At a time we’ve all felt we were not good enough or we certainly are not one of the bright folks at work. Sometimes you feel your colleagues don’t think of you as the best person for the job, they feel you got qualified by merits and not skills or abilities.
These feelings or even worse are what is termed as the imposter syndrome and unfortunately it is spreading like wildfire in humans and nobody pays too much attention to it. As funny or weird as it sounds a lot of people, even the ones in high positions all feel like this once in a while or they feel like they don’t deserve all the great things they get.
So it’s not a shame or something bad to feel like this or think you are the only one in the world that feels like this. So what are the signs that you are suffering from imposter syndrome ?
To start with we all compare ourselves internally with other people’s external results forgetting the fact that you constantly battle anxiety and insecurities instead we take it all out on someone we believe is doing well physically and disregard what they feel within.
1. Procrastination: most times we lose the urge or energy to do a lot of stuff and tend to delay it involuntarily. This is not because you are lazy , it is most times just an effect of the imposter syndrome.
If we carefully think about it almost all of us fall for this particular sign of procrastinating. Sometimes we delay things and stall things just because we don’t want to see or discover if you are bad enough.
2. Eye service: you find yourself aiming at perfection simply because people are around and deep down you are probably confused and clumsy but you keep it all cool and collected . So we keep pushing ourselves way beyond our limits in trying to prove yourself right and become too prone to mistakes.
3. Overworking: it gets so bad that we begin to overwork ourselves in an attempt to make other people feel you are good enough or even more than enough for the job. At this stage you even tend to do other people’s jobs just to look good to them.
4. Apathy: at this stage we lower our expectations. We think so low of ourselves and already have excuses created up in our head about how we are not good enough. We begin to underestimate ourselves just as a coping mechanism to survive or stay relevant at work.
So when mistakes happens we believe or claim it was your fault instead and don’t even try to stand up and explain , we just accept people’s opinion
5. Transferring of blames: we start to blame other people for our own mistakes . In an attempt to look like a saint you stick out other people’s heads in the line and blame them for everything.
So look out for these signs and you’d then realize not just you is suffering from the imposter syndrome. It is also important to be aware that imposter syndrome is not a health disorder instead it is just a state of mind that handicaps us from thinking straight.
The moment you share your feelings or predicaments to other people and they share what they also feel you’d realize you were never alone, you’d realize everyone feels exactly the same well. We all feel we are never enough for anything.
So the fact that the imposter syndrome as been established how can you manage the situation?
Solutions to Imposter Syndrome
- Frequent self evaluation: this is a system you develop by writing and evaluating your little win. This is how you remind yourself of how integral and important you are to your employer and the job as a whole. Frequent self evaluation would definitely build up your self esteem and confidence . Your self evaluation could also come in the form of celebrating and making value out of your small successes. It can also go as far as writing down lists of things you believe and know vividly that you do so well, some people tag it as a mental list.
- Following up on the former point, documenting your daily achievements is important and can also help you feel better about yourself. Therapists suggest you write down your little list of things you did perfectly during the day to make it a form of encouragement to do better the following day. Eventually you would discover you are doing a lot more better than you think.
- Avoid Inferiority complex : most of us tend to compare other people’s successes to our own success. You have to remember that as much as you feel little or no way near someone, someone else feels very very minor to you and wishes your successes for himself. Also beware that because you attained a position faster does not mean you don’t deserve to be there, your results or outputs would speak for you.
- Flaunt your success : as complex as this sounds most of us probably get intimidated from sharing our success with others . You have to talk about your success once in a while and listen to people’s opinion and discover that a lot of people actually value your success better than you do.
The moment you can’t talk or flaunt your success to a second party , then you know this has kicked off the signs of the imposter syndrome and you have to fight against it , hence it dominates your mentality and limits your abilities.