection contains 17 strength-finding tools for practitioners. Use them to help others better understand and harness their strengths in life-enhancing ways.

Lastly, our Maximizing Strengths Masterclass© is the ultimate tool in helping yourself and others identify and develop strengths. This coaching package is just what you need to become a strengths-based practitioner and help clients reach their potential.

For further reading, these articles are highly relevant to applying positive psychology in the workplace and can be instrumental in negating feelings of low self-worth and improving communication and teamwork.

The Psychology of Teamwork: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teams

Flow at Work: The Science of Engagement and Optimal Performance

Positive Reinforcement in the Workplace (90+ Examples & Reward Ideas)

What Is Job Crafting? (Incl. 5 Examples and Exercises)

15 Communication Exercises and Games for the Workplace

A Take-Home Message

When Amy Cuddy gave her career-defining TED Talk, she said she had spent much of her life believing she didn’t deserve to be there.

We have all felt the same way, unable to shake off the feeling we are not good enough and will be found out.

It is perhaps okay, or even useful, to have some such moments as they confirm that we must be pushing our limits, so long as it doesn’t become an imposter life.

Seth Godin (2020) writes that when faced with imposter syndrome, we must embrace it as “proof we are innovating, leading, and creating.”

If feelings of being an imposter are limiting you or your clients, reduce its impact by adopting a growth mindset – relishing the opportunity to learn and grow – and turn the negativity into something positive. Encourage them to use the worksheets to handle their inner critic, turning doubts into opportunities.

We hope you enjoyed reading this article. If you want to improve your growth mindset, a great way to start is by knowing your strengths. Download these three Strengths Exercises for free.

Bravata, D. M., Watts, S. A., Keefer, A. L., Madhusudhan, D. K., Taylor, K. T., Clark, D. M., … Hagg, H. K. (2019). Prevalence, predictors, and treatment of impostor syndrome: A systematic review. Journal of General Internal Medicine, 35, 1252–1275.

Clance, P. R. (1985). The impostor phenomenon: When success makes you feel like a fake. Peachtree Publishers.

Clough, P., & Strycharczyk, D. (2015). Developing mental toughness: Coaching strategies to improve performance, resilience and wellbeing. Kogan Page.

Cuddy, A. J. (2018). Presence: Bringing your boldest self to your biggest challenges. Little, Brown Spark.

Dweck, C. S. (2017). Mindset: Changing the way you think to fulfill your potential. Robinson.

Edwards, P. W., Zeichner, A., Lawler, N., & Kowalski, R. (1987). A validation study of the Harvey Impostor Phenomenon Scale. Psychotherapy: Theory, Research, Practice, Training, 24(2), 256–259.

Fredrickson, B. (2010). Positivity: Groundbreaking research reveals how to release your inner optimist and thrive. Oneworld.

Godin, S. (2020). The practice: Shipping creative work. Penguin.

Langford, J., & Clance, P. R. (1993). The imposter phenomenon: Recent research findings regarding dynamics, personality and family patterns and their implications for treatment. Psychotherapy: Theory, Research, Practice, Training, 30(3), 495–501.

Mak, K. K., Kleitman, S., & Abbott, M. J. (2019). Impostor phenomenon measurement scales: A systematic review. Frontiers in Psychology, 10.

Matthews, G., & Clance, P. R. (1985). Treatment of the impostor phenomenon in psychotherapy clients. Psychotherapy in Private Practice, 3(1), 71–81.

Murugesu, J. (2020). Harsh peer reviewer comments disproportionately affect minorities. New Scientist. Retrieved November 10, 2020, from https://www.newscientist.com/article/2231559-harsh-peer-reviewer-comments-disproportionately-affect-minorities/

Villwock, J. A., Sobin, L. B., Koester, L. A., & Harris, T. M. (2016). Impostor syndrome and burnout among American medical students: A pilot study. International Journal of Medical Education, 7, 364–369.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
How To Overcome Imposter Syndrome: 14 Tests & Worksheets

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
We explore techniques and worksheets to help identify and overcome imposter syndrome by confronting what prevents us from believing in ourselves.

# data[].attributes.headline
Time: Yes, Imposter Syndrome is Real. Here's How to Deal With It

# data[].attributes.subject
Time: Yes, Imposter Syndrome is Real. Here's How to Deal With It

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Have you ever felt like you don't belong? Like your friends or colleagues are going to discover you're a fraud, and you don't actually deserve your job and accomplishments?

If so, you're in good company. These feelings are known as impostor syndrome, or what psychologists often call impostor phenomenon. An estimated 70% of people experience these impostor feelings at some point in their lives, according to a review article published in the International Journal of Behavioral Science. Impostor syndrome affects all kinds of people from all parts of life: women, men, medical students, marketing managers, actors and executives.

What is impostor syndrome?

Impostor syndrome-the idea that you've only succeeded due to luck, and not because of your talent or qualifications-was first identified in 1978 by psychologists Pauline Rose Clance and Suzanne Imes. In their paper, they theorized that women were uniquely affected by impostor syndrome.

Since then, research has shown that both men and women experience impostor feelings, and Clance published a later paper acknowledging that impostor syndrome is not limited to women. (She also created an impostor syndrome test.) Today, impostor syndrome can apply to anyone "who isn't able to internalize and own their successes," says psychologist Audrey Ervin.

Impostor syndrome expert Valerie Young, who is the author of a book on the subject, The Secret Thoughts of Successful Women, has also found patterns in people who experience impostor feelings:

"Perfectionists" set extremely high expectations for themselves, and even if they meet 99% of their goals, they're going to feel like failures. Any small mistake will make them question their own competence.

"Experts" feel the need to know every piece of information before they start a project and constantly look for new certifications or trainings to improve their skills. They won't apply for a job if they don't meet all the criteria in the posting, and they might be hesitant to ask a question in class or speak up in a meeting at work because they're afraid of looking stupid if they don't already know the answer.

