Banish impostor syndrome
HOW often do we feel we’re alone battling our innermost insecurities when in reality almost everyone else around us is in the same boat? Have you ever found yourself in a professional setting when you looked at all the other overachievers surrounding you and felt, irrationally, you didn’t belong in their midst?
Let me be specific: Did you find yourself entertaining such disconcerting thoughts because you felt like a fake who had only gone as far as you had through beginner’s luck?
Let’s consider this from a different angle. Have you ever listened to that old Platters song The Great Pretender (www. youtube.com/watch?v=rwfmbXJEBtY) and sung along not just because of its wonderful melody but because you inaccurately related its lyrics to your career or social standing?
If so, I’m here to inject a little sanity into your thought life! If what I’ve described resonates with you, there is a reason for it. Now, before I hammer home my point with all the enthusiasm of Chris Hemsworth’s Thor, let me tell you I KNOW beyond all shadow of doubt you have experienced astounding levels of success in life. Yet, of course, like all of us I am also certain you have NOT YET attained everything you hope for in life. How can I be so sure? Simply put, because you and I are more alike than we are different. And that’s true even if you don’t happen to share my particular gender, ethnicity or educational background. We are all human beings who understand love, struggle, ambition, heartache, failure and success.
What I find fascinating, though, is almost all of us also share that somewhat scary, decidedly odd phenomenon called Impostor Syndrome.
IMPOSTOR SYNDROME
A simple description of Impostor Syndrome (or IS) is a (hopefully) short-lived but nonetheless disturbing sense of being a fake or a phony despite possessing a proven track record of genuine success in many areas of life.
It is a widespread phenomenon that affects most of us at least occasionally. Yet the reason it isn’t talked about in the open more often is that almost all of us assume we’re the only ones going through it.
The term “Impostor Syndrome” was coined a little over 40 years ago in a 1978 academic paper by two clinical psychologists, Pauline Clance and Suzanne Imes. They published their ground-breaking paper in the journal Psychotherapy: Theory, Research & Practice.
Their research sampled high achieving women who, despite their undeniable successes, still felt, sometimes, like fakes.
Later, it was discovered both men and women are afflicted with this insidious phenomenon, which has no real relevance to the vast majority of us because we have attained our various successes fair and square. (Of course, every community has its tiny percentage of scammers and crooks who are impostors; yet such offenders know they are proactively trying to cheat the rest of us and so, in a sense, are true to themselves.)
For regular, capable, good people who experience the occasional bout of IS, the best way to deal with it is to take a close look at our personal rosters of success, thus far. This is why I sometimes — when it is appropriate and needed — recommend to my life planning and holistic financial planning clients to start and maintain a Success Journal in which a description of their various “wins” is penned down as a permanent reminder of their high value as successful succeeding people.
Over time, this journal provides them with an objective historical record of their long string of life victories, often from kindergarten to university to the boardroom and beyond.
Additionally, over the years I have come to the realisation that the simple act of breaking a personal cycle of overspending by choosing to “Pay Yourself First” before any monthly expenses are paid to others is a profoundly effective way of injecting hope for the future and growing personal self-worth. In practical terms, it just involves starting a savings account or portfolio.
SAVING MONEY
May I suggest, therefore, that if — or more likely when — you experience selfdoubt bubbling up inside your psyche and whispering the common lie that regardless of your many personal and professional accomplishments you don’t deserve to be where you are today, you then look at the money you’ve ferreted away these past months, years or decades and allow that tangible proof of your self-discipline and capacity to exercise delayed gratification to banish such lies?
Why would such a basic life habit as saving money be so effective in dealing with IS? Here’s what I think:
Our world’s economic system is geared toward separating people from their money as rapidly as possible. Therefore, those of us who buck the trend — and choose to first save, and later to save and invest, our money — are creating for ourselves tangible proof of our undeniable worth as human beings of phenomenal value.
Here’s how the 20th century philanthropist and insurance magnate W. Clement Stone viewed this compelling truth:
“If you cannot save money, the seeds of greatness are not in you.”
It’s a bald, cold, hard statement, but I know the seeds of greatness are in you. So, I urge you to harness this foundational life discipline to simultaneously enrich your family and to banish the insidious power of Impostor Syndrome from your life.
© 2019 Rajen Devadason
Read his free articles at www. FreeCoolArticles.com; he may be connected with on LinkedIn at www. linkedin.com/in/rajendevadason, or via rajen@RajenDevadason.com You may follow him on Twitter @RajenDevadason