Impostor Syndrom#

Impostor Syndrome is a psychological term often used to define people who are doubtful of their talents, skills, and even achievements. These people will often fear that their success will be taken away if others discover that they are “frauds.” Usually, when referring to impostor syndrome we are talking about people who are competent and have achieved the things they wanted to through hard work. However, in their mind, they tend to construct stories about how their success has been the result of deceiving others, bad timing, or luck.

Impostor Syndrome can be a complicated concept to break down but one of the most important things to understand about it is that usually there are triggers for those who suffer from it. Whether those triggers are self-imposed such as perfectionist tendencies or frequently comparing oneself to others around them and finding that they are inferior, or rather they are imposed by external circumstances, including family expectations, the results are the same. Impostor syndrome in that sense often stems from the person in question having emotions of inadequacy in connection to their achievements.

Once these feelings have emerged it will most commonly result in the emergence of certain characteristics for the person in question. These will include immense self-doubt, often believing that their success is because of external factors, overworking and even undervaluing their success and achievements. However, as all of these actions can result in someone feeling even more deflated, it is better for those dealing with such emotions to instead share their feelings and go through some therapy for cognitive restructuring to replace those negative thought patterns. It can also be helpful to collect evidence relating to how they are not a fraud or impostor and keep those on hand for reference.