The Imposter Cure: How To Crush Imposter Syndrome

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hello my darlings you’re are back once again with me Ed start on that’s helpful and I am thrilled to have you here if you’re enjoying these weekly servings of self-improvement backed by science can I ask you a favor would you mind leave me a review wherever you’re listening I would be so grateful I adore reading them and it helps other people find our little Club too now today something I’d say most of us are battling with if you’ve ever shared that you’re feeling it the most common reaction is oh my gosh me too I’m talking about impostor syndrome it’s brutal unhelpful and feels horrible so why do we experience it and how can we tackle it that’s exactly what we’re going to take down today by the way this episode was requested by Jess on Instagram if there’s something you’re struggling with follow me at that’s helpful pod and send me a DM because if you’re going through it there’s it’s likely that so many of us out here are too and I can get you an answer my guest today is the wonderful Dr jessame Hibbard she’s a clinical psychologist and the author of the impostor cure how to stop feeling like a fraud and escape the Mind Trap of imposter syndrome Jessie let’s start at the top what is impostor syndrome actually well it feels like something quite recent but it was actually first defined back in 1978 by two clinical psychologists yeah Dr Clans and Dr EMS and they discovered it um they were University lecturers and they noticed that women in their kind of uh lectures were often less kind of able to come forward or put themselves up for things and often kind of felt insecure about how they were doing and they researched it and they defined it as a phenomenon in which people believe they don’t deserve their success despite evidence to the country and that they’ve got a lack of belief in their ability or competence even though everybody else is seeing something different and when I looked at it and you know something that comes up a lot in my clinic I started to see it as a faulty belief so anytime you’re doing something difficult or that pushes you out of your comfort zone it’s really natural to experience some fear the trouble is when you’re thinking you’ve got impostor syndrome or that you are an impostor you interpret that as meaning you’re not up to the task or that you’re not good enough instead of recognizing that actually even confident people feel this this is like a really normal human experience yeah it really is isn’t it because I know any time I’ve ever spoken about it everybody does genuinely go uh yeah me too how is it different to just like a general lack of self-doubt you kind of touched on it there you know with people just having a general fear about trying new things but how is impossible syndrome different to that the big difference is that it doesn’t go away so for most people you know say you’re doing a presentation you’re nervous about it you go and do the presentation and then afterwards you’re like oh that was horri horrible but actually I did it and I can see I can do that you feel better whereas when imposters do things they’ve got two two rules at play so if they’re doing something and they get negative feedback they take that on as a personal failing and anything that whether it’s something somebody said or whether it’s just how they think they did they kind of take that as evidence that they’re not doing well enough even if the outcome’s good whereas when it goes well they put it down to the team or it was lucky or you know they’re just being really nice and so they have an inability to take on board how they’re doing and it means that even though you’re doing all this great stuff you’re probably getting good feedback you know the funny thing about imposter syndrome is it’s much more likely to affect High achieving highly competent people but in spite of that because of the high standards you set yourself and because of the way you attend to information you never take on board your success and so it’s kind of like you’ve never done those things and you’re left feeling exactly the same and the other thing that can be problematic is people think you know sure you’re going to get promotion then it is better but actually that can make you feel like oh now I’ve got even further to fall you know there’s more eyes on me there’s more pressure and so it can actually ramp it up instead of meaning that you know like with confidence a promotion might make you realize that you’re good enough or doing well with imposter syndrome it’s almost the opposite oh it’s brutal isn’t it it’s absolutely brutal and so many of us have experienced it and when you hear it described in that way way you know like no matter the Accolade no matter the success you’re still going to feel this way it’s really obvious that this is absolutely a problem that we need to solve it feels like it’s something that everybody’s experiencing but how many people do genuinely suffer with impostor syndrome yeah the research suggests it’s about 70% of people and W wow that was kind of uh you know over the course of your life 70% of people will experience it a study in 2019 I think it was looked at the difference between men and women and they found that in a year you were likely to have imposter thoughts for um just over two-thirds of women and just over 50% of men so that wouldn’t mean that you necessarily had imposter syndrome but it meant that actually you’d have those thoughts and for some people it was really pervasive and had a really big effect on their life and those research has also found that for the people where it was affecting them dayto day it didn’t just affect them at work they were really kind of worn down by it emotionally it had an impact on home or family life and so it’s not just this thing that can affect you you know in one place in your life it kind of over spills into other areas as well yeah because we do tend to think of it as something that we only suffer from in like a career setting or in our jobs but it is something that we can absolutely feel in other areas of our life live too isn’t it yeah absolutely and I think um it doesn’t really discriminate imposter syndrome so although climis thought it was women originally we now know it can affect men and women across different cultures you know it affects you depending on your sense of belonging to a group so whether your socioeconomic status or sexuality or whatever it might be and so you know whether you’re a new starter or the CEO you can get it and like you say it’s not just at work that people experience it that’s what’s most commonly researched