Imposter syndrome: What is it and five ways to overcome it

Have you ever felt as if you didn’t deserve your professional or academic achievements? Those feelings of inadequacy are quite common. Imposter syndrome is the perception that you don't really belong here, or that you are a fraud in your current environment. That you're somehow not really as capable or as smart as your colleagues. And it keeps you from experiencing any of your successes, despite the fact that you may have all of these accolades, you get compliments, you're published in top tier journals, you've won awards for your work, you tend to dismiss those or excuse them away.

Imposter syndrome can start in various ways. It can be something as simple as receiving praise from a young age for intelligence, rather than persistence in completing a task. First generation students—or students who are the first in their family to attend college—are also more likely to feel like imposters. Those who make up a minority in their chosen field are another group who commonly feel like they don’t belong.

Imposter syndrome makes it difficult to perform your job, or to do your research, or whatever the context is, because it increases the cognitive load. And by cognitive load, it means if you want to compare your memory to your computer, it's kind of along the same lines as the fact that your computer has a certain amount of working memory. And if you have four browsers open and each one of those has 20 tabs, and then you have these huge data sets open, you're using up a lot of your space, and it slows your machine down. So, when your own working memory is filled with thoughts related to imposter syndrome, your ability to think and be creative is diminished.

If you think you are experiencing imposter syndrome, there is a free quiz that can help assess the degree to which it is affecting your life at any point in time. The Clance Imposter Phenomenon Scale (.PDF) was developed decades ago by the original research team Suzanne Imes and Pauline Clance.

The quiz is free for you to take, and it helps you assess the level of impact that imposter syndrome has in your life at any one moment. If your score is in the 40 or less range, then you're probably not very impacted by imposter syndrome. If your score is 80 or higher, it's probably having a really large impact on your performance. Taking it at different points in your life is going to give you a different score, as will taking it at different points along your career path. It's not uncommon for grad students to score over that 80 mark, and not uncommon for people toward the end of their career to be closer to the 30s and 40s range.

It has been noted that more seasoned professionals tend not to be as impacted by imposter syndrome. According to ORISE Senior Program Manager Beth White, Ph.D., whose doctorate is in educational psychology and research, “as we age, we discover that real competence in our jobs isn't necessarily about knowing everything. It's about knowing how to get the resources I need to accomplish my job and the maturity of knowing I don't have to know everything, and it's okay to ask questions, and collaborate with others.”

Aside from gaining confidence with age, five ways to get out of the rut of imposter syndrome begins with developing a growth mindset, as advised by Carol Dweck, Angela Duckworth, and others.

1. Normalize the feelings of Imposter Syndrome by acknowledging that everyone experiences imposter syndrome from time to time.
2. Talk about these feelings with a trusted counselor or peer group.
3. As you become better able to normalize those feelings, reframe them into a growth area.
4. Further develop a growth mindset by actively internalizing successes and working to accept compliments instead of explaining them away.
5. Get feedback by asking how you can grow.

Acknowledge it, talk about it, whether that's with a peer group, or other friends, or someone who can be supportive of you, with a psychologist, with a career counselor. But if you don't start doing something differently, you're just going to stay right where you are.