What it mean to feel like an imposter?
The true definition of an imposter:
a person who pretends to be someone else in order to deceive others, especially for fraudulent gain.
But what if you are not intentionally setting out to deceive others for financial gain? What if they are assuming you know more than you do? They are leaning on you for advice. They may see you as an expert - and the truth of the matter is you may simply know more than they do... but in reality, you don't know enough to feel like an authority.
The confidence others instil in you will drive you to gain the knowledge you need to 'level up' to the bar they've set for you.
It hit me when I attended a conference where one of the speakers knew little about a topic (AI), it seemed like his confidence created a sort of 'blind ignorance.'
Naiveté - Young entrepreneurs are often naive because they've yet to experience setbacks or failures. They've yet to test their ideas against reality. But I admire their confidence. I admire their enthusiasm - something I once had more of before I knew too much.
Many people who experience imposter syndrome have a common theme: childhood messages play a role. It's not just frequent criticism that leads to this feeling. Sometimes, being raised to value your intelligence and achievements can make you worry about measuring up.
These experiences send a message that it's not okay to make mistakes or have doubts. Researcher and entrepreneur Lou Solomon says you can recognize people with imposter syndrome by how they avoid compliments. They don't believe their success is due to their abilities, so they feel uncomfortable when praised.
Often, they think their accomplishments are just luck. Imposter feelings may start in family life but can also come from new situations like getting a job, public speaking opportunities, or big changes in work or life
Becoming authentically inauthentic.
Triggers: There is a conflict between what we know to be true and the output of the program. We feel 'out of alignment' to our core values. It's often reflected in tension, friction, frustration, and discontent.
It's time to impersonate the person you want to be. Emulate the program until the emulation becomes it's own.
Imposter is defined as: "A person who pretends to be someone else in order to deceive others, especially for fraudulent gain."
Related: An impersonator, masquerader, pretender, imitator, deceiver, hoaxer, trickster, fraudster, swindler; fake, fraud, sham, phony, scammer.
Imposter is a negative label most of us try to avoid. But impersonator is someone we pay money to see. We pay money to go see cover bands. A comedian does an impersonation to president.
What if you began to impersonate the model of what you'd most like to become? Ronald Reagan impersonated a politician until he became one.
To label someone as an 'imposter' is to judge them. We believe they lack integrity, when in fact, they may have more integrity than we do. It's simply that they've aligned their integrity to something else.
Not being truthful. Putting up a false front. They are faking it and we can tell!
Since the word 'imposter' has a negative contagion, I know I'll avoid doing anything that would lead me to it. I'll continue to resist it. Is integrity holding me back? A new word needs to be defined. Enter the program: Impostability.
Impost-ability is a patch we can implement to redefine ourselves through untypical words and actions. It's doing what we'd otherwise avoid. It is often the first step to becoming. It's allowing me to get past a past that's been holding me back.
Does integrity inhibiting progress and perpetuate the past?
I've been holding the integrity program tightly for years. There's nothing wrong with integrity, it's an admirable quality. It's the beliefs in which integrity is rooted that I'm beginning to question.
Integrity will continue to serve me, but it's what I'm aligning my integrity to that's open to change.
Throughout my life, I have always been righteous to tell the truth. I feel speaking anything but the truth is out of integrity. Integrity is not the problem, it's the truth we base it on.
The more I look for the source of what I consider my 'core values,' the more I realize I have no clue of where they came from. Parents? Society? Embedded deep in my programming is a tendency for people-pleasing personality. I also know I can be gullible based on a default mode of trusting others. After all, everyone shares my core value of integrity, don't they?
I have already determined that peace is the one thing I need, above all else, it's really the only thing I need. If I can sit in peace, I can sit all day and feel content at the end of the day.
So what disrupts my peace? Other people. The need to fulfill basic needs in an increasingly crowded (and competitive) world. The belief that I should be more than I am.
I have 3 brothers. I've felt a competitive pressure to measure up in the eyes of my parents most of my life. What child wouldn't want to be the favorite one?
