Do I have Imposter Syndrome?

“Do I have imposter syndrome?”

It is a question I hear surprisingly often, particularly from people who, from the outside, seem like the last people who should be asking it.

They may be successful business owners, experienced professionals, founders, leaders or people who have spent twenty years becoming very good at what they do. They have qualifications, experience, clients and plenty of evidence that they are capable. However, something does not quite feel right.

Perhaps they constantly second guess decisions or worry about making mistakes that other people seem able to brush off. They achieve something significant and within a few days it somehow doesn't seem particularly impressive anymore. Some continually compare themselves with people who appear more confident or accomplished. Others work incredibly hard because slowing down creates the uncomfortable feeling that they should be doing more.

And quite a few have become extremely good at looking confident while inside they are  questioning themselves.

So, do they have imposter syndrome?

The answer is not always as straightforward as people expect.

Imposter syndrome does not always look like feeling like a fraud

When people hear the term imposter syndrome, they often imagine someone walking into work every morning thinking, “I have absolutely no idea what I am doing and sooner or later everybody is going to discover me.”

It can certainly feel like that. But professional self doubt is often much subtle.

Someone might be perfectly confident in parts of their job and still struggle enormously with others. A successful founder might have no problem making a million pound commercial decision but spend two days worrying about whether something they said in a meeting sounded stupid.

An experienced leader might be comfortable managing fifty people but become surprisingly anxious when asked to speak in front of two hundred.

A highly qualified professional might be the person everyone else asks for advice, yet still seek reassurance before trusting their own decisions.

This is why I think there is a more useful question than simply asking, “Do I have imposter syndrome?”

How is self doubt showing up for me?

That question tends to reveal much more.

You constantly second guess yourself

One of the most common patterns I see is second guessing. Perhaps a decision gets made, but it doesn't quite feel finished.

You go back to it in your mind.

Was that definitely the right thing to do? Was there another option? Should I ask somebody else? Perhaps I need to research it a little more.

There is nothing wrong with thinking carefully. Good decision making requires thought. The problem comes when thinking stops producing useful information and starts producing more uncertainty. Sometimes the person already knows what they think. What they are really searching for is the feeling of certainty. Unfortunately, important decisions rarely come with that guarantee. If there is a repeated need to check, reconsider and seek another opinion before trusting your own judgement, it may be worth becoming curious about what is driving it.

Your achievements never seem to count for very long

Another pattern is minimising success. Someone receives a promotion and thinks they were simply in the right place at the right time. They build a successful business but focus on somebody whose business is bigger. A client praises their work and they immediately explain why it was not really anything special.

I know this pattern personally.

Earlier in my career, people would tell me I had achieved a great deal. I could see the evidence, but emotionally it did not seem to register in the same way. I would minimise achievements, move quickly onto the next thing and constantly second guess myself.

Looking back, I eventually realised something important.

I was allowing my doubts to count as evidence while finding reasons why my successes should not.

If every achievement is discounted, another achievement will always be needed.

You feel as though you still have something to prove

This can be particularly difficult to recognise because proving yourself can look remarkably like ambition.

Working hard, setting goals, improving, building a business and wanting to progress are not problems. Ambition can be enormously positive.

The interesting question is what the achievement is expected to provide. There is a difference between thinking, “I want to achieve this because it matters to me,” and “I need to achieve this because of what it will prove about me.”

Perhaps the next promotion will prove you are good enough. Perhaps reaching a particular income will finally make you feel successful. Perhaps another qualification will make you feel credible enough. Then the achievement arrives and feels good for a while. However, shortly afterwards, another target appears. When achievement becomes evidence of personal worth, the finish line has an annoying habit of moving.

You avoid being too visible

This one surprises people. Someone may genuinely want greater success while simultaneously feeling uncomfortable with the visibility that comes with it. An idea comes to mind in a meeting, but they decide not to say it. An invitation to speak arrives and the immediate thought is that somebody else would be better. A LinkedIn post gets written, edited six times and eventually deleted.

