We’ve all tried to be people other than ourselves, whether pretending we’re Australian Olympic divers at a hotel pool during a sibling’s softball tournament or pretending we’re Danish exchange students when we’re 15 so as to buy booze at a liquor store. (I know, very common examples, right?) But have you ever experienced feeling like an imposter simply because you’ve achieved something great?

 

Just the other weekend, I was visiting with a girlfriend who supports children with disabilities and is exceptional in her field; she is truly gifted at what she does. She told me how she had recently been recognized for her exceptional service and was given a gift card.

 

“That’s awesome, you deserve it! You must feel really proud,” I said, expecting her to beam with self-satisfaction.

 

But instead of a beam, I saw a sheepish look creep onto her face. She half-heartedly laughed, leaned toward me while grabbing both sides of our small dining room table and said quietly, “Well you know what’s funny?” with no sign of humour. “You know when you ran into me at the mall the other day?” I nodded. “Well I was determined to use that gift card right away because I had this weird sense that they were going to take it away from me once they realized that I didn’t deserve it after all.”

 

I looked at her, slack-jawed, and then we both laughed as we realized how bizarre it was. May I say again that this woman is very much looked up to in her workplace? Despite the terrific skills she possesses, and the acknowledgement of these by her co-workers and superiors, she still felt that she had somehow duped them all.

 

“I’ve heard of other people who’ve experienced this!” I said to her. “The idea that we’ve somehow fooled people into believing we’re greater than we are. It’s some kind of syndrome or something.”

 

Imposter Syndrome is defined as:

 

I soon realized that my friend’s experience wasn’t so bizarre when I began to learn, through Amy Cuddy’s book Presence, that this is a fairly common phenomenon. And it’s something that doesn’t mainly happen with women, it’s very prevalent in men as well.

 

Though the word “high-achieving” is used in the definition, and there are many celebrities who have identified dealing with this syndrome, such as Meryl Streep and Denzel Washington, I think it’s a phenomenon that many of we “average” folks also experience—or at least aspects of it.

 

I decided to see if others I knew, aside from my gift card receiving girlfriend, had experienced Imposter Syndrome. I was shocked when the next person I asked, another woman who I admire greatly, related a story to me regarding feeling like an imposter. She told me that several years ago, a co-worker who she once saw as a mentor, publicly embarrassed her regarding a work-related task she had taken on. Though the task was in an area she was extremely proficient in, she recalls that her confidence was impacted significantly due to the embarrassment; she felt that the people who witnessed the debacle would suddenly realize her now-obvious incompetence (that hadn’t existed before this).

 

She laughed and said over the phone, “Even years later, I still feel like the people who were there are thinking of a way to tell me I was an imposter and didn’t have the skills to do the job. Once they figure it out, they’ll make that call and I’ll be exposed.” Again, I was gobsmacked that a woman who is a very successful, intelligent professional would feel this way.

 

She also shared with me that her daughter, who is also a prosperous professional and currently climbing her way up the ladder very quickly, experiences this quite a bit. A strategy that she and her daughter use is to consciously put those fears “back in the box”.

 

“In fact,” she said, “I haven’t thought about this in a long time and now my worries are coming back about those people calling to expose me, and I have to put it all back in the box!”

 

We laughed about the probability that those people had likely long forgotten about the incident, but when something affects us profoundly, we carry it forward and believe that others do too.

 

“I would love to write about Imposter Syndrome,” I said to my friend who was busy putting her anxiety back in a box, “but I don’t know if I’ve experienced it.”

 

“I don’t think it’s only within our jobs,” she said, “it can be about relationships too. Like we’re going to be found out that we’re not the parent people believe us to be. Or maybe we have a terrific friend and we think that we don’t deserve them, that we somehow have the wool pulled over their eyes. Or really, anything we feel we’ve achieved and don’t deserve credit for.”

 

And then suddenly, it hit me, from way down in those hidden depths of my memory. Oh wow. Oh crap. I had experienced this after all—in fact, pretty early in life. My school years began to anxiously bubble back like sharp gas pains rumbling in my gut.

