Obliterate Your Imposter Syndrome

If you aren’t a data analyst, but work in a business that embraces analytics, you might know the feeling of imposter syndrome. You experience Imposter syndrome as a feeling of anxiousness or self-doubt – that somehow you don’t belong even when you are successful. You’re not alone, my friend. This is a very real phenomenon, and one that can be difficult to manage for individuals experiencing it.[1] Fortunately, there are many ways you can reclaim your confidence and obliterate your imposter syndrome. In this article, I discuss what imposter syndrome is and six (6) techniques for slaying it.

What is Imposter Syndrome?

Doctors do not have an official medical definition or formal diagnostic criteria for imposter syndrome. Researcher began studying the phenomenon in the 1970s among successful businesswomen and continue studying it across many populations today.[2]

In 2020, a research team reviewed 62 studies of imposter syndrome, finding that between 56% and 82% of graduate students, college students, nurses, medical students, and other professionals experience imposer syndrome at some point during their lives.[3] Additionally, researchers have identified that minority groups may be more likely to experience imposter syndrome due to racism and other social stigmas.[4]

Imposter syndrome manifests itself in many ways, and with varying severity across individuals. People experiencing imposter syndrome are likely to have one or more of the following symptoms:

Comparing themselves to peers who are often seen as more worthy or successful
Second guessing their ideas before voicing them to the group, often afraid of appearing silly or dumb
Downplaying their accomplishments and focusing more on their faults.
Believing that if they aren’t the best, then they are the worst.
Are prone to overworking to make up for perceived inadequacy
Discounting their knowledge, skills, and experience
Exhibiting perfectionism

6 Techniques for Obliterating Imposter Syndrome

If you or someone you know are experiencing imposter syndrome, start by telling yourself, “It will be okay.” There are many techniques you can use to obliterate this perspective and feel more confident in your capabilities. I discuss six (6) of these techniques below.

Give Equal Time to Positive Thoughts

When you experience imposter syndrome, it’s easy to dwell on the negative thoughts running around your head. Suddenly, those negative thoughts are taking up all your prime-time brain space. When this happens, remind yourself to give equal time, if not more, to positive thoughts as well. As you practice this technique, you will naturally become better at balancing negativity with positivity.

Begin your positive journey by focusing on all the good things you have accomplished. You are in your current position because of the things you accomplished and not because of your faults. People don’t advance in their careers because others take pity on them. You advance because of your capabilities.

Let Your Advancement Timelines be Flexible

If you are not advancing as fast as you want, take a close look at the situation to assess why. You want to look at this from a business perspective. First, are there open positions in the organization that you could apply for? You don’t want to assume that the company will always reach out to make an internal hire first. Second, if an open position is not available, ask whether the organization can promote you anyway. If your organization cannot promote you, recognize that it may be because they aren’t in a financial position to do so.

Now, I have to give you a bit of tough love. You also need to do an honest self-appraisal. Do you have peers that are objectively performing better than you? Just because you are not the best doesn’t mean you are not capable. But a peer may be promoted before you because they are a top performer. Don’t fall into the trap of overstating your skills in your own mind.

You can turn this to your advantage by looking at these individuals as aspirational peers. Learn from their success to make your own performance stronger, and you will find positive value in that knowledge.

Look at Where You Want to Be

When you experience imposter syndrome, it’s easy to dwell on where you are and to feel stuck. You can break out of this feeling by looking at others who are in the role you want to be in. Talk to those individuals about what they had to do and learn to earn those positions.

Think about the differences in skill sets and experience between where you are now, and where you want to be. Write down a list of skills and experience you need to acquire to be promoted into that position. Think critically about the skill set for which you need to gain proficiency. If necessary, you can review some of the essential elements for data literacy here.

I often remind my staff who are eager for advancement that doing something correctly once makes you successful, but not proficient. I’m not sure who said it first, but as an often quoted saying goes, “Don’t practice until you get it right. Practice until you can’t get it wrong.”