There can be perfectly good reasons for not wanting attention. Not everybody wants to be highly visible, and being private or introverted is not a problem. However, there is a difference between choosing not to be seen and being frightened of what might happen if you are seen.

Visibility creates opportunity, but it also creates the possibility of judgement.

If I share my opinion, somebody can disagree. If I apply, somebody can reject me. If I put my work in front of people, they can decide it is not good enough.

Staying in the background removes some of that risk.

Unfortunately, it can also remove some of the opportunity.

You need other people to tell you that you are doing okay

Then there is reassurance.

A decision has been made, but it feels much better once somebody else agrees with it. A presentation seemed to go well, but there is a need to hear someone say so, or a message is sent and there is an uncomfortable wait for the response.

Again, there is nothing wrong with asking for advice or enjoying positive feedback.

The question is whether feedback is useful information or whether it has become something needed in order to feel okay.

If confidence rises dramatically when somebody praises you and collapses when somebody criticises you, other people may have been given rather a lot of control over how you feel about yourself.

That can become exhausting because reassurance rarely lasts forever.

Sooner or later, another situation appears and another dose is required.

Perhaps the real issue is the gap between who you are and how you see yourself

This is the part I find particularly interesting.

Someone's external life can change enormously while their internal picture of themselves changes much more slowly.

They may now be a director, founder, surgeon or senior executive. Other people respond to the person they have become.

But internally, part of them may still be operating from an older version of themselves.

I describe this as an identity gap.

There is a gap between the evidence of who someone is today and the internal beliefs they still carry about themselves.

That helps explain why simply achieving more does not always solve self doubt.

If the internal blueprint remains the same, new achievements can simply be interpreted through the old story.

So, do you have imposter syndrome...?

I would be careful about turning imposter syndrome into another label we attach to ourselves.

It is not about diagnosing yourself because you occasionally doubt a decision, feel nervous before a presentation or compare yourself with somebody else. Most of us will experience some of these things at different points in our lives.

What matters is the pattern.

Does self doubt repeatedly influence decisions? Do achievements get minimised? Is there a continual need to prove yourself? Are opportunities avoided because visibility feels uncomfortable? Is confidence heavily dependent on reassurance, recognition or what other people think?

If several of those feel familiar, there may be something worth exploring.

It's a way of understanding a pattern gives you the opportunity to change it.

A better question to ask

Instead of only asking:

“Do I have imposter syndrome?”

Try asking:

“How is self doubt showing up in my life and what might it be costing me?”

This I have found with clients is an important distinction.

Perhaps it is costing time through overthinking, opportunities are being missed or decisions take longer than necessary. Maybe success has become difficult to enjoy because attention immediately moves to the next target.

Or perhaps everything looks successful from the outside, but internally there is still the feeling that you have something left to prove.

That is exactly why I created The Imposter Index™.

It looks at five areas: Self Worth and Identity, Self Doubt, Proving Yourself, Avoiding Visibility and Need for Validation.

Rather than simply giving yourself a label, it helps identify where these patterns may be showing up for you.

The assessment takes around two minutes and gives you your Imposter Index™ score.

Take The Imposter Index™ and discover your score

If what you discover makes you curious about why these patterns are there and how they might be changed, this is also the kind of work I do with people in my coaching.

In a Gap Analysis session, I will be able to help you look at your Blueprint, and show you pretty much how to change it, and start changing the way you feel about yourself, success and get you moving forward.

You are always welcome to message me and have a conversation.

About David Rahman

David Rahman is a mind coach, author and speaker who has spent over two decades helping people understand and overcome the internal barriers that can hold them back.

His work focuses particularly on self doubt, imposter syndrome, overthinking, confidence and identity, helping business owners, founders, leaders and professionals understand the patterns behind how they think, feel and perform.

David is also the creator of The Imposter Index™, an assessment designed to help people identify how professional self doubt and imposter feelings may be showing up across five key areas.

The Imposter Index™ is a self awareness and professional development assessment. It is not intended to diagnose a mental health condition.

David's method of the Blueprint Process™ helps his clients discover where a change needs to take place and what to do immediately and moving forward.