When the "natural genius" has to struggle or work hard to accomplish something, he or she thinks this means they aren't good enough. They are used to skills coming easily, and when they have to put in effort, their brain tells them that's proof they're an impostor.

"Soloists" feel they have to accomplish tasks on their own, and if they need to ask for help, they think that means they are a failure or a fraud.

"Supermen" or "superwomen" push themselves to work harder than those around them to prove that they're not impostors. They feel the need to succeed in all aspects of life-at work, as parents, as partners-and may feel stressed when they are not accomplishing something.

Why do people experience impostor syndrome?

There's no single answer. Some experts believe it has to do with personality traits-like anxiety or neuroticism-while others focus on family or behavioral causes, Ervin explains. Sometimes childhood memories, such as feeling that your grades were never good enough for your parents or that your siblings outshone you in certain areas, can leave a lasting impact. "People often internalize these ideas: that in order to be loved or be lovable, 'I need to achieve,'" says Ervin. "It becomes a self-perpetuating cycle."

Factors outside of a person, such as their environment or institutionalized discrimination, can also play a major role in spurring impostor feelings. "A sense of belonging fosters confidence," says Young. "The more people who look or sound like you, the more confident you feel. And conversely, the fewer people who look or sound like you, it can and does for many people impact their confidence."

This is especially true "whenever you belong to a group for whom there are stereotypes about competence," Young adds, including racial or ethnic minorities, women in STEM fields or even international students at American universities.

How to deal with impostor syndrome

One of the first steps to overcoming impostor feelings is to acknowledge the thoughts and put them in perspective. "Simply observing that thought as opposed to engaging it" can be helpful, says Ervin. "We can help teach people to let go and more critically question those thoughts. I encourage clients to ask 'Does that thought help or hinder me?'"

You can also reframe your thoughts. Young says she reminds people that the only difference between someone who experiences impostor syndrome and someone who does not is how they respond to challenges. "People who don't feel like impostors are no more intelligent or competent or capable than the rest of us," Young says. "It's very good news, because it means we just have to learn to think like non-impostors." Learning to value constructive criticism, understanding that you're actually slowing your team down when you don't ask for help, or remembering that the more you practice a skill, the better you will get at it can all help.

It can also be helpful to share what you're feeling with trusted friends or mentors. People who have more experience can reassure you that what you're feeling is normal, and knowing others have been in your position can make it seem less scary. If you want to delve more deeply into these feelings, Ervin recommends seeking out a professional psychologist.

Most people experience moments of doubt, and that's normal. The important part is not to let that doubt control your actions, says Young. "The goal is not to never feel like an impostor. The goal for me is to give [people] the tools and the insight and information to talk themselves down faster," she says. "They can still have an impostor moment, but not an impostor life."

Write to Abigail Abrams at abigail.abrams@time.com.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Yes, Impostor Syndrome is Real. Here's How to Deal With It

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Impostor syndrome is associated with feelings of fraud, like you're inadequate or a failure. But you can overcome it with these expert tips.

# data[].attributes.headline
The New Yorker: Why Everyone Feels Like They're Faking It

# data[].attributes.subject
The New Yorker: Why Everyone Feels Like They're Faking It

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The concept of Impostor Syndrome has become ubiquitous. Critics, and even the idea's originators, question its value.

Long before Pauline Clance developed the idea of the impostor phenomenon-now, to her frustration, more commonly referred to as impostor syndrome-she was known by the nickname Tiny. Born in 1938 and raised in Baptist Valley, in Appalachian Virginia, she was the youngest of six children, the daughter of a sawmill operator who struggled to keep food on the table and gas in the tank of his timber truck. Tiny was ambitious-her photograph appeared in the local newspaper after she climbed onto a table to deliver her rebuttal during a debate tournament-but she was always second-guessing herself. After nearly every test she took (and usually aced), she would tell her mother, "I think I failed it." She was shocked when she beat the football-team captain for class president. She was the first in her family to go to college-a high-school counsellor warned her, "You'll be doing well if you get C's"-after which she earned a Ph.D. in psychology, at the University of Kentucky. But, everywhere she went, Clance felt the same nagging sense of self-doubt, the suspicion that she'd somehow tricked everyone else into thinking she belonged.

In the early seventies, as an assistant professor at Oberlin College, Clance kept hearing female students confessing experiences that reminded her of her own: they were sure they'd failed exams, even if they always did well; they were convinced that they'd been admitted because there had been an error on their test scores or that they'd fooled authority figures into thinking they were smarter than they actually were. Clance began comparing notes with one of her colleagues, Suzanne Imes, about their shared feelings of fraudulence. Imes had grown up in Abilene, Texas, with an older sister who early on had been deemed "the smart one"; as a high schooler, Imes had confessed anxieties to her mother that sounded exactly like the ones Clance had to hers. Imes particularly remembered crying after a Latin test, telling her mother, "I know I failed" (among other things, she'd forgotten the word for "farmer"). When it turned out that she'd got an A, her mother said, "I never want to hear about this again." But her accomplishment didn't make the feelings go away; it only made her stop talking about them. Until she met Clance.

One evening, they threw a party for some of the Oberlin students, complete with strobe lights and dancing. But the students looked disappointed and said, "We thought we were going to be learning something." They were hypervigilant, so intent on staving off the possibility of failure that they couldn't let loose for even a night. So Clance and Imes turned the party into a class, setting up a circle of chairs and encouraging the students to talk. After some of them confessed that they felt like "impostors" among their brilliant classmates, Clance and Imes started referring to the feelings they were observing as "the impostor phenomenon."

