The disease called ‘self-doubt’

The imposter syndrome is a psychological phenomenon where victims are unable to internalise their achievements. It is characterised by feelings of inadequacy that persist even when there’s adequate proof of the opposite. PHOTO | FILE

What you need to know:

  • Do you suffer from imposter syndrome constantly thinking you are about to get busted for not being as clever, intelligent, resourceful, energetic or creative as everyone says and thinks you are?

  • First explored by American psychologists in the 1970’s, the imposter syndrome is a psychological phenomenon where victims are unable to internalise their achievements. It is characterised by feelings of inadequacy that persist even when there’s adequate proof of the opposite.

  • If you answered yes to any of these questions, you are in great company. Unlike insecurity which is linked to under achieving, it is the successful and talented ones who are afflicted by the imposter syndrome.

Many mornings, Elizabeth, 29, has woken up with a deep sense of self doubt.

Despite overwhelming evidence of her abilities, she often feels that others must have overestimated her creative talent.

It wasn’t always like this: As a top student in her law class, she remembers being mostly self-assured… until her creative impulses had her pursuing a career in journalism soon after graduation.

On her first job as a reporter in a local media house, competition was tight, there were few mentors and she was thrown to the deep end.

Her bosses seem to think she is high achieving seeing as she has easily risen the ranks, but she admits that she has always been inwardly anxious.

She has lived with this nagging fear that she is not good enough, and many times after finishing a project, she wonders, ‘What if I can’t do the next one?” She waited for the interview to her current job as an online editor with dread and immediately after the interview, she began worrying about what would happen if she indeed got the job.

NAGGING DOUBTS

What if she couldn’t do it?

“Basically, I feel like I don’t deserve this position and it gets uncomfortable when someone says they think I am good at my job,” she says.

Medical school was easy, fun even, for 30-year-old Nazarene. Her first day of residency at a hospital in Dar es Salaam changed all this.

Suddenly, she was surrounded by all these great minds and she began wondering whether she had what it takes to be a doctor. It didn’t help that her colleagues at the same level appeared self-assured.

In the medical field, humility is a valuable attribute but meekness is different from a constant feeling of false pretence.

This feeling has had her fixated on not making a mistake rather than progressing.

She notes that it may be what altered her career path from surgery, her initial passion, to being a general practitioner, a field she associates with less risk. She seems oblivious of the fact that she is applying an unfairly high standard on herself.

Singer, song writer and events manager Linda Muthama is outwardly confident and accomplished, but she admits to having a hard time taking credit for her accomplishments.

She finds that the more she knows in music, the more she realises that she doesn’t know and this has her agonising even over the smallest imperfections.

“It’s greatest before a big concert, when I am meeting clients or when talking about my foundation The Laika Foundation,” she shares.

These are just three of scores of enormously successful and talented women in Kenya suffering from the imposter syndrome.

HIGH ACHIEVERS CLUB

First explored by American psychologists in the 1970’s, the imposter syndrome is a psychological phenomenon where victims are unable to internalise their achievements. It is characterised by feelings of inadequacy that persist even when there’s adequate proof of the opposite.

Do you ever feel like an intellectual phony? In fear that you are about to be unmasked as a fraud in your chosen career field?

Have you ever looked around your work station and wondered, ‘What gives me the right to be here?’

If you answered yes to any of these questions, you are in great company. Unlike insecurity which is linked to under achieving, it is the successful and talented ones who are afflicted by the imposter syndrome.

Even after several Academy awards nominations, actress Kate Winslet for instance has admitted to feeling like a fraud some mornings before going off to shoot

And after publishing 11 widely read books, novelist Maya Angelou owned up to fearing it would be found out that she had ran a game on everyone.

It seems like even fame doesn’t give you the confidence to overcome this.

The biggest culprit in this turn of events appears to be the messages of inadequacy that women especially are fed from birth.

She grows up struggling with feelings of inadequacy such that even when she gets to the top, she doesn’t recognise that she is at the top. It seems like the more educated we are, the less sure we are of ourselves.

Next, the growing culture of competitiveness is having women grow up in families that place a big emphasis on achievement.

These are the well meaning parents who are likely to feed their daughter with messages of superiority and when she goes out into the world and is faced with a real problem she begins to think that she is only average.

One might imagine this as a good thing since a victim tends to work harder so as not to be discovered but it can work against you.

Linda Muthama shares that her strife with feelings of inadequacy has her striving to attain utter perfection before she can share her art with the world, and sometimes this has led her to taking too long to deliver on deadlines

SECRET THOUGHTS

Beatrice Kilonzo, a human resources consultant, observes that the imposter syndrome may be one of the reasons why we still have a huge gender balance gap in the corporate world.

The imposter syndrome is characterised by a fear that one is going to be unmasked as a fake causing its victims to suffer in silence. It will be hard for this woman to gun for a top position or negotiate for better pay if she feels as if she isn’t qualified for the job she currently holds.

This woman genuinely feels inadequate and will react to compliments or proof of success by dismissing it as good luck or a consequence or good timing.

To get ahead, the corporate and business world out there requires that one is assertive and not afraid to make their achievements known and a woman who is constantly attributing her success to luck and other external sources other than her abilities might miss out on valuable chances.

Its one thing to feel less prepared than those around us and it is another to feel less deserving of your success. The latter, if not checked, is a feeling that can plague a woman for a lifetime. Can it be undone? Can one learn to internalise her achievements? The experts say yes.

In her book The Secret Thoughts of Successful Women, Dr. Valerie Young, a psychologist and author who has done extensive research on the subject, says that awareness is key.

This entails understanding the difference between feeling and reality and separating feelings from facts.

While Elizabeth and Nazarene have just begun understanding their feelings, Linda (the songbird) shares that for a few years now, she has tried to deal with this phenomenon through self acceptance and change of thinking.

She now focuses on what she does best, not perfection. Now she offers her best rather than the best.

“I also document my competencies and achievements at every birthday. It helps me remember how I earned the achievements, the late nights and the hard work. If someone compliments me on my achievements I can take it,” she says.

Are you suffering from the imposter syndrome?

 Find out by reading each of these statements and indicating how characteristic it is of you and how you react to situations.

  • You are afraid that people close to you will discover that you are not as talented or you do not have as much knowledge as they think you do.

  •  Usually you are crushed by constructive criticism because you see it as evidence of your ineptness.

  • You often chalk up your success to luck or timing.

  • You are going through life with a back up plan in case it’s discovered you are not as good.

  • When you are up for a promotion you do not tell anyone about it until it goes through.

  • When people praise you on your accomplishments, your knee jerk reaction is to down play your achievements.

  • Take a look at your work habits. You work harder than everybody else because you feel like you need to overcompensate.

  • You are outwardly confident but you often feel like you’re a good pretender.

  • Usually you avoid contest in areas where you feel vulnerable and shy away from challenges because of self doubt.

  • You compare yourself to others unfavourably.

Scoring guide

Strongly agree - 4, Agree - 3,

Disagree – 2, Strongly Disagree - 1.

1-10 – Your responses signal overconfidence. You are likely to overestimate your knowledge and underestimate risks. Also, you may have problems listening to feedback especially when it is about your mistakes.

11-29 – You seem to have healthy doses of self-doubt and self assuredness both of which are good to keep you in touch with your reality. You just need to stay conscious so that one doesn’t surpass the other.

30-40 – Your answers scream imposter syndrome. Now that you are aware it will be easier to learn to enjoy