 

When I was younger, I did really well in school. I received high grades and won several awards. But I also put a lot of effort into my school life, mostly because I enjoyed school, but also because I was a sponge and the praise was my water. And I was a “nice” girl, so teachers often asked me to be the one to run to the office to get supplies or to read aloud in class. Sounds pleasant enough in a sickly nice girlishness kind of way, right?

 

 

 

But there was something that niggled, a subtle though unpleasant voice. Which feelings had come knocking? Fear intermingled with shame and unworthiness? I recall a relentless look-around-me-to-see-who’s-paying-attention state which was, at times, exhausting. It was a voice that breathed heavy with worry, “One day they’ll all see your imperfections and realize that you’re not the successful person they think you are!”

 

People would say to me, “Wow, you must be so smart to get straight ‘A’s!” I would smile shyly, thinking how much I would love for more people to be around to hear this praise so as to receive my craved external validation—was it convincing me or them? Inwardly, I would hear my voices: But I worked hard to get those ‘A’s—Christie barely studied and she got good marks too, she’s the smart one. Or: You should see me at Jeopardy, I suck. Now those people are smart! They deserve the big win, but me?

 

All it would take is for one teacher to say, “Have you ever wondered if Nicole really does deserve the grades and accolades she’s getting?” That’s all it would take—just one teacher speaking the unspeakable!

 

Another teacher would then chime in, “Wow, I hadn’t thought of that! I mean, look at her, she’s nice and comes from a good family, that’s obviously the only reason she’s done well. Anyone in her situation would. What are we, stupid? How could we be such fools to believe her façade? Let’s call her out on it, how about over the PA system or better yet, at an assembly!”

 

But it didn’t stop there (what the hell was I thinking, wishing I could relate to this Imposter Syndrome?). As I reflected further, I remembered meeting a boy at university. Obviously, I had met many boys before that, but this wasn’t just any boy.

 

Let me back up and say that I didn’t have the best success with boys in high school—either I had a crush and he didn’t like me back or someone had a crush on me and I didn’t like him back, it was forever lop-sided. I was also a very sensitive and private person (yes, I know, private? you’re thinking while reading my very public blog) and living in a small town left me feeling extremely exposed, so I didn’t get up to much in terms of relationships.

 

Needless to say, it surprised me when this boy who was cute, smart AND personable (was this possible?) liked me and I liked him back! To top it off, he wasn’t a game-player like so many boys I had met—he seemed genuine.

 

When he first called me, I was over the moon. But we had met at a bar, so he didn’t really know me. This left me to wonder if, when he got to know me, would he find something he didn’t like? But after the first, second and even third time hanging out, he kept calling. What? Still in my teens and a lot to learn about truly loving myself, I couldn’t help but think I had fooled him into liking me.

 

He’s going to find me out, I thought.  I don’t know what, but there’s going to be something. Maybe that I’m boring (contrary to an active social life), maybe he’d think my boobs are too small (or maybe he likes girls with super small boobs and mine are too big). Or maybe that I doubt myself too much (contrary to… um… hmm). But I was sure this guy who had it all together (as all nineteen-year-old boys do) was going to clue in to something and then relationship finito. Or he’d find a girl who was perfect and who deserved him much more than I.

 

I’ll end it there. Ugh, I look back on my insecurities and want to heave. The relationship didn’t last long, I soon discovered that his supposed genuineness was a great cover for the other girl he was seeing (see? I’m sure she was perfect). What I had feared materialized. And my now wiser and more confident self wonders if I had actually self-sabotaged the relationship due to my nagging doubts that I somehow wasn’t good enough.

 

Looking back, I don’t know how conscious those thoughts really were. But I do know that I’m in a more solid space to be able to inspect them closely; those experiences feel trivial now whereas at the time, they were huge and too raw to be poked.