The pair spent five years talking to more than a hundred and fifty "successful" women: students and faculty members at several universities; professionals in fields including law, nursing, and social work. Then they recorded their findings in a paper, "The Impostor Phenomenon in High Achieving Women: Dynamics and Therapeutic Intervention." They wrote that women in their sample were particularly prone to "an internal experience of intellectual phoniness," living in perpetual fear that "some significant person will discover that they are indeed intellectual impostors." But it was precisely this process of discovery that helped Clance and Imes formulate the concept-as they recognized feelings in each other, and in their students, that they'd been experiencing all their lives.

At first, the paper kept getting rejected. "Weirdly, we didn't get impostor feelings about that," Clance told me, when I visited her at her home, in Atlanta. "We believed in what we were trying to say." It was eventually published in 1978, in the journal Psychotherapy: Theory, Research, and Practice. The paper spread like an underground zine. People kept writing to Clance to ask for copies, and she sent out so many that the person working the copy machine in her department asked, "What are you doing with all these?" For decades, Clance and Imes saw their concept steadily gaining traction-in 1985, Clance published a book, " The Impostor Phenomenon," and also released an official "I.P. scale" for researchers to license for use in their own studies-but it wasn't until the rise of social media that the idea, by now rebranded as "impostor syndrome," truly exploded.

Almost fifty years after its formulation, the concept has achieved a level of cultural saturation that Clance and Imes never imagined. Clance maintains a list of studies and articles that have referenced their original idea; it is now more than two hundred pages long. The concept has inspired a micro-industry of self-help books, ranging in tone from #girlboss self-empowered sass (" The Middle Finger Project: Trash Your Imposter Syndrome and Live the Unf*ckwithable Life You Deserve") to unapologetic earnestness (" Yes! You Are Good Enough: End Imposter Syndrome, Overthinking and Perfectionism and Do What YOU Want"). " The Imposter Syndrome Workbook " invites readers to draw their impostor voice as a creature or a monster of their choosing, to cross-examine their negative self-talk, and to fill a "Self-Love Mason Jar" with written affirmations and accomplishments.

The phrase "impostor syndrome" often elicits a fierce sense of identification, especially from millennial and Gen X women. When I put out a call on Twitter for experiences of impostor syndrome, I was flooded with responses. "Do you have room in your inbox for roughly 180,000 words?" a high-level publishing executive wrote. A graduate of Trinity College Dublin confessed that her feelings of fraudulence were so strong that she'd been unable to enter the college's library for her entire first year. A university administrator said, "I grew up on a pig farm in rural Illinois. Whenever I attend a fancy event, even if it is one I am producing, I feel like people will still see hayseed in my hair." An artisanal-cider maker wrote, "I've made endless ciders, but each and every time that I start fermenting, my mind goes, 'This is the one when everyone will find out you don't know what you're doing.' "

The eminent are not immune. In fact, Clance and Imes argued forcefully in their original study that success was not a cure. Maya Angelou once said, "I have written eleven 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." Neil Gaiman, in a commencement address that went viral, described his fear of being busted by the "fraud police," whom he imagined showing up at his door with a clipboard to tell him he had no right to live the life he was living. (Although men do report feeling like impostors, the experience is primarily associated with women, and the word "impostor" has been granted special feminized forms-"impostrix," "impostress"-since the sixteen-hundreds.)

Clance and Imes remain stunned by how broadly their idea has circulated. "We had no idea," Imes said. "We were just as surprised as everyone else." But their ambitions were never small. "We saw suffering in a lot of people, and we hoped we could help," Imes told me. "We wanted to change people's lives."

Clance lives in a craftsman bungalow in Druid Hills, a leafy Atlanta neighborhood. When I visited, the first thing that I noticed in the front hallway was a wooden statue of a naked woman triumphantly holding a mask above her head. Masks feature prominently in Clance's writing on the impostor phenomenon. Her book has three main sections-"Putting on the Mask," "The Personality Behind the Mask," and "Taking Off the Mask"-and argues that impostor feelings come from a conviction that "I have to mask who I am."

Now eighty-four years old, Clance has a slight, birdlike frame and is nimble-minded and affable. Draped in a wool blanket and sipping on a protein shake, she told me about years of therapeutic work with clients experiencing the impostor phenomenon, work that often focussed on early family dynamics. Clance and Imes's original paper identified two distinct family patterns that gave rise to impostor feelings: either women had a sibling who had been identified as "the smart one" or else they themselves had been identified as "superior in every way-intellect, personality, appearance, talent." The pair theorized that women in the first group are driven to find the validation they didn't get at home but end up doubting whatever validation later comes their way; those in the second group encounter a disconnect between their parents' unrealistic faith in their capacities and the experience of fallibility that life inevitably brings. For both types of "impostors," the crisis comes from the disjunction between the messages received from their parents and the messages received from the world. Are my parents right (that I'm inadequate), or is the world right (that I'm capable)? Or, conversely, are my parents right (that I'm perfect), or is the world right (that I'm failing)? This gap gives rise to a conviction that either the parent is wrong or the world is.

The impostor begins to do everything possible to prevent being discovered in her self-perceived deficiencies. Clance and Imes cite one client who, as a child, "pretended to be 'sick' for three consecutive Fridays when spelling bees were held. She could not bear the thought of her parents finding out she could not win the spelling contest." Another client pretended to be playing with art supplies instead of studying whenever her mother walked into the room, because her mother had taught her that naturally smart people don't have to study.

Clance and Imes describe the cycle that impostor feelings often produce-a sense of impending failure that inspires frenzied hard work, and short-lived gratification when failure is staved off, quickly followed by the return of the old conviction that failure is imminent. Some women adopt a kind of magical thinking about their pessimism: daring to believe in success would actually doom them to failure, so failure must be anticipated instead. The typical case hides her own opinions, fearing that they will be seen as stupid; she might seek the approval of a mentor but then believe it has been secured only because of charm or appeal; she may hate herself for even needing this validation, taking the need itself as proof of her intellectual phoniness.

