How to overcome imposter syndrome when you are one.
Read in 5 minutes, 58 seconds (or skip to the TLDR at the bottom)
We’re all familiar with imposter syndrome by now: the fear that you aren’t qualified enough for or don’t deserve your position when, in fact, you do. I recently heard someone say (and if you know the originator of the idea, please leave a comment) that:
Imposter syndrome is what gatekeepers call exclusion to make you feel like it’s all just in your head.
In a world of niching and experts, of stiff competition and entry level jobs requiring multiple degrees, we’ve lost touch with one of the most human ways to learn: learning by doing. Abandoning the way humans have learned for the entirety of history and prehistory (from oral history to apprenticeships) we now expect everyone on the job to know everything about it before they start. We use phrases like “fake it until you make it” and frame learning as a shameful thing to hide. If the vulnerability of learning is a disqualifying factor, it leads us to hypervigilance and perfectionism. In other words: never feeling capable, ready or good enough.
It rarely works to just tell ourselves “I’m not an imposter. I deserve to be here”. Because the cultural obsession with perfection is bigger than us.
It’s time to reclaim learning by doing, and reframe the “imposter”.
We’re so afraid to be caught “being an imposter”, and that’s understandable. We might be sent to the stocks to be pummelled with virtual tomatoes. However, I think the best antidote to this fear is Imposter syndrome exposure therapy. What if the worst is true, and what’s on the other side? I’m willing to lead by example, so let me tell you about a time I was 100% an imposter. Brazenly. In a way that weirded out my friends. And what I learned from that experience. (Spoiler, it was a great experience).
Story time:
I took violin and fiddle lessons from age 8-15. I became competent, decent even, but not amazing. Several of my close friends did become amazing (like, full ride scholarships to prestigious music schools, amazing).
Fast-forward to my early 20s: my life had completely fallen apart. I was sick, out of work, heart broken… in other words, I was in my 20s. I was looking at what skills I could use to make a living and thought: “ok, I’ve invested a lot of time into learning violin. Maybe I could teach?”. So I made a sign and a Craigslist ad. People began to trickle in. Some stayed, some moved on. I eventually hit my goal of 12 students and (between that and childcare work) managed to support myself. When I’d had enough, I handed my students off to another teacher and transitioned into a new career.
Here’s the thing, by many standards, I was a complete imposter. I wasn’t qualified, accomplished, or driven by a sense of purpose. I do genuinely love and study music, but I never planned to be a teacher. In fact, I had never taught anything, and hadn’t studied violin for about 8 years. I’d never played or performed violin professionally. I had “no right” to be doing what I was doing (a thought that my more qualified friends had a really hard time concealing). I caught flack from my peers for my pricing, my skill level, and my audacity.
But the key phrase here is “by many standards”. I wasn’t an imposter because I lied to my students. As advertised, I taught beginners what I knew about music. The problem was, that by some standards I didn’t know enough. I wasn’t ticking the right boxes to be in the club.
The moral of the story:
While I may have started out as an “imposter”…
a) I didn’t stay one for long. Humans learn by experience and in iterative patterns. We watch, and we attempt. Rinse and repeat. Through teaching, I became a better teacher. I built skills that I use in my coaching practice to this day. I honed my patience by sitting through simple tunes played slowly and squeakily for hours on end. I played slowly. I got my students to play even slower. I learned to watch them for overwhelm, and read their nervous systems.
b) I found my people.
Learning, business… life. It’s all about relationships. The people who stuck liked my style. The people who stayed for years stayed because it was a good fit. Most importantly, we genuinely enjoyed each other's company. Learning without delight is hollow and gruelling. Having a teacher you enjoy makes for more efficient learning. I found that the people I could help the most were adult beginners; people who were accomplished in other areas of life. They wanted to play music, but found the embarrassment of starting out hard to overcome. I became skilled at interrupting their inner critics and making space for them to explore courageously. In fact, this is what ultimately put me on the path to my coaching practice.
c) I built a ton of other useful skills.
I learned to run a small business. To save for taxes, and implement systems. To let go of bad-fit clients, and collect on past-due fees. To create and hold boundaries. To be professional even when I felt tired and off. And my fiddle playing got better too (playing slowly for hours will do that).
d) I learned that experts don’t always make the best teachers.
My proficient fiddler friends who had spent countless hours and resources becoming as virtuosic as possible didn’t want to teach beginners. They would have found it hard to be patient, and it would have been a waste of their skills. It turns out that, despite our obsession with resumes & credentials, we learn better from people closer to our skill level. When the skill gap is too big, students can easily begin to feel humiliated and discouraged. When we compare our beginner work to someone’s expert work, it feels inaccessible or impossible. The gap is too big to imagine a pathway. Experts often don’t remember what it’s like not to know something. And it’s easy for the teacher to slip into an arrogant * teaching * mannerism that makes students feel bored, passive, or even offended and resistant. I say this from experience. In fact, my one regret is that I probably did too much “teaching”.
And finally, by learning with my students, I modelled vulnerability in learning and made it safe for them to do the same. I didn’t present a polished, expert exterior. Instead, I showed that with confidence in one’s existing knowledge and ability to learn, mistakes were not only not a big deal, but part of a healthy learning process.
One BIG important caveat: learning structures are important when dealing with arenas where it would be easy to do harm. There are good reasons behind why we have things like medical schools, and regulatory bodies for architects, engineers and psychiatrists. That’s why I sought proper credentialling as a coach. Digging around in people’s minds and life can cause damage if done ignorantly. I wanted to know and follow the ethical standards and best practices.
But having said that, it’s also true that we’ve strayed way too far from our natural human learning patterns of watching and trying. Many of us are so afraid of “getting things wrong” that we give up too soon, or (even worse) never seriously try at all.
TLDR:
Being an imposter is an ungenerous name for a stage of learning. This isn’t fake it until you make it. It’s more like “do it until you understand it”.
The “faking” and “imposter” feelings are products of an unreasonable expectation that one should only do something once one can do it perfectly.
xo Annalee
If you’re struggling with feeling like an imposter in your work and creative life these days, coaching can help you get to the bottom of what’s under that feeling and find a pathway through it. If that sounds like something you might need you can learn more here.