But I've never been the favorite child because my parents have always worked hard not to play favorites. But I always wanted to be.
Tune into the discomfort aka: constructive discomfort aka: delayed gratification
Consider the sale of a $1,000 product. If you pitch it to 10 people before it sells, each meeting was worth $100. The sale came, it just was delayed.
Would you rather take $1,000 from a client to work from 10 hours or work for nine hours to get paid $1000 for one hour?
In the case of products over services, I must accept that it make take me 9x to get the 1x payout. But the payoff of the risk is limitless upside.
Services on the other hand will always be limited. When I take job for $1000, that's the extent of what I'll earn from that client on that job.
Ignorance of the law is no excuse.
The excuse that you didn't know doesn't hold up. If you decide to go open a nuclear power plant, it's your job to know all the laws and regulations related to your act.
You can extend this further... in the roles we take on. We can succeed in anything if we are willing to abide the laws.
I can have a flat belly. But having a flat belly requires I comply with the requirements of a flat belly. Namely, that I drink less alcohol, avoid desserts, and stick to the Whole30 diet. That I burn more than I consume.
So I'm no longer ignorant. It's now just my willingness to comply. The results speak for themselves.
The way out of a vicious cycle is to stop doing what's been keeping me on the wheel.
Case study:
Financial hardship. When we spend more than we earn, we should expect financial hardship. Wealth is easy: Save more than you spend and invest wisely. Begin by faking it. Ask: WWWBD? (What would Warren Buffett do?)
We tend to regret the things we didn't try more than those we did — even when we fail.
Once you start realizing your fantasy, keep altering it to match reality. Otherwise, the vision could remain dangerously intangible. If your mind has a cliched montage of the rock star's life on a loop, it can't effectively measure incremental progress in your guitar career.
All of us, without exception, are making it up as we go along. This understanding is crucial, for we have a propensity to compare ourselves unfavorably to others, convinced that they are more competent, more adept, seemingly navigating through life with an ease that eludes us. A significant portion of conventional wisdom, particularly pertaining to the imposter syndrome, suggests that we should coax ourselves into believing that we are experts, even when deep down we feel far from it.
However, I propose a more durable, more sustainable perspective. Rather, acknowledge that no one is an expert in the ultimate sense, that all of us wear a mask of authority while improvising and figuring it out moment by moment.
This brings me to the topic of comparison. If we can't fully renounce the urge to compare ourselves, let's at least strive to make more appropriate comparisons. We must discern what it is that gives our comparisons substance and meaning. Do not pit your current self against a fantastical future version of you or against idealized versions of others. Instead, engage in retrospective comparison: look backward and measure your growth.
Assess how you managed challenges last week, six months ago, or a year ago. This method offers a potent way to track progress. The focus here is not on how much more of the journey lies ahead, but rather on how far you've already traveled.
Any form of evaluation of your work allows you to mark and celebrate the progress you've made. By looking back and considering the distance you've covered over a specific time period, you can begin to shift your default comparison metrics from the unwinnable type to those that can show you your undeniable progress.
However, keep in mind that as you improve and grow, you'll take on new challenges that meet your expanded capacity. Each level up means a new challenge at your new edge. This is true whether we're discussing writing, productivity, or simply staying on top of life's responsibilities. This constant leveling up means that you may sometimes feel the same as you did a year ago, or even five years ago, simply because you've taken on more.
When looking back for comparison, it might be beneficial to keep track of your accomplishments and output, even if your overall feeling of life remains the same. For example, if you receive a heartfelt email that speaks to the difference your work is making, save it for later reflection. It's not just about concrete metrics like the number of words written, the growth of your business, or skills you've developed. Even incremental achievements, such as learning a new song on the piano that you couldn't play five years ago, can be meaningful points of comparison.
The idea here is not to set up comparisons that discourage you, but to establish a systematic approach that reflects your growth and progress, thus bringing about a sense of fulfillment and motivation.