Repeated successes usually don't break the cycle, Clance and Imes emphasize. All the frenzied efforts and mental calculations that are directed into preventing the discovery of one's inadequacy and fraudulence ultimately just reinforce the belief in this inadequate, fraudulent version of the self.

Clance has seen clients healed not by success but by the kind of resonance she found with Imes. Bolstered and sustained by group therapy with other women-it's easier to believe other women aren't impostors-they can then bring this recognition of others' delusion back to themselves. Sometimes Clance asked clients to keep a notebook recording how they deflected compliments (reminding me of a woman who tweeted about reckoning with impostor feelings by creating a file on her computer called "evidence I'm not an idiot"). Clance also often gave clients "homework assignments," such as asking them to study for only six hours for an upcoming test, rather than twelve. The mere idea of this gave me a pang of anxiety, and I ventured that it would be terrible if they ended up failing as a result. She nodded. "Yep. Then you really set them back."

Clance and Imes have remained friends, and both relocated from Ohio to Atlanta nearly forty years ago-Clance to teach at Georgia State, Imes to get a Ph.D. there. For a while, they even practiced therapy in the same building, a stucco house tucked away at the end of a long, shaded driveway, where Imes still sees clients. I met her there the day after Stacey Abrams lost her second gubernatorial bid, and the neighborhood was peppered with lawn signs that now seemed elegiac. Imes's office was a cozy den of soft couches and throw pillows, walls hung with quilts, and a Peruvian rice goddess dangling above us-necklace-draped, wings outstretched.

Imes has white curly hair and wore dark-red lipstick and bulky clogs that she slipped off immediately-"I think better without my shoes"-so that she could place her feet beside me on the couch. (Later, she told me she has written on the role of physical touch in therapy.) A bookshelf behind her featured family photos from her clients. Imes asked if I got anxious before interviews like this-confessing that she always does-and soon I was talking about how shy I'd been in junior high school, and how I still worried that the wrong interview questions would expose how little I knew about the subject, or somehow reveal that I'm not a "real" journalist. Run-of-the-mill impostor feelings.

Imes told me that her own impostor feelings flared up when she was applying for Ph.D. programs while studying at the Gestalt Institute of Cleveland. But as a therapist she found the Gestalt approach well suited to reckoning with such feelings; she explained that the Gestalt method involves owning all the various parts of yourself, accepting them instead of trying to get rid of them, and understanding their function in the larger whole. In this way, the approach offers not only an antidote to the belief in a shameful self at the core of one's being, a kernel that must be concealed, but also an intrinsic understanding of the self as many selves, rather than static or overly coherent.

Both Imes and Clance underwent Gestalt therapy, and Clance found that the work helped her recognize more fully what her mother-not always a deeply nurturing presence in her life-had done for her, and for their whole family. When I asked Clance if reckoning with delusions about her own deficiency had been connected to reckoning with the primal delusion of her mother as a "deficient" mother, she said yes, absolutely. Ultimately, she felt that her mother was able to appreciate the career she'd built, and the person she'd become. One time, she was visiting home and her mother called on her to talk to a relative in distress: "Tiny, you need to get down here, because he's going to kill himself!" The request seemed like proof that her mother understood the importance of her work. In that moment, Clance felt some congruence between the messages she was getting from the world and the messages she was getting from her mother, a bridging of the gap she'd helped other women notice in their childhoods.

As part of the process of understanding and accepting various aspects of the self, Gestalt often involves "empty-chair" work, in which you might have an imagined conversation with someone important-a dead mother, a former lover-and play out both parts of the conversation, sometimes switching chairs, in order to reckon with the lasting influence of the relationship. A philosophy pointed toward integration makes sense as an antidote to impostor feelings, which can fuel a selective self-presentation driven by shame: I can show only this part of myself and must keep that part of myself hidden.

One of the cornerstones of the work Clance and Imes did with their clients was an empty-chair exercise in which they were asked to imagine having conversations with all the authority figures they'd ever "tricked" into thinking they were smarter or more competent than they actually were. Clance would gently invite them to consider the ways that their impostor feelings constituted, implicitly, a kind of solipsism-understanding everyone else as so easily tricked-telling them, "Line up all the professors you fooled and say, 'I fooled you!' "

The first time I used the phrase "impostor syndrome" about myself, I was-as it happens-describing experiences I'd had with my own professors. This was 2015, and I'd given a lecture at a small liberal-arts college in Michigan. At a dinner afterward, I found myself telling a professor about the anxieties I'd experienced as a Ph.D. student. In seminars, I often felt as if anything I said aloud would reveal that I did not understand the first thing about Heidegger; or that I had read only three chapters of " Discipline and Punish." Once, in a moment of panic, I'd said I loved Donna Haraway, afraid to confess that I'd never read her at all, and I was sometimes confronted with this fraudulent love, an impostor even in my affinities.

The experience I was trying to describe was more specific than mere self-doubt; it was a fear of being found out, revealed for what I really was. And it was an anxiety that I felt complicit in, having produced these false fronts with my lies. I didn't feel that I was saying anything particularly dramatic. By then, impostor syndrome was already something that people routinely confessed about their experiences in high-achieving environments. But it did feel like a genuine exposure of various low-key humiliations: the blooming circles of dark sweat under my armpits as I larded my sentences with jargon, the scrambled, panicked posturing of theoretical preferences.

Once I'd finished this brief summary of my impostor syndrome-trying on the term, which wasn't one I could remember using before-my dinner companion, another white female academic, replied curtly, "That's such a white-lady thing to say."

In the wake of her comment, the table quieted a bit as people sensed-the way a constellation of strangers often can-the presence of some minor friction. My seatmate and I turned to the only woman of color at the table, a Black professor, so that she could, presumably, tell us what to think about the whiteness of impostor syndrome, though perhaps there were things she wanted to do (like finish eating dinner) more than she wanted to mediate a spat between two white ladies about whether we were saying white-lady things or not. She graciously explained that she didn't particularly identify with the experience. She hadn't often felt like an impostor, because she had more frequently found herself in situations where her competence or intelligence had been underestimated than in ones where it was taken for granted.

