How I Calmed My Imposter Syndrome with These Two Tricks
‘Show them how smart you are’ wasn’t a very successful way to make friends
Most people think of Imposter Syndrome as expressing itself most simply as “I don’t belong here,” as in “I’m not worthy of this success, am all a fraud, and will eventually fail.” For me it was a bit different. My belief was that I did belong, but barely, and in order to maintain my place, needed to constantly remind people/show that I was smart. Needless to say, this inner voice isn’t a healthy one when trying to work on teams and inspire trust.
I’ve written before around my own challenges outrunning the ‘failure tiger’ nipping at my heels for so many years and how that finally resolved. Now I wanted to get a bit deeper on the Imposter Syndrome side and the two hacks which calmed my anxiety. Assume zen pose….
- What Would 18 Year Old Hunter Think About Where You Are?
Through a lot of my 20s/30s the meta-question of “am I doing enough? accomplishing enough? fast enough before I’m X years old” was a cerebral echo.
Sometimes people would tell me to calm down, seek balance and so on but this only caused me to think they were trying to make me complacent. “Yeah, whatever,” I’d think while listening to their wisdom, “that sounds fine…
