“What am I doing here ?”
“I am a fraud, sooner or later people will know and they will hate me”
“I don’t deserve good things”
“I don’t know anything, I am a loser”
Do these thoughts randomly pop up in your mind? Does your consciousness keep telling you that you don’t belong here and you deserve no good? Then you might be suffering from Imposter Syndrome.
Imposter Syndrome is defined by Oxford as “the persistent inability to believe that one's success is deserved or has been legitimately achieved as a result of one's efforts or skills.”
Imposter Syndrome which is also known as the imposter phenomenon is a complex feeling where your mind keeps telling you that you are not good enough, despite your accomplishments. It is a conflict between one’s self-perception and the way others perceive them.
This syndrome is a common phenomenon that is experienced by approximately 75% of people. According to the statistics, women experience this syndrome more than men.
Every age group, ranging from age 16 to 55+, experiences this. It is common among people who are high achievers. People under this syndrome tend to work harder than most but still, feel unworthy of their work.
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| Source- ErrantScience |
The world doesn’t always work on pretty, sweet, flattering words. It also has criticism, mistakes, failure. The people who generally fall victim to the imposter syndrome tend to dwell upon the negative aspects they receive from the world.
If not addressed on time, can lead to over-thinking and under-confidence, resulting in anxiety, stress, depression, low self-esteem or, missing out on better opportunities because of fear of failure.
What Causes One to Have the Syndrome?
We have been brought up in a society where we hear endless “Sharma Ji ka beta”. Strict parents, the comparing stereotypical society, at times peers look for nothing but only perfectionism.
Who doesn’t want to excel in academics, sports, extracurricular activities, but this expectation of bringing up the perfect kid, besides giving one experience and success, gives one stress, anxiety, low self-confidence and, in severe cases, depression, which triggers the imposter feeling.
One might be the only woman in the whole men dominating the field and if she is suffering from imposter feelings, then she won’t rejoice this achievement but only find flaws in her work or try coming up with 101 reasons as to why she might not have been worthy of the position but still promoted to such rank.How to Recognise and Deal With It
“If you compare yourself with others
you may become vain or bitter
for always there will be a greater and lesser person than yourself
Enjoy your achievement as well as your plans”
The above phrase is from the poem “Desiderata” by the poet” Max Ehrmann”.
“Desiderata” is an inspirational poem that gives valuable life lessons and offers a positive outlook towards life.
Through the poem, the poet requests us to stop comparing ourselves with other people because there might be people who are better than us or who are still trying their best to have what we have.
Comparing ourselves to others might cause one to either think they are not worthy enough or don’t have the capability to do anything right or might make one over-confident about one’s work. Either of these scenarios isn’t good because one gives us the fear of trying whereas the other gives us stress and performance anxiety.
“Perfectionism stalls progress” keeping this in mind we should always keep trying and improve. Never losing self-confidence and always be satisfied with our achievement is the only way to deal with the imposter syndrome.
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