In the years since then, I've heard many women of color-friends, colleagues, students, and people I've interviewed on the subject-articulate some version of this sentiment. Lisa Factora-Borchers, a Filipinx American author and activist, told me, "Whenever I'd hear white friends talk about impostor syndrome, I'd wonder, How can you think you're an impostor when every mold was made for you? When you see mirror reflections of yourself everywhere, and versions of what your success might look like?"

Adaira Landry, an emergency-medicine physician at Brigham and Women's Hospital and a faculty member at Harvard Medical School, told me about her first day at the U.C.L.A. med school. Landry, a first-generation college student from an African American family, met a fellow first-year student, a man, who was already wearing a white coat, although they hadn't yet had their white-coat ceremony. His mother was in health care and his sister was in med school, and they'd informed him that if he wanted to be an orthopedic surgeon, which he did, it would be beneficial to start shadowing someone immediately. Landry went home that night feeling dispirited, as if she were already falling behind, and a classmate told her, "Don't worry, you just have impostor syndrome."

For Landry, this was only the first of many instances of what she calls "the misdiagnosis of impostor syndrome." Landry understands now that what her classmate characterized as a crisis of self-doubt was simply an observation of an external truth-the concrete impact of connections and privilege. Eventually, Landry looked up Clance and Imes's 1978 paper; she didn't identify with the people described in it. "They interviewed a set of primarily white women lacking confidence, despite being surrounded by an educational system and workforce that seemed to recognize their excellence," she told me. "As a Black woman, I was unable to find myself in that paper."

Since then, Landry has had countless conversations with students who feel they are struggling with impostor syndrome, and she usually senses a palpable relief when she suggests that they are feeling like this not because there is something wrong with them but because they are "enveloped in a system that fails to support them." Ironically, her students' relief at being liberated from the label of impostor syndrome reminds me of the relief that Clance and Imes witnessed when they first offered the concept to their clients. In both cases, women were being told, "You are not an impostor. You are enough." In one case, an experience was diagnosed; in the other, the diagnosis was removed.

In 2020, almost fifty years after Clance and Imes collaborated on their article, another pair of women collaborated on an article about impostor syndrome-this one pushing back fiercely against the idea. In "Stop Telling Women They Have Imposter Syndrome," published in the Harvard Business Review, in February, 2021, Ruchika Tulshyan and Jodi-Ann Burey argue that the label implies that women are suffering from a crisis of self-confidence and fails to recognize the real obstacles facing professional women, especially women of color-essentially, that it reframes systemic inequality as an individual pathology. As they put it, "Imposter syndrome directs our view toward fixing women at work instead of fixing the places where women work."

Tulshyan started hearing the term a decade ago, when she left a job in journalism to work in the Seattle tech industry. She was attending women's leadership conferences where it seemed that everyone was talking about impostor syndrome and "the confidence gap," but no one was talking about gender bias and systemic racism. She got tired of hearing women, especially white women-her own heritage is Indian Singaporean-comparing notes on who had the most severe impostor syndrome. It seemed like another version of women sharing worries about their weight, a kind of communal self-deprecation that reiterated oppressive metrics rather than disrupting them.

During the early pandemic, she met up with Burey-another woman of color working in Seattle tech-for an outdoor lunch, and they compared notes on their shared frustration with the idea of impostor syndrome. There was a tremendous feeling of relief and resonance. As Tulshyan put it, "It was like everybody is telling you the sky is green, and suddenly you tell your friend, I think the sky is blue, and she sees it this way as well."

Burey, who was born in Jamaica, didn't feel like an impostor; she felt enraged by the systems that had been built to disenfranchise her. She also didn't experience any yearning to belong, to inhabit certain spaces of power. "White women want to access power, they want to sit at the table," she told me. "Black women say, This table is rotten, this table is hurting everyone." She resisted knee-jerk empowerment rhetoric that seemed to encourage a damaging bravado: "I didn't want to beef up myself to inflict more harm."

At their lunch, Tulshyan mentioned that she was writing a piece about impostor syndrome, and Burey immediately asked her, "Did you read the original article?" Like Adaira Landry, Burey had felt impelled to look it up and had been struck by its limitations. It wasn't a clinical study but a set of anecdotal observations, she told Tulshyan, largely gleaned from "high-achieving" white women who had received much affirmation from the world. "I must have spoken for twenty minutes uninterrupted," Burey recalled. After that, Tulshyan said, "It's done. We're collaborating."

Like Clance and Imes, Tulshyan and Burey recognized in each other versions of the feelings that they themselves had been harboring-only these were feelings about the world, rather than about their psyches. They were sick of people talking about women having impostor syndrome rather than talking about biases in hiring, promotion, leadership, and compensation. They came to believe that a concept designed to liberate women from their shame-to help them confront the delusion of their own insufficiency-had become yet another way to keep them disempowered.

When I asked Clance and Imes about Tulshyan and Burey's critiques, they agreed with many of them, conceding that their original sample and parameters were limited. Although their model had actually acknowledged (rather than obscured) the role that external factors played in creating impostor feelings, it focussed on things such as family dynamics and gender socialization rather than on systemic racism and other legacies of inequality. But they also pointed out that the popularization of their idea as a "syndrome" had distorted it. Every time Imes hears the phrase "impostor syndrome," she told me, it lodges in her gut. It's technically incorrect, and conceptually misleading. As Clance explained, the phenomenon is "an experience rather than a pathology," and their aim was always to normalize this experience rather than to pathologize it. Their concept was never meant to be a solution for inequality and prejudice in the workplace-a task for which it would necessarily prove insufficient. Indeed, Clance's own therapeutic practice was anything but oblivious of the external structural forces highlighted by Tulshyan and Burey. When mothers came to Clance describing their impostor feelings around parenting, her advice was not "Work on your feelings." It was "Get more child care."

