Do we ever really lose that ‘imposter syndrome’ feeling — do we want to?

My recurring nightmare

Just over 6 months into a new role and I still get the weekly feeling of imposter syndrome. More than ten years since I finished my education and set out on the career path as a fledgeling service designer, this ever present fear is by my side.

Imposter syndrome is loosely defined as doubting your abilities and feeling like a fraud. It can affect many different people in different ways and to different extremes. For me personally, it’s usually more like a healthy nervousness — Will I fit in? Do I deserve to be here? Can I do good work?

It’s also very cyclical. I arrive at a new role, a new place, I don’t know how capable the people I’ll be working with are, I don’t know how hard the job will be, everything’s new. Over time I slowly adapt to the new environment, the people, the role itself. I’ll even go through a phase when I pretend to know some stuff that if I’m being honest with myself, I don’t really know. But this pushes me to learn these new things, and so it progresses.

During peak ‘syndrome’, my biggest fear is one of being found out, being exposed as a failure. But, at the same time I begin to realise that when I do fail, and I DO fail, it provides me with something new to learn from. As time passes, when I begin to actually learn new things, I progress and start to realise that I’m probably capable. I also realise that the company and the people who work there also have their own flaws, flaws I could not have seen from the outside. This is in no way a negative thing, it’s a realisation that we are all equally capable and yet at the same time, equally limited. It dawns on me once again that I’m no different to everyone else. In the words of Frigga, Thor’s mother from the Marvel Cinematic Universe;

“Everyone fails at who they’re supposed to be, Thor. The measure of a person, is how well they succeed at being who they are.”

Marvel’s Avengers:Endgame — Frigga Freyrdottir

So eventually, after the failures and the learnings, I realise who I’m supposed to be within this new role and my imposter syndrome begins to subside. But, after varying degrees of time, this leads to me moving on as I either no longer feel like I’m growing or I don’t see a path to growth and I get bored.

Avoiding the fear of failure

As I said at the beginning, my feelings are more akin to a healthy nervousness, but one that can grow into a fear of failure if left unchecked. Yet for many others it’s more than that, much more. Consider you’re afraid. Not just afraid of a new role, but afraid of yourself, others, the world itself. What if your fear was so bad that the last thing you want to know is more, you believe it’s better to leave what you don’t know shrouded in mystery.

Imagine not allowing yourself to even know what you want. Knowing would mean hoping for something and to some, that’s risky. When you hope, this can lead to failure. But what if you are afraid of failure? Then you do not allow yourself to know what you want.

I presume this fear of failure could be so strong for some, that they don’t allow themselves to hope for something new, to consider what could be. Instead they hide these thoughts deep down and refuse to process them. But, what if over time they continue to ignore these inner questions? My gut feeling is when they do finally ask them, they are likely to be met with disappointment and overwhelming anxiety. If you bury the little things, they will eventually expose themselves in a devastating way, as we so often hear and see from relationships for example.

What’s more, extracting useful information from experiences is difficult. The simplest response is to look away. Without focussed purpose, like that of a challenging role, I feel people risk missing out on unexploited possibilities and in turn experiencing the disappointment and disorganisation that comes with such a missed opportunity.

“So what should you do instead of hiding things in the fog? Admit to your feelings. Best to find out what is true, to disperse the fog, to be able to avoid the danger you are willing to see.”

‘Beyond Order’ — Jordan Peterson

Utilising transversal competences

Obviously, not everyone experiences feelings such as imposter syndrome, or the fear of failure. For many, self satisfaction is easily reached. They don’t feel that horrible discomfort when you look at yourself and you don’t like what you see, of analysing yourself and finding flaws in your techniques. But for those that do, there’s inspiration to be found in alternative places.

I’m a big believer in transversal competences, skills and learnings that are transferable between activities. For example, let’s consider sport and the many techniques and disciplines we learn from competitive activities that can be reapplied throughout many different parts of our lives.

Success in sport, as with many other disciplines, often means trying, failing short, recalibrating and trying again. Sometimes all that learning, impossible without failure, leads you to see that aiming your ambition in a different direction would maybe even be better. Either way, the learning from the failure is key.

This success also means being able to evaluate yourself, to be self critical of who you are and how you apply yourself. It’s about comparing yourself to yourself, who you used to be. Are you growing? Are you challenging yourself? This is often one of the hardest things to do. As we referred to earlier, too often we bury the little things. By burying the little things, we are possibly hiding our true feelings, our emotions. But as the great mixed martial artist George St-Pierre says;

“Fights aren’t won on emotions, they are won on the very mundane things that you do every single day”.

George St-Pierre

Moving forward

If you just give the term ‘imposter syndrome’ a quick Google, you will likely see many articles and blogs offering advice on how to tackle it, how to eradicate it. But perhaps imposter syndrome is more of a gift than we often give it credit for. Perhaps we should instead be learning how to recognise it and find ways to harness it, to embrace it?

By embracing it, we can avoid burying the fear and instead control our emotions in a way that allows us to focus on tackling the mundane tasks we face daily. Only by focussing on these tasks, can we achieve what we need to achieve and avoid the chaos brought about by neglecting the little things.

Thanks to my friends and colleagues, particularly Cyril Maury and Stewart Allen, for going deep with me on this subject and helping me explore what’s really going on.