it people talk to me about it affecting them in their relationships or their confidence as a parents um so it can really kind of pray on all areas of life oh it makes me sad to think about all these beautiful people going about thinking that they you know they don’t belong when actually they’re probably doing really great things yeah yeah definitely and so can you actually have it and not know you have it as well that’s what’s really interesting actually on the whole people don’t think they’ve got it you know they think they really are an imposter and that they’re not doing well enough and that’s one of the most difficult things about it and I remember getting this lovely email from someone who’d read my book and they said you know I read your book but I didn’t really think I was an imposter you know didn’t really think I had imposter syndrome I thought I really was an imposter and it wasn’t until I read the book that it made a difference and so for lots of people it’s just how they’ve gone about their their lives and they haven’t had a name to put to it and instead they’ve been kind of living in fear or kind of constantly having the sense that they might be found out but they’ve believed that’s because they’re not doing well and like you said at the start when you talk to people about it they’re like oh yeah you know when I first got the book deal people would say I think I’ve got that you know is it normal and that’s the thing people don’t tend to talk about it so then it’s kind of laced with shame and secrecy and then we don’t have a chance to be more open and here oh I feel exactly the same and start to realize how common this experience is yeah absolutely is super common and so tell me about the link between impostor syndrome and perfectionism because this is quite pervasive isn’t it yeah it is and what the research shows is that you know if you experience imposter syndrome there’s a strong correlation with perfectionism as well and in a way it’s the same kind thing although they’re quite different it’s this that you set yourself these incredibly high standards and that you kind of strive to reach them and you rarely feel like you do because your standard is set so high far above what anybody else is expecting of you and so when it comes to perfectionism it’s likely that you’ve probably got imposter syndrome too and it becomes a coping strategy to manage those fears so when you don’t feel good enough or you feel like a fraud you think I’m just going to work harder and often in these high achieving kind of areas whether it’s University or work you don’t have a full sense of how other people are doing so you think well I’ve just got to do better than them and so you ramp up your expectation higher because in your head you think they’re doing really well you know I don’t know what they’re up to and that’s the trouble it starts to narrow your life and in a way the trouble with perfectionism is it doesn’t all feel bad you know we think why is anybody doing this but actually there’s this payoff sometimes of achieving more and that you kind of yourself well I’m working these really long hours maybe my friends aren’t but they’re not doing as well or they’re not getting paid as much or it’s just until I get this promotion and so slowly it starts to narrow your life and the other thing is that it has this big impact on your health and happiness because when you do do well you’re not feeling like you do because there’s no such thing as perfect and so every time you’re feeling like you’re falling short and so there isn’t that same satisfaction that you would get just from you know having a reasonable expectation and meeting that and it starts to you know disrupt things so that you can’t go and enjoy things or have your downtime because you feel like oh I should be doing more and so it starts to take over and what I also notice it is it can overspill so it can start with some people in work then suddenly they’re trying to perfect their home life as well or their Sporting Life or whatever it might be um and I think it’s so easy to miss the detrimental impact it has and it’s really difficult to give up so when I say people you know come on you got to try and do a bit less like pull back so you’ve got more time for other things you know they look at me like I’m mad but actually when they start to do that and build in a bit more time for hobbies or friends or you know just watching TV in the evening they find then they’re more productive at work and they’re actually starting to let go of those standards gives them room to do better yeah and it’s hard though isn’t it because you know that kind of uh perfection ISM and then the aposta syndrome it’s all kind of supported by like this societal hustle culture that’s telling us if we’re absolutely strung out if we’re absolutely exhausted if we’re spending no time relaxing then we’re actually doing a good a good job so I think it can be really hard to see that actually this is happening because a lot of the time uh Society tells us that when we’re wrapped up in impostor syndrome and perfectionism we’re actually doing a great job and anything less than that is pretty slack I agree and it’s funny like how perfected life is now and I was watching the commitments with my husband last night which is set back in like the 80s and the level of you know how people approach things what makeup they wear the clothes they wear their parenting you know it’s so so different and I was thinking about how perfect everybody tries to be in the the pressure that puts on us now and that it’s everywhere in your work on social media in your parenting this idea that you can do things perfectly like you say it’s really pervasive even though when we logically and rationally think about it that’s just not how it’s meant to be and that’s not a good way to be either that takes the fun out of things it takes kind of spontaneity out of it you know and even though we know you know the whole kind of highlights real that is shown to other people we do that we forget other people are doing it and I think that’s what feeds into it too this idea that everybody else has got it together and they’re competent and they know what they’re doing and you know they’ve got their side hustle or working well in their job and we forget that we just hear what’s going on inside our heads and we only see what they show us and we forget that what’s going on in their heads is really similar to us and that you know we’re all kind of like swans it looks like we’re gliding but actually we’re furiously paddling underneath and yet there’s something about Modern Life that you’re not meant to show those B now and yet I think