Tulshyan and Burey never anticipated how much attention their article would receive. It has been translated and published all over the world, and is one of the most widely shared articles in the history of the Harvard Business Review. They heard from people who had been given negative performance evaluations that featured euphemisms for impostor syndrome ("lacks confidence" or "lacks executive presence") and even refused promotions on these grounds. The diagnosis has become a cultural force fortifying the very phenomenon it was supposed to cure.

As the backlash against the concept of impostor syndrome spreads, other critiques have emerged. If everyone has it, does it exist at all? Or are we simply experiencing a kind of humility inflation? Perhaps the widespread practice of confessing self-doubt has begun to encourage-to demand, even-repeated confessions of the very experience that the original concept was trying to dissolve. The writer and comedian Viv Groskop believes that impostor syndrome has become a blanket term obscuring countless other problems, everything from long Covid to the patriarchy. She told me a story about standing in front of five hundred women and telling them, "Raise your hand if you have experienced impostor syndrome." Almost every woman raised her hand. When Groskop asked, "Who here has never experienced impostor syndrome?," only one (brave) woman did. But, at the end of the talk, this outlier came up to apologize-worried that it was somehow arrogant not to have impostor syndrome.

Hearing this story, I began to wonder if I'd confessed my own feelings of impostor syndrome to Dr. Imes as a kind of admission fee, to claim my seat-like putting my ante into the pot at a poker game. Who had made it possible for me to play this game? When I asked my mother, who is seventy-eight, if the concept resonated, she said it didn't; she'd struggled more with proving herself than with feeling like a fraud. She told me she suspected that most women in her generation (and even more in her mother's) were likelier to feel the opposite-"that we were being underestimated."

For many younger women, there's a horoscope effect at play: certain aspects of the experience, if defined capaciously enough, are so common as to be essentially universal. The Australian scholar and critic Rebecca Harkins-Cross-who often felt like an impostor during her university days, struggling with insecurities she now connects to her working-class background-has become suspicious of the ways impostor syndrome serves a capitalist culture of striving. She told me, "Capitalism needs us all to feel like impostors, because feeling like an impostor ensures we'll strive for endless progress: work harder, make more money, try to be better than our former selves and the people around us."

On the flip side, this relentless pressure deepens the exhilarating allure of people-specifically, women-who truly are impostors but refuse to see themselves as such. Think of the mass fascination with the antiheroine Anna Delvey (a.k.a. Anna Sorokin), who masqueraded as an heiress in order to infiltrate a wealthy world of New York socialites, and the hypnotic train wreck of Elizabeth Holmes, who built a nine-billion-dollar company based on fraudulent claims about her ability to diagnose a variety of diseases from a single drop of blood. Why do these women enthrall us? In the television adaptations that turned their lives into soap operas-"Inventing Anna" and "The Dropout"-their hubris offers a thrilling counterpoint to beleaguered self-doubt: Anna's extravagant cash tips and gossamer caftans, her willingness to overstay her welcome on a yacht in Ibiza, her utter conviction-even once she was in jail-that it was the world that had been wrong, rather than her.

These stories gleaned much of their narrative momentum from the constant threat of revelation: when would these impostors be discovered? Paying for things on credit without being able to afford them literalizes a crucial facet of impostor syndrome: the anxiety that you are getting what you have not paid for and do not deserve; that you will eventually be found out, and your bill will come due. (Capitalism always wants you to believe you have a bill to pay.) Part of the lure of these stories is the looming satisfaction of seeing the impostors revealed and exposed. For some of us, it's akin to the pleasure of pushing on a bruise, watching the community punish the impostor we believe exists inside ourselves.

Ruchika Tulshyan told me, "If it was up to me, we would do away with the idea of impostor syndrome entirely." Jodi-Ann Burey allows that the concept has been useful in corporate contexts, offering a shared language for talking about self-doubt and a "soft entry" into conversations about toxic workplaces, but she, too, feels it is time to bid it farewell. She wants to say, "Thank you for your fifty years of service," and to start looking directly at systems of bias, rather than falsely pathologizing individuals.

Is there some version of impostor syndrome that can be salvaged? Pulling back from the corporate world to look at the concept more broadly, it seems clear that the #girlboss branding of impostor syndrome has done a disservice to the concept as well as to the workplaces it has failed to improve. The tale of these two pairs of women-Clance and Imes formulating their idea in the seventies, and Tulshyan and Burey pushing back in 2020-belongs to the larger intellectual story of second-wave feminism receiving necessary correctives from the third wave. Much of this corrective work results from women of color asking white feminism to acknowledge a complicated matrix of external forces-including structural racism and income inequality-at play in every internal experience. Identifying impostor feelings does not necessitate denying the forces that produced them. It can, in fact, demand the opposite: understanding that the damage from these external forces often becomes part of the internal weave of the self. Although many of the most fervent critics of impostor syndrome are women of color, it's also the case that many people of color do identify with the experience. In fact, research studies have repeatedly shown that impostor syndrome disproportionately affects them. This finding contradicts what I was told years ago-that impostor syndrome is a "white lady" problem-and suggests instead that the people most vulnerable to the syndrome are not the ones it first described.

If we reclaim the impostor phenomenon from the false category of "syndrome," then we can allow it to do the work it does best, which is to depict a particular texture of interior experience: the fear of being exposed as inadequate. As a concept, it is most useful in its particular nuances-not as a vague synonym for insecurity or self-doubt but as a way to describe the more specific delusion of being a fraud who has successfully deceived some external audience. Understood like this, it becomes an experience not diluted but defined by its ubiquity. It names the gap that persists between the internal experiences of selfhood-multiple, contradictory, incoherent, striated with shame and desire-and the imperative to present a more coherent, composed, continuous self to the world.

