Words of Advice from a Recovering Impostor

Chelsea Szabo, life and career coach

By Chelsea Szabo, life and career coach

Six years ago, I was terror-stricken by my Department Head’s presence. Despite the praise he gave my work, a promotion he pushed through and the fact that everyone adored him, I was convinced he was out to fire me. Yes, fire me.

That’s why on several occasions, you could have found me sitting in my car well after I had parked. My heart would pulsate echoes through my body as my Department Head passed in front of my car. I’d quickly drop my head and fumble around with my phone to avoid eye contact. I decided being a few minutes late to the office trumped riding in the elevator alone with him.

Looking back, he didn’t want to fire me. He actually wanted to get to know me. He told my boss he knew I was funny and outgoing, and asked why I was different with him. I was a victim of the impostor syndrome, a phenomenon with which way too many female professionals are familiar.

My Department Head wasn’t the problem, I was. I suffered because I personally didn’t believe I deserved my role. I had an entire book of reasons why not—I lacked the MBA the original job description asked for, I knew little about the industry, I was young, I didn’t have one recognizable company on my resume and so on.

These degrading inner messages literally left me paralyzed and unable to make a next move, whether that move was sharing an idea or volunteering to spearhead a project. Handing over the reins of my professional life to the limitations of the impostor syndrome nearly sabotaged my success and more importantly my happiness.

Here are five tips I’ve learned while recovering from impostor syndrome:

  1. Know your department head’s favorite candy bar. If someone in your office sets off your impostor syndrome, make that person human. So, often the individuals we fear the most in the workplace are those we know the least about, and when we don’t know them we suddenly turn them into our greatest villain. The more you humanize these individuals, the less likely they’ll be to pull at your impostor syndrome strings. Ask them their favorite candy bar, drink, or city—ask them anything.
  1. Name and draw your impostor syndrome gremlin. You know that voice in your head that says your alma mater isn’t good enough or your vocabulary isn’t advanced enough? That’s not coming from all of you. It’s only coming from one small piece of you. When you give that voice its own identity by drawing what it looks like (get out those colored pencils) and naming it (don’t name it after someone you know, that just gets awkward), you begin to distance yourself from the negative messages it shares with you.
  1. Settle for good enough every once in a while. It’s easy to impose super high standards on yourself when you’re suffering from impostor syndrome. Give yourself a break and you’ll start to set yourself free. The more often you say “this is good enough” (and you don’t get fired and no one yells at you), the more realistic your expectations will become and the stronger your confidence in your ability to fulfill them will be.
  1. Get to know, respect and celebrate yourself. One of the greatest contributors to the impostor syndrome is a low level of self-care and self-love. When you take the time to know yourself, embrace the pieces of yourself you try to hid, and learn to at the very least, like yourself most of the time, the more you’ll feel as though you belong in majority of the places you find yourself.
  1. Make self-validation your primary source of feeling good about yourself. If you find yourself seeking validation from your boss, colleague, spouse, parent, or local barista, in order to feel good about yourself, stop. Make the shift to self-validation. One way to do this is to keep a journal of one to five great things you personally did each day.

While the impostor syndrome can feel heavy and nearly impossible to overcome, you absolutely can free yourself from it’s limitations, burden, and self-sabotaging messages. You and the future success of your career deserve it!

A personal invite from Chelsea Szabo: I need your help! Last year I launched The Thrive Project, aimed towards providing professional women with knowledge, tools and support to thrive in their careers and life. I’d like to invite you to join me and my team in our initiative to further discover what it takes to thrive. Take the survey: verbalcourage.com

Interested in hearing more from Chelsea Szabo? Check out an upcoming complimentary webinar she’s running March 3 entitled “The Results Are In … How Savvy Women Really Thrive in Advertising”.