It's not me, I'm just lucky: how not to let impostor syndrome get in the way of success

How often did you think that you passed the exam with excellent marks because the teacher was in a good mood, forgetting that you had been preparing for it for two weeks? Or, for example, did you come up with a good architectural solution for the program, but wrote it off as an accidental success? All of these seemingly unimportant stories are symptoms of impostor syndrome. Imposter syndrome is not a mental illness, but rather a psychological phenomenon in which a person is not able to attribute their achievements to their own qualities, abilities and efforts. The syndrome can manifest itself in work, study, hobbies - wherever a fairly high level of expertise is required. A person with this level of expertise, due to low self-esteem, cannot believe that he is coping with complex tasks, and therefore he attributes their solution to other people, chance or luck. Imposter syndrome is associated with the fear of failure, which in turn prevents you from taking risks and solving difficult problems, both in work and in school. It turns out that the impostor syndrome directly interferes with the development of a person as a professional. We will talk about the causes of this syndrome and how you can “make friends” with it.

When you feel like a pretender

The term "Imposter Phenomenon" first appeared in a 1978 article by Pauline Clans and Suzanne Imes, who observed that many successful women tended to believe that they were not smart and that others overestimated them. Feelings in impostor syndrome can be divided into three categories:

• Feeling like a pretender, when a person believes that he does not deserve the success or professional position he has achieved, believing that others mistakenly think otherwise. As a rule, such thoughts go hand in hand with fears of being exposed, for example, that colleagues will realize how incompetent a person subject to the syndrome is in their professional field. The fear of being exposed greatly increases the fear of failure, as well as the fear of success, as it is assumed that success comes with great responsibility.
• Attributing your successes to luck or other external causes, but not to your work or abilities. At the same time, a person is afraid that next time he will not be lucky.
• Devaluation of one's successes when a person believes that the work done was too easy and not deserving of much attention.

For clarity, here are a couple of stories of people who suffer from impostor syndrome.

Where does the "imposter" come from?

Much has been written about impostor syndrome. The main thing to learn is that it appears on the basis of low self-esteem. There are many reasons for this - a lot of criticism or lack of attention from parents in childhood, psychological trauma, an unexpected failure that you faced as an adult - all this can ultimately lead to the fact that a person ceases to believe in his own competence. Interestingly, the impostor syndrome goes hand in hand with the Dunning-Kruger effect, a cognitive bias in which low-skilled people draw erroneous conclusions, make poor decisions, and are unable to recognize their mistakes due to their low level. their qualifications. According to psychologists, highly qualified people, on the contrary, tend to underestimate their abilities and suffer from a lack of self-confidence, considering others to be more competent (here's the impostor syndrome). One of the explanations for such a relationship between a person’s self-esteem and his professional competencies is that the more a person gains experience in a particular area, the more he realizes how many gaps in knowledge remain to be filled. Also, highly skilled people mistakenly believe that tasks that are easy for them are just as easy for other people. how many gaps in knowledge remain to be filled. Also, highly skilled people mistakenly believe that tasks that are easy for them are just as easy for other people. how many gaps in knowledge remain to be filled. Also, highly skilled people mistakenly believe that tasks that are easy for them are just as easy for other people. Where do we evaluate ourselves professionally? In society. I propose to consider society as a place to meet our needs. Why do we associate with other people, for example, in a company? Because in this way we can get more money, more stability, more prospects and so on. In society there is a system of requirements and rules that must be observed in order for society to accept you. Any professional community has its own rules and requirements and controls their observance. Since man is a pack creature, he also has a fear of expulsion from the pack. The way a person is treated in the professional world is a guarantee for him that he will receive a resource, protection. This assessment is directly related to our sense of security. The professional community is aware of this, so the assessment of our professionalism is used as an instrument of influence. It is important that we know that our professional self-esteem is a tool for our employer to influence us. As a person matures, self-esteem is assigned. That is, a person accepts what other people think about him. The more important a person is to us, the more important his assessment is to us. If a child has little information about the world around him and very little influence on the situation, then an adult is different in that he can make his own judgments - enough analytical abilities to evaluate the one who evaluates him and therefore accept or not accept someone else's assessment of his own personality. what people around him think about him. The more important a person is to us, the more important his assessment is to us. If a child has little information about the world around him and very little influence on the situation, then an adult is different in that he can make his own judgments - enough analytical abilities to evaluate the one who evaluates him and therefore accept or not accept someone else's assessment of his own personality. what people around him think about him. The more important a person is to us, the more important his assessment is to us. If a child has little information about the world around him and very little influence on the situation, then an adult is different in that he can make his own judgments - enough analytical abilities to evaluate the one who evaluates him and therefore accept or not accept someone else's assessment of his own personality. What is adequate professional self-assessment? The first thing to be done is a good attitude towards yourself. People with impostor syndrome have a glitch in this spot—they don't feel good about themselves. The second is a person's knowledge of his strengths and weaknesses. It is more difficult to influence the self-esteem of such a person. The third is to know what the professional community needs from your strengths. And what do you want. What gives the adequacy of professional self-esteem? It gives stability in defending one's interests, it is difficult to “push through” a person and force him to do something. A stable self-esteem also gives freedom of action: satisfaction of needs, ambition, greater resilience in a problem situation and greater flexibility. With the impostor syndrome, self-esteem is so low that it acts as a kind of filter through which positive social assessments do not pass. Imposter Syndrome is usually associated with successful people. The difference between a person with extremely low self-esteem and a person with impostor syndrome is that people with catastrophically low self-esteem usually fear a lot because of it. People with impostor syndrome tend to act, but there is always a lot of tension and fear in this activity: “Do I exactly meet the requirements?”, “What will they tell me now?”. There are situations during which the impostor syndrome is exacerbated: when a person does something new and meaningful. For example, going to an interview in a new field.

What to do with an impostor?

It is important and necessary to make friends with an impostor. Ulyana Khodorivskaya highlights several recommendations on how to do this:

• "Appropriate the impostor." You literally need to say to yourself that this is part of your inner reality, and you are an adult. An adult has the ability and tools to control his impostor.
• Separate the attitude towards yourself as a person from the professional assessment of your qualities. It is better to work out the attitude towards yourself as a person with a psychotherapist, and the attitude towards yourself as a professional can be worked out on your own. Assigning self-esteem is the answer to the question: “What do I think of myself?”. The second question is: “How does the market evaluate me?” Your own opinion of yourself as a professional can be below the baseboard, but if society pays you money, then this is an indicator that the problem is more with self-esteem than with professional qualities.
• Ask yourself the question: "Why do I need an impostor?". It happens that the impostor does not let us into those situations for which we are not ready and works as a defense mechanism.
• Know your limits like a pro. A strong professional with strong self-esteem knows where his core competencies are (that is, what he does best). This is necessary in order to understand what you want and how to achieve it.

Do you have impostor syndrome and does it interfere with your learning to code? We are waiting for your comments.