The psychoanalyst Nuar Alsadir, in her book " Animal Joy," explains impostor syndrome by drawing on D. W. Winnicott's concepts of "false self" and "true self." She sees the anxiety as stemming from "a False Self that is so fortified by layers of compliant behavior that it loses contact with the raw impulses and expressions that characterize the True Self." Attempts to prevent the discovery of one's "true self" end up compounding the belief that this self, were it ever discovered, would be rejected and dismissed.

Impostor feelings often arise most acutely from threshold-crossing-from one social class to another, one culture to another, one vocation to another-something akin to what Pierre Bourdieu called the "split habitus," the self dwelling in two worlds at once. The college library and the sawmill. The fancy parties and the pig farm. When I spoke to Stephanie Land, the best-selling author of "Maid," her memoir about cleaning houses to support herself as a single mother, she described her own impostor feelings as an experience of class whiplash: occupying spaces of privilege after she'd grown famous for writing about economic hardship. When she flew first class with her teen-age daughter to see a Lizzo concert, and a stranger thanked her for her writing, Land felt that she'd been caught somewhere she didn't belong-as if flying first class made her current self a fraud, or else her past self a fraud; or somehow both versions of her were fraudulent at once.

Land's sense of impostordom also stems from the fact that her personal story is frequently interpreted as a consoling fable of class mobility. "I'm very conscious that my story is the palatable kind of poor-person story," she has written. "I am Little Orphan Annie skipping around in new shoes." When people love her story, she told me, they are loving a version of the American Dream that she thinks of as the American Myth. When her life is distorted and misunderstood in this way, it becomes a kind of impostor plot-and it makes her feel like an impostor as well.

Land's observations helped me realize that the impostor phenomenon, as a concept, effectively functions as an emotional filing cabinet organizing a variety of fraught feelings that we can experience as we try to reconcile three aspects of our personhood: how we experience ourselves, how we present ourselves to the world, and how the world reflects that self back to us. The phenomenon names an unspoken, ongoing crisis arising from the gaps between these various versions of the self, and designates not a syndrome but an inescapable part of being alive. ♦

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Why Everyone Feels Like They're Faking It

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Leslie Jamison writes about impostor syndrome, a now-ubiquitous concept that originated in the work of two psychologists five decades ago and has recently come under scrutiny from feminist critics.

# data[].attributes.headline
HBR: Imposter Syndrome Has Its Advantages

# data[].attributes.subject
HBR: Imposter Syndrome Has Its Advantages

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Basima A. Tewfik, an assistant professor at MIT Sloan, ran two field studies and two experiments examining employees who have "impostor syndrome"-commonly thought of as the feeling of being inadequate and a fraud despite a reputation for success at work. She discovered that these individuals adopted a more other-focused orientation in their social interactions. As a result they were rated as more interpersonally effective. The conclusion: Impostor syndrome has its advantages.

Professor Tewfik, defend your research.

Tewfik: People familiar with impostor syndrome tend to think that it's uniformly harmful. To be sure, the belief that you're not as competent as others think you are could certainly make you anxious and lower your self-esteem. But there's an upside too. My research shows that experiencing this phenomenon can make you more adept at relationships, which is a key ingredient in career success. In one study doctors in training who had more-frequent impostor thoughts were significantly better at handling sensitive interactions with patients, which led those patients to give them higher interpersonal-skill ratings. In another study job candidates primed to have more impostor thoughts asked more questions during informal preinterview chats and as a result were viewed by hiring managers as having better people skills. Essentially, impostor thoughts make you more "other oriented"-more attuned to other people's perceptions and feelings-which makes you more likable. In addition, impostor thoughts didn't seem to hurt performance-at least not in my samples. Doctors who had more of them were just as likely as other doctors to give correct diagnoses, and job candidates who had more of them were just as likely to be invited for an interview after their chats with hiring managers.

HBR: So it's OK-maybe even good-to have impostor syndrome?

I wouldn't go so far as to say "good," but one of my goals with this research was to remove some of the stigma and give a more balanced view. I hope that this work can help people dampen the initial stress and anxiety that come with impostor thoughts by showing that there is this interpersonal silver lining. It's OK to have impostor thoughts sometimes. It's not a "syndrome" or a pathology.

But surely these thoughts do hurt your performance even if they enhance how other people view you interpersonally-especially in high-stakes jobs? I'm thinking of athletes, military officers, litigators, and CEOs.

Interestingly, to date there's no empirical quantitative evidence that impostor thoughts degrade performance. Yet this notion persists. Psychologists often point to something called the Yerkes-Dodson stress performance curve, which shows that a few nerves-up to a point-improve performance. It may be that having the right amount of impostor thoughts can provide just enough motivation to bring out your best work. It's an open question.

How do you determine whether someone has impostor syndrome-and to what extent? In the study with doctors, for example, how did you know which doctors had it?

This question actually gets to the start of it all for me. Early on, in graduate school, I came to the realization that what researchers have been studying and calling impostor syndrome or impostor phenomenon over the past few decades was indistinguishable from fear. And if fear is what we've been studying, it's no wonder we think that experiencing it is all bad news.

So we needed to measure it in a way that actually captures its defining characteristic: the belief that others overestimate your competence. I used seven lab and field samples involving more than 1,000 people to develop and validate a new five-item psychological survey measure. Specifically, I ask people to indicate how frequently they entertain thoughts such as People important to me think I am more capable than I think I am or Others think I have more knowledge than I think I do when they're at work.

In the experiment with job applicants, how did you make people feel like impostors, and how quickly did that affect their behavior?

I asked the employees randomly assigned to that group to reflect on a time in which they had impostor thoughts at work, while the control group considered a time when others saw them as they saw themselves or, in a second experiment, what they had for lunch. Immediately after those reflection periods, people in the impostor condition behaved differently from those in the control group: They started asking more questions.

