Our guest speaker on day 2 of Aurora was Melanie Eusebe MBE – a great speaker who had a really engaging style. She had three points for us (which I won’t spoil for future Aurorans), which included a suggestion that if we’re feeling imposter syndrome then we may need to see this as a challenge that will develop us further.
I have heard the “fake it ’til you make it” approach to imposter syndrome before, and also how important it is to speak up to help others understand that we all have these concerns. Melanie’s suggestion that we use it as a development tool was a new one to me, and as I thought more about it, I realised that leaning into imposter syndrome does several things:
Helps us identify our strengths
Imposter syndrome is about feeling that we can’t do things that we can actually do. Some of those things are well within our grasp (it’s just a pesky internal voice telling us we’re not good enough) but there are also things that are more difficult but still achievable. If we never stretch ourselves, we will struggle to tell the difference between a self-sabotaging “you can’t do this” voice when we are capable, and a natural caution we feel in trying something new.
If we regularly move outside of our comfort zone into things that are more of a challenge for us, we should begin to identify the difference between the sabotaging voice and the cautious voice. When we can reliably recognise the voice that tells us we’re not good enough, we can start to understand that these things aren’t our weaknesses, and might actually be some of our strengths.
Helps us find and target our challenges
Imposter syndrome flags when we think we’re not so good at something and we can use this to examine our fears more closely. Being able to identify the difference between the sabotaging voice (when we’re doing an activity that’s within our abilities – see above), and the cautious voice (when we’re stretching ourselves) can help us set aside the unhelpful noise and concentrate our efforts on where we can actually improve. When we recognise that we are being sensibly cautious about something, we can then target it with preparation, training or other tools.
Helps us feel more used to that discomfort
Using imposter syndrome to help us develop, isn’t about going completely out of our depth immediately. We should think about it more as building up our resilience to the feelings that we have around challenging work. As we push ourselves towards bigger challenges we’re going to feel uncomfortable, but being familiar with the sensation, and recognising that in ourselves will make it less troublesome.
After just two jobs in 18 years at the University, I felt very much out of my depth in my first few weeks in my new team. I began to panic that I’d made the wrong move and that I wasn’t suited to the role. It was only when speaking to friends and family (who had all moved jobs more frequently than I) did I learn that these feelings were normal and that I should expect to feel that way for at least 6 months. If I’d had more experience of pushing myself into new roles, then I would have understood that these feelings were normal, and worried a lot less!
So it is possible to harness the discomfort around imposter syndrome in ways that can help us build skills and improve our practice. Start by examining it, discarding the noise, listen to what it’s telling you about the real challenges you’re currently facing, and get used to the sensation. That we can see pushing ourselves as a positive challenge to embrace, rather than an uncomfortable one to be avoided.