Do you feel like an imposter? When you have imposter syndrome, you feel like you are someone else and if someone else saw through you, they would know that you are fake. When you are in a meeting and you are in a respectable position, you still do not know who you are and what you actually are.
What Is An Imposter Syndrome?
Imposter syndrome is a condition where a person who is extremely talented or accomplished something doubts his own accomplishments. You feel like you don’t deserve it. You feel like a fraud and you feel like you have been living a lie. The people who have imposter syndrome don’t believe in themselves. It is not actually a psychotic disorder but it is known to cause stress and depression in people. You have a trail of evident success behind you yet you feel like inadequate.
No one is ever going to agree that they have this imposter syndrome despite of what they feel internally. They might find it hard to accept their success too. Here are a few telltale signs that say you have an imposter syndrome
You Don’t Relish In Your Own Accomplishments
Even though you have earned the success with your own hard work, you still feel like you don’t deserve it. If you don’t take the credit for what you have done then you have an imposter syndrome.
You Fear Failure
Even after being so successful you still have an unrealistic fear. You are kind of a perfectionist and the mere thought of failing causes you to hyperventilate and feel like you will be exposed then it is a telltale sign of imposter syndrome
You Are A Perfectionist
You overwork yourself and succeed in everything you do and yet you never feel like you deserve it. You are a perfectionist, people think highly of you and yet yourself never feel like it.
You Have Always Been An Achiever, Yet You Feel Fake
People have always praised you. You have always been intelligent, hard worker. You can never face failure. It isn’t like you just woke up one day and succeeded in something. No, you have always been on top. Yet internally you doubt yourself and your confidence is not as high as it should be after achieving so much.
You Attribute Your Success To Luck
You are the kind of person who would never accept it that it is your hard work that has paid off. You believe that it was sheer luck and that you were at the right place at the right time. People who have known you longer know that you will never accept the credit for anything you did and even roll their eyes at you. But all you feel is fake from inside.
You Overwork Yourself
You are a perfectionist and that’s why you want everything else to be perfect. You want everything to be right. Even when things are right you feel like something is lacking. You beat yourself up and run yourself dry just because you feel you are an imposter. This is definitely a sign of imposter syndrome.
You Over Prepare And Yet You Don’t Feel Confident
When you have been assigned to do something, you work through it with everything you have. You know everything is perfect and good to go, you have double-checked it yourself but still, you doubt it. You go over the things a thousand times, annoy people around you by your habit of over-preparing but yet when the time comes to present your work you don’t feel that much confident internally although you never show outside.
The Ways To Overcome The Imposter Syndrome
Living the life feeling like a fake is not healthy. It not only is affecting your mind and internal peace but also your closed ones. You never taking credit for your success yet pining to work hard is something they complain to you. There are a few ways to stop feeling like a fake and overcome the imposter syndrome. Check out these tips
Don’t Attribute Things To Luck
Yes, everyone believes that luck has a part to play and maybe it does but accounting everything you do to luck isn’t right. Put the luck out of the equation. Start attributing your success to your own hard work rather than to sheer luck.
You Can’t Always Be Right
Start accepting things for what they are. Sometimes, being wrong is a good thing. Sometimes, failure teaches us a lot of things and that’s why you shouldn’t have the fear of failure. Start accepting the fact that you can’t always be right, only then you’ll be able to get over your imposter syndrome.
Understand That Everyone Fakes It
Have you ever had a look at a person and thought that how can he be so perfect? You might have, but you won’t say it anymore once you spend a whole day or a week with that particular person. You’ll realize that the perfection is only limited to a certain extent or to a certain aspect He/ she is not perfect in every way. You’ll realize that everyone fakes it. Everyone is bound to fake it at some point.
Learn To Accept Your Accomplishments
Whenever someone gives you credit or praises you for your achievement don’t say that it was not you who did it. Start accepting and start saying thank you for the compliments rather than denying it. Once you do so you’ll see yourself and others in a new light.
Never Ever Compare
One thing you have to stop doing is to stop comparing. If you really want to compare then compare with yourself. When you see someone as your competition and constantly compare yourself with them you start feeling low about yourself and you feel like a fake or a fraud, which by the way you are not. Also know that there is always going to be someone out there who is more intelligent than you, smarter than you, beautiful than you and because of this, you can’t keep on downsizing yourself.
No One Is Ever Perfect
You see someone as a perfect but the person might not see himself as a perfectionist and might be second-guessing himself, just like you are. This is a universal fact that no one is perfect because the definition of perfect is different for every person in this world. No one really knows what they exactly are and they all second guess themselves. So stop feeling like an imposter.
Imposter syndrome is known to make you feel anxious and second guess yourself. If you want to overcome it you have to start focusing on all the positive things people speak about you. Don’t let the negatives discourage you. Whenever you start feeling like a fake and you doubt yourself remind yourself the compliments people have given you. Remember all the good things you have done and people have praised you for. Learn how to fight these feelings. And when you feel like it’s not working find a confidante and confide in them. They’ll help you and put some sense back into you.