Should we all be priming ourselves to have impostor thoughts? In other words, did Stuart Smalley from the 1990s Saturday Night Live sketch get it wrong? Instead of mantras like "I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and doggone it, people like me," should our self-talk be more like "I don't think I'm good enough, I don't think I'm smart enough, but I'm not going to worry because that insecurity will make people like me"?

Ha! I definitely do not think we should be intentionally inducing impostor thoughts. There are probably better interventions to help you form stronger professional relationships. Rather, I hope the takeaway from this research is that when you do find yourself having these thoughts-as you may from time to time-you shouldn't compound the stress that comes with them by also thinking that they're necessarily going to cause you to do poorly at work.

How many of us have impostor syndrome?

A frequently cited statistic suggests that nearly 70% of people have entertained impostor thoughts at least at one point in their careers. These thoughts tend to come to a peak when you're facing a new challenge, starting a new job, or encountering new tasks after a promotion.

Do women and people of color have impostor thoughts more frequently?

In all my studies-and this has been backed up by other researchers-I don't find significant differences. That is, white men seem to experience just as many impostor thoughts as women and people of color do. When people point to the impostor phenomenon in underrepresented groups, I think they're conflating it with something more insidious: a lack of belonging. A true impostor thought is My colleagues think I'm smarter than I am. It's not I think other people question whether I belong here or think I'm not smart enough.

In fact, if managers hear an employee from a minority group expressing what sounds like impostor thoughts, they might want to check to see if there is an inclusion problem. Maybe the minority employee is operating in a hostile, biased work environment.

Isn't there a risk that knowing the upside of impostor syndrome will stop you from feeling like an impostor?

It's a good question. If you focus on the fact that your impostor thoughts will push you to compensate interpersonally, which gets people to see you as more socially skilled, does that eventually diminish your thoughts and the benefits they provide? We'll need more research, but I suspect that this knowledge wouldn't eliminate your impostor thoughts entirely. Even extremely successful people like Albert Einstein, former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, and the writer Maya Angelou publicly admitted to having impostor thoughts from time to time. I suspect that there will always be powerful environmental triggers that bring them on.

A version of this article appeared in the May-June 2022 issue of Harvard Business Review.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Basima A. Tewfik, an assistant professor at MIT Sloan, ran two field studies and two experiments examining employees who have "impostor syndrome"-commonly thought of as the feeling of being inadequate and a fraud despite a reputation for success at work. She discovered that these individuals adopted a more other-focused orientation in their social interactions.

# data[].attributes.attachment_caption
Feel Like a Fraud? At Times, Maybe You Should (Published 2008)

# data[].attributes.headline
NYTimes: Feel Like a Fraud? At Times, Maybe You Should

# data[].attributes.subject
NYTimes: Feel Like a Fraud? At Times, Maybe You Should

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Feel Like a Fraud? At Times, Maybe You Should (Published 2008)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Feelings of phoniness appear to alter people’s goals in unexpected ways and may also protect them against subconscious self-delusions.

# data[].attributes.headline
The Surprising Gift of Doubt Book Summary

# data[].attributes.subject
The Surprising Gift of Doubt Book Summary

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Do you feel like an imposter? Do you believe that you don't deserve your success? Take this quiz to find other whether you struggle with impostor syndrome.

# data[].attributes.headline
Anxious Achiever Podcast: Imposter Syndrome, Work, & Mental Health

# data[].attributes.subject
Anxious Achiever Podcast: Imposter Syndrome, Work, & Mental Health

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Imposter Syndrome, Work, and Mental Health

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Listen to this episode from The Anxious Achiever on Spotify. So many of us experience imposter syndrome - the idea that you feel like a fraud in your job; that you're faking it until you make it and that any minute now, people will be able to see through it.

# data[].attributes.headline
The Imposter Syndrome Files: Changing Your Story

# data[].attributes.subject
The Imposter Syndrome Files: Changing Your Story

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Listen to this episode from The Impostor Syndrome Files on Spotify. In this episode of the Impostor Syndrome Files, we talk about the role our stories play in our confidence journeys. When we're doing something scary, or experiencing self-doubt, too often, our story is one of disempowerment - I don't belong here, or I'm not good enough.

# data[].attributes.headline
10% Happier Podcast: Bill Hader on Anxiety, Imposter Syndrome, & Leaning Into Discomfort

# data[].attributes.subject
10% Happier Podcast: Bill Hader on Anxiety, Imposter Syndrome, & Leaning Into Discomfort

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Bill Hader on Anxiety, Imposter Syndrome, and Leaning into Discomfort

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Listen to this episode from Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris on Spotify. The star of SNL and Barry discusses how he channels his anxiety into his work.

# data[].attributes.headline
Mel Robbins: These 4 Words Will Silence Your Self-Doubt: A Life-Change Conversation

# data[].attributes.subject
Mel Robbins: These 4 Words Will Silence Your Self-Doubt: A Life-Change Conversation

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
These 4 Words Will Silence Your Self-Doubt: A Life-Changing Conversation

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Listen to this episode from The Mel Robbins Podcast on Spotify. In this episode, you and I are dismantling one of the most crippling forms of self-doubt. "Imposter Syndrome" is when you think you're not good enough and that everyone else is smarter, more successful, and has more to contribute than you do.

# data[].attributes.headline
Bill Hader on Anxiety, Imposter Syndrome, & Learning into Discomfort

# data[].attributes.subject
Bill Hader on Anxiety, Imposter Syndrome, & Learning into Discomfort

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Bill Hader on Anxiety, Imposter Syndrome, and Leaning into Discomfort

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Listen to this episode from 10% Happier with Dan Harris on Spotify. The star of SNL and Barry discusses how he channels his anxiety into his work.