 

In her blog, Lisa Evans makes a noteworthy statement (while quoting Melody J. Wilding, workplace psychology coach and professor of human behavior at The City University of New York Hunter College) that I believe relates to the Imposter Syndrome experience:

 

 

I wonder if we sometimes negate our successes, and our abilities that led us to those, at least partially because we see our own imperfections so clearly and compare those to others’ “perfections”. As Cuddy writes, it doesn’t mean that it’s because we’re conceited, it just means that it’s because we live from our own perspectives 24/7.

 

We’ve smelled our own worst odours; seen our skin abnormalities in magnified mirrors and merciless lighting; heard cringe-worthy noises and seen revolting fluids escape unsophisticated parts of ourselves; and witnessed every single one of our stupidest thoughts.

 

Conversely, we see others’ masks that hide their imperfections. With most others, we’ve only been privy to pleasant deodorant and makeup-covered skin; we’ve missed those noises that were held back by clenched butts and those stupid thoughts that were never said. Are we convinced that only those perfect people who are glorious freaks of nature achieve great things? I mean, why would someone so flawed as myself gain accolades? I imagine that the logical conclusion for some of us is that we must have fooled them all.

 

It surprised me, after I wrote my first blog about relationship ebbs and flows, how many people said they were shocked that my marriage had rough spots (or that my husband was okay with me writing about our rough spots). Had I put out the impression that my marriage was flawless? Sure. Well, maybe not flawless, but I wasn’t about to announce to someone who I didn’t know well that I was in a lousy mood that morning because my husband and I had scrapped before I left for work. Or after I see a post on Facebook about someone’s trip to Hawaii for her ten-year wedding anniversary, my first inclination isn’t to respond that my husband and I have forgotten about our anniversary several times and our ten-year was spent watching AFV reruns with the kids over a tuna casserole dinner.

 

Does being a great spouse mean I don’t fight with my partner? Does being a great mom mean I don’t lose it once in awhile? Does being a great employee mean I’ve never screwed up? Does being a great friend mean I’ve never gossiped? But still, it amazes me that even when I know that no one is perfect, I still look at someone projecting perfection and think, But maybe they are!

 

What I’ve concluded by examining the Imposter Syndrome is that if we continue to feel like we don’t deserve what we’ve achieved, or that others deserve it more, the empowering feeling of success that we have the right to feel after an accomplishment is sapped by feelings of fear and inadequacy.

 

My highly skilled friend who supports children with disabilities deserves to hold onto that gift card until she’s bloody-well ready to spend it, without fear that it will be swiped away. And my exceptionally competent friend who benefited by putting her past anxieties in a box deserves to feel proud of her skills she put into the criticized task, regardless of the insensitive faultfinder (who likely has his own stuff to work on) who knocked her down. None of us are perfect, but it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have the right to own it when we achieve great things.

 

So, I’m putting my experiences out there—perhaps you have similar ones that would benefit by shining a light on them. As with all things we feel shameful about, once we share them and they’re no longer lurking in the dark and gaining power by whispering from behind a corner so as not to be heard by others (as per my blog My Front Bumper: Reflections on Image), the shame diminishes.

 

I’ll leave you with an excerpt from a powerful, well-known quotation by Marianne Williamson that I’m sure at least some of you are familiar with:

 

(Full Quotation)

And yeah, I guess I could work on knowing that I deserved what I achieved in my youth. Yup, I think I’m totally over this Imposter Syndrome now that I’m an adult. I mean, I’m pursuing my passion and things are great. Though I do often wonder if I can keep thinking of topics that people are interested in. Sure, maybe the first couple blogs over well, but I’m going to run out of juice fast. Come to think of it, my life is boring as hell, who wants to hear about it? I’m just writing about thoughts, there’s nothing significant or talented about that and you’re all going to find me out soon enough, it’s just a matter of time. Stop, wait, time to tuck that crap away in a box… because really, who are any of us not to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?

 

~

 

For more on Amy Cuddy, I encourage you to listen to her TED Talk where she discusses how body language shapes us.