The Imposter Syndrome: leading with a diaper on

"You don't know shit, you're worthless, and any day now, people will see what you are: a fraud." Sounds familiar?

Here are three tips to overcome imposter syndrome.

This is a personal story I want to share because I know quite a few female leaders who suffer from recurrent feelings of failing and faking. Their hurting touches me.

Convinced that one cannot fully exploit one's talents when held down by the Gremlins, I'm on a crusade to help liberate leaders from their inner critic and be the best they can be.

I've been struggling for years with Gremlins whispering with their creepy little voices: 'What a mess you have made!", "You just can't do anything right, can you?", "Typically you, to screw things up from the very beginning!", "People will soon find out that you can't do anything, that you don't know a thing, that you are the Great Pretender!"

Those Gremlins keep you down and small. Self-development and growth are barely existent or take baby steps. You are in constant self-doubt and thus undecisive. Every well-meant feedback is a major blow to your fragile ego. You work your ass off, but you see people less talented than you advance professionally, and you wonder why you keep lagging in your career.

You were not born with Imposter Syndrome; it is not a disease or a fad, nor is it a trait. It is a pattern of self-deprecating thoughts established in your youth.

These feelings of unworthiness will not magically disappear. Not with age, not with medicines, not with yoga. But you can be talked out of it, though, assuming a lobotomy is out of the question.

Here's what I did when I realized I was running out of time to be the best I can be and do grand things (in my eyes).

1. Therapy:
   1. Accept: I found the root cause of my lack of self-worth, and I accepted it. I carry no hard feelings towards my significant ones
   2. Confront: my therapist challenges my assumptions about how people see me. Her (gentle) demands for proof leave me dumbfounded. I understand now it's all in my head
   3. Build: my therapist asks about my achievements, and however much I try to minimalize them, she reframes them into wins and builds positive reinforcement. Again, and again and again.
2. A mentor: many years my junior, my mentor is a Sunday Child, happy, grounded, stable, and loving. His free and remarkably positive spirit inspires me not to take myself so seriously all the time, that trying alone is worth applause, and that there is no shame in not doing things perfectly. And he respects me
3. Practice giving and accepting compliments: truly enjoy both parties' warm fuzzy feeling when praise is given. Learn to authentically give first, then taking in every compliment as an expression of appreciation will be easier.

Imposter syndrome is even worse an ordeal if you are a leader. People look to you to guide the way and to make decisions. If they notice Gremlins eating at your soul, you'll never be the leader you potentially can be. The realization of your ambition will ALWAYS be a bridge too far with an army of Gremlins crowded on your shoulders. Trust me, I know.

👹 Imposter syndrome is debilitating. Break the vicious cycle of self-sabotage. Get rid of your Gremlins. Invite Tweety.