14. I am an Imposter!

So, there are a few new things that I’ve been exploring recently that are bringing up some pretty damning and negative issues that I’m going to need to address if I’m ever going to become incredible. More importantly, they are anxieties that have held me back for a long time… worries that have stopped me reaching my potential, or even daring to dream. Why then, if these issues are so fundamental to my lack of progress or success up to this point has it taken me so long to try and understand them? I’m not totally sure if I’m honest. I think a lot of it comes down to the insidious nature of how these negative emotions have shown up in my life… a little bit here, a little bit there… just enough to stop me reaching for more but grounded enough to seem like legitimate concerns. So, are you ready to hear what all this drama is about?

I… am an imposter!

It’s nothing new to a lot of people, and I’m sure I’ve heard the phrase ‘Imposter Syndrome’ numerous times without ever really considering what it meant and how it might apply to me. I’ve never considered it in any great depth because in truth, I’ve never really understood what it meant on a level that seemed actionable. So, I thought a good place to start is to try and understand what it means when we say ‘Imposter Syndrome’.

One definition I came across that I quite liked states:

Sound familiar? Ok, it’s not quite how I would talk to myself, but once I took the time to digest this statement it’s sounded as if it was taken straight from my own thoughts. This feeling of fear, self-doubt and inadequacy whenever you have attempted something new and succeeded. The unusual feeling of guilt that you sometimes feel after an achievement, when all you should be feeling is pride. If you’re like me, you have probably just dismissed these feelings as ‘not liking the attention’… you’re just not an extrovert so don’t feel comfortable in the lime light. That all may be true, but I’ve started to realise that for me it went a little deeper and has had a much more destructive impact on my willingness to strive for more, to achieve my goals and enjoy my successes.

So now I’ve put a label to it, but that’s all. It’s just a label – a way of better defining these feelings. But labelling it doesn’t really help. All it does is let you know you’re not alone. I mean, the fact there is a known term for these feelings of inadequacy associated with personal achievement just means that it’s common enough that someone, somewhere needed to give it a name. So the good news is – you’re not alone in feeling like this… you’re not as abnormal as you thought. Bad news is – knowing lots of people feel the same way doesn’t necessarily help you overcome it. In the same vein, because it’s labelled, don’t see it as a condition that you need to medicate, like “yeah man, I caught Imposter Syndrome so I’m going to be off for the week”. It’s not. Like a lot of what I’ve been learning and trying to get across in my ramblings – this, like so many other issues we believe are holding us back - is just a thought - that is creating a feeling… and that is something we have some control over and can begin to address.

For whatever reason I have always had low self-confidence. I’m not talking about the incredibly introverted, palm sweating confidence issues that some people have to contend with, but at the same time, despite some appearances to the contrary, I have never been imbued with a sense of self-assurance… like I know I’m right, or competent or even capable. No, for me it has always been a feeling of trying to keep up, whilst maintaining a cool demeanour so my internal fluster goes undetected. I’ve managed to disguise my insecurities well for the most part, to the extent that when my wife first met me she formed an entirely different opinion of my personality, subsequently revealing that she thought I was ‘bordering on arrogant’.

Anyway, this lack of confidence unsurprisingly seems to come with a lot of self-doubt, with little to no positive feedback coming from my internalised voice. This has not served me. As Jim Carey wisely said -

So in a nutshell, I don’t ever seem to take credit for the good outcomes in my life. No… they are down to my wife… or luck… or someone else really did all the work, or any number of other reasons I manage to think up in a moment of triumph. Basically, I attribute any positives or successes to someone or something else. On the flip side, my anxieties mean I take full, miserable credit for the poor outcomes in my life – ‘oh, its like that because I… fill in the blank’. My opinion of myself in respect of success and my position as an influential person is low, leading to a lot of negative thoughts whenever the spotlight is on me for achieving something… with thoughts like - ‘I don’t deserve this’, or ‘why would anyone listen to me’ and ‘what makes me so special?’