Take Chances

When you experience imposter syndrome, you might find yourself hesitant to take chances or put your ideas forward. That hesitancy is a fear-based response and can be overcome by taking a deep breath and then taking the chance.

As many businesspeople have observed, with greater risk comes greater reward. Businesses often succeed or fail based on whether they can leverage reasonable risks. When people consider whether to take a chance or not, however, they often consider the worst-case risk scenario. And that worst-case risk scenario is often based on the individual’s inaccurate and overinflated fears about the outcome. The worst is hardly ever as bad as we envision it to be.

Some individuals may think that if their colleagues reject their ideas once, they are personally being rejected. This is not likely to be true, however. When working through analytic problems, teams often need to brainstorm through many viable options for approaches. Some perfectly well-intentioned ideas may simply not be the best fit for the situation and will be rejected by the group.

If you find yourself in one of these situations, notice how many of the top members of your team voice ideas that end up NOT being the solution. They have learned how to take chances and are not afraid to be wrong. When you model this approach, you will find yourself learning a lot about analytic problem-solving and how you approach problems.

Develop A Growth Mindset

If you experience imposter syndrome, you may find that you avoid situations for which you do not feel like an expert. Researchers have found that highly intelligent people are more likely to find situations that show gaps in their knowledge as threatening. This can even hold people back from situations that could be very beneficial, because they are afraid of failure. You can combat these feelings by adopting, developing, and reminding yourself to stay in a growth mindset. Here are a few ways you can approach standing out in a data analytic culture.

When you have a growth mindset, you take the perspective that ability is not fixed. If you are questioning that statement, recall that we all learn and evolve throughout our childhoods and into adulthood. Even once you reach adulthood, you never stop learning and evolving. Your abilities become stronger, more refined, and more expansive as you keep trying to move forward and better yourself.

Adopting a growth mindset does not mean you need to be on the cutting edge of your field. Nor do you need to be learning at a fast pace throughout your lifetime. Try working toward being better today than you were yesterday. When you make small incremental improvements on a continual basis, you will find that large transformations will eventually follow.

Don’t Overthink Your Situation

If you are experiencing imposter syndrome, do not overthink your situation. Logic may not always lead you to a clear and concrete answer. This happens most often in ambiguous situations when you are missing key pieces of information to make fully informed decisions. It’s important to recognize when this happens and not dwell on how best to adjust your analysis to get to a single answer.

Your intelligence isn’t the only thing that can help you solve a problem. As often as I advocate using data to answer questions, sometimes you need to rely on experience and educated guesses. If there isn’t a clear path toward a data-driven decision, then consider your options, seek input from others, and make the best decision you can.

Conclusion

There is a good chance that most of us will experience imposter syndrome at least once in our lives. While it may be a temporary situation for many of us, there are others who will suffer imposter syndrome on a long-term basis. While the negative effects of imposter syndrome can paralyze you into inaction, there are several techniques to help combat the problem. If you or someone you know are experiencing imposter syndrome, try the six (6) techniques described here to obliterate the problem and emerge as a more confident version of yourself.

[1] Huecker MR, Shreffler J, McKeny PT, et al. Imposter Phenomenon. [Updated 2023 Jul 31]. In: StatPearls [Internet]. Treasure Island (FL): StatPearls Publishing; 2023 Jan-. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK585058/

[2] Clance, P. R., & Imes, S. A. (1978). The imposter phenomenon in high achieving women: Dynamics and therapeutic intervention. Psychotherapy: Theory, Research & Practice, 15(3), 241–247. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0086006

[3] Bravata, D. M., Watts, S. A., Keefer, A. L., et al. Prevalence, predictors, and treatment of impostor syndrome: A systematic review. Journal of general internal medicine, 2020.

[4] Bess, Jazmyn (2023). Imposter Syndrome: A Universal Struggle. National Cancer Institute, Division of Cancer Epidemiology & Genetics, Inclusivity Minute. Available from: https://dceg.cancer.gov/about/diversity-inclusion/inclusivity-minute/2023/imposter-syndrome