Imposter Syndrome (I.S.)

G’Day all.

What a theme to explore today…

This may well be the single most frequent aspect that my clients are referencing, when feeling safe and confident in sharing ‘‘what is going on’’ - especially in management and leadership settings.

I feel it is safe to propose that the typical drivers behind us experiencing this phenomenon, are all old and goes back into various exposures to feedbacks and criticisms adding to our story about ourselves.

In turn this often leads to a tendency to only look for ‘evidence’ that we are not good enough, and feeling a sense of shame and stress…

When this feeling keeps building (subconsciously) we forget to celebrate our achievements and successes, or at least suppressing these as they surely must be ‘random or not deserved’.

There are a few key characteristics which are linked to the topic like:

• A Fear Of Success (or at least the fear is stronger driver than the Desire for Success!)

• Perfectionism/Over-Preparation

• Denial/Suppression of Capabilities.

Some even suggest the following groupings to help identify what is going on:

• The Superwoman / Superman, pushing self into non sustainable performance to ‘mask sense of I.S.)

• The Perfectionist, anything not totally perfect is a failure

• The Expert, not prepared to take on anything unless 100% sure about own Capability first (no ‘winging’)

• The Borne Talent, beating self up if not grasping new learnings or skills immediately (even without practice or real training)

• The Loner, can not trust others - needs to do the work self rather than delegating or asking for help.

Does any of these resonate with you at all, and is it in fact impacting on your mental wellbeing and overall capacity and resilience?

If so, I would love to have a chat with you and explore if I can be of any help for you.

Please feel free to make contact and lets book a time for a free 30min chat.

Have a great day!