In particular I worry about the people who know me, and what they might think. I can hear the words ‘I know that guy, he’s not inspiring, who does he think he’s kidding’ being uttered. This is different to just caring about what people think, which ironically, I don’t, at least not in my day to day life. This is specifically a feeling associated with any personal growth or achievement, then ‘bang’ my insecurities kick in… my worry about being revealed as a fake come to the forefront. It’s the reason I held off pulling together an Instagram page. The idea that people I know would see it made me feel like a fraud. I mean, ‘Dare to Be Incredible’ is a pretty bold statement, but it seems more audacious when I picture long term friends reading it. People who have known me for a long time and would describe me as a lot of things – incredible probably not top of the list. But… and it’s a big but… I’ve changed. A lot. It’s not like I was awful before, and I’m sure a few people would have found at least some of what I was doing inspiring, but that was the old me. I’m still the same person in a lot of ways, most of them probably – I still find fart jokes funny, I still like the same music and films, but in a lot of other ways, the ways that were letting me down, the ways that meant I’d done more than my fair share of complaining and feeling like a victim – I have changed.

So I created my Instagram below the radar, and only after a few weeks did I finally let my wife ‘follow me’, because I knew when she did my name might start to appear as a suggestion for people who actually know me. Oh, the horror! Imagine, people who actually know me seeing my Instagram! Sounds silly, I know, but that’s how I felt. I felt like such an imposter – trying to become the best version of myself, that rather than being proud of all I’ve achieved in a short space of time I tried to hide away from everyone I know. Instead of embracing the new me and shouting from the mountaintop, I crawled into my cave and inadvertently belittled and undermined the amazing steps I’d taken in the name of self-development. I felt like I didn’t deserve what I had created – the new me – and felt afraid that it would all fall flat and I’d be left back where I started. I was pushing away and essentially self-sabotaging my progress because I didn’t know how to embrace it openly for all to see.

Natalie Bacon, a life coach in Chicago offers a good, but simple analogy, which by her own admission is a superficial example, but nonetheless it is probably something most people can associate with -

In brief, you’re having a bit of an identity crisis. You’re starting to realise some of your goals and move towards your dreams, but now you’re moving you feel guilty about it. You feel like an imposter and you’re going to get found out. So, the very thing you’re striving for becomes a source of shame and embarrassment – robbing you of the sense of pride and joy and excitement that is supposed to accompany your successes. You’re becoming this new person, but you’re not used to being that person yet. It’s new, it’s different and it takes time for your opinion of yourself, and your beliefs about yourself to catch up with the new reality.

Another poignant example of this sense of ‘imposter’ presented itself when I joined the gym. A sentiment that I’m sure most people who have joined a gym in their 30’s can associate with. Now, I’d been to the gym plenty of times in my youth, but things had surely changed, and besides I was joining specifically to start weight training, which was uncharted territory. It meant venturing into the part of the gym I’d previously scoffed at as being full of muscle bound idiots, more concerned with the bulge of their bicep than their actual health. I can admit now that my thoughts came from jealousy. Jealousy that they had the confidence to do what I only talked about, and so my own insecurities came to the forefront as naïve judgement. That was wrong. Anyway, the point is, when I first dared to venture into the weight section of the gym I felt like a complete fraud – like being at the start of my fitness journey made me unworthy of using this equipment. Did I have to be ‘ripped’ and be able to bench press my bodyweight to qualify for this part of the gym? If so, how will I ever get to that point if I’m not worthy of using this equipment? Again, the mindset of ‘I don’t deserve to be hear’ and ‘I don’t belong here’ crept in… and it took some conscious effort, and awareness that my mind was going to play this game to allow me to begin to counter these thoughts. I reminded myself that it was ok to feel like this, I mean firstly… it’s new, so it’s going to feel uncomfortable, so my mind and body are both going to put up some resistance. Secondly, it’s a gym membership, you don’t need to ‘deserve’ it, you just ‘have’ it. There’s no right of passage, no bar you have to reach to qualify for the gym, but rather – if you’ve paid your money it’s yours to do with as you please… weights and all!

You begin to realise it’s all just chatter in your head, the thoughts and insecurities we give meaning to. You can decide to listen to those anxieties and let them stop you in your tracks, or you can accept that you don’t know / can’t do everything… yet, but you’re going to try. You’re going to learn, and you’re going to choose to grow.

Just like the example with the new clothes, one way to look at it is – I am actively pursuing my goals, trying to become ‘incredible’, and I’ve made great progress, but I just haven’t taken on that identity yet… I haven’t become ‘the person who just wears that outfit’. I’m still at the stage where I’m convinced people are staring, seeing the old me in a new outfit. In time, I’ll accept that this is just the new me. Like in the gym, when after the first few weeks of figuring it all out, how the equipment works, the undisclosed gym etiquettes, you one day realise – you’re a gym goer now. You’ve made the cut. You’ve become one of those guys that someone else is looking at with jealous disdain, heck, you might even have to show someone else how to adjust the rack!