those are the most interesting bits of people and what make them more real and relatable and you know what make you kind of fond of somebody as not a perfected person it’s like every part of them yeah it’s much more endearing absolutely and so in the book you identify some of the common types of impostor syndrome and perfectionism is one of them what are some of the other types because I think really describing these types if you’re a person who thinks you might not you don’t have imposter syndrome and you’re the one person who’s the impostor once you hear these types you’re like oh God that’s me because when I hear the perfectionism one that’s what I’m like 100% but tell me about the different kinds of imposter syndrome as well yeah and the when I so what’s interesting about these types is they were researched by Dr Valerie young so she’s done lots of research on it and she discovered that actually we don’t all experience imposter syndrome in the same way and it’s based on how we experienc failure related shame so it’s kind of linked back to those expectations we have of ourselves and that you say there’s five different types one of which is one of which is perfectionism and um the bit I like in Valerie Young’s description is you know perfectionists think there’s a right way to do things and a wrong way to do things and that other people get it wrong and they know how to get it right and I think that’s very relatable um for any perfectionists out there but the other ones are natur genius and so for this group they’re probably people who were really good at school and kind of got by and just picked things up Without Really Trying and then when you get into real life and you’re surrounded by other really kind of bright and capable people and suddenly you’ve got challenges that you can’t just do first time actually for them it brings up this sense of Shame and a sense that oh I’m no good at this rather than recognizing that actually you know doing anything is difficult and hard at first and it takes practice or time to get better at it um but they almost don’t give themselves that time and so when they find it hard even if it’s first try they have the sense that they’re an imposter the third type is The Soloist and so for this group they really believe that actually success only counts if they have done it on their own unassisted so say a project manager who runs a team and is a soloist can’t ever really feel the success of the team because he’s like or she’s like no is down to the team you know I’ve just got this really good team working for me and the other thing for that group is it makes it really difficult for them to ask for help so the idea of saying you know I don’t know this or I haven’t got all the information again that feels like a failure so they get this sense that they’re going to get found out rather than recognizing that of course you don’t know it at all you know no one knows at all and asking for help is a sensible approach um the next one is the expert and for them they’re the type of person who rather than just you know actually I’m thinking of myself here when I was younger I really wanted to try out golf but rather than go and play a round of golf my dad used to play so I was like I want to have a go I got lessons first and then you know rather than just go and give things a go and the same with my training and I’ve ended up with like five different qualifications because rather than just be interested in subject I want to know all about the subject and the expert feels like they’ve got to know everything before they begin and what I’ve noticed doing talks things is it’s particularly prevalent for things like Consultants or lawyers where they’re kind of going into a client and they feel like they’re the expert and they should have all the information rather than thinking you know do I know enough to work it out and again it’s the kind of person who will go for a job once they know they’ve got every single thing on the list they meant to have rather than how some people look at and be like yeah I’ve got about half of that I could do this um and the last type is the Superwoman or Superman and they’re like the perfectionist on tur turbocharge so they want to be the best at work the best athlete the best kind of host the best um you know volunteer anything they’re doing they hold it to this high standard of how they should be doing it and for this group particularly they’re more likely to burn out because they find downtime you know like we touched on earlier really difficult and uncomfortable and they feel like they should always be productive and if they’re not being productive then they’re not really worthwhile and their productivity and achievement is linked really closely to self-esteem and I think that’s the thing for all of these different types that actually it your sense of self with imposter syndrome is often quite linked to the thing you’re doing and so when that’s not going well you don’t feel good whereas actually it misses out all the other parts of who you are yeah and investing time in those because this is like a primarily we feel this in our careers or maybe that primarily that’s where it’s been researched but investing time in those things um we had a great uh guest on a couple of weeks ago simono staloff he’s written a book called The Good Enough job and it’s kind of about uh diversifying your identity highly recommend it if this is resonating with you if you’re listening I’ll put a link in the show notes but he talks about diversifying our identity into other areas of our life that aren’t work to kind of make us more resilient and more robust when it comes to our careers and as you say more productive um it’s interesting how many links there are here to that yeah I love that idea and it’s something I definitely think about in my work too and I think of them almost like floats you know you want to have lots of different one goes down you still got the other ones and you want to see yourself in lots of different ways and actually you know sometimes when I think about you know for people who are really focused on work and works kind of become the most kind of all Encompass encompassing part of their life it’s like well hold on a second why did you start out on wanting work to go so well and often people say to me you know so I can have a good life it’s like oh that that is the one thing you’re not doing right now you know and this idea that oh when I get to this point or once I know I’m doing better or this kind of when I it puts life off and it means that you kind of struggle through these periods without actually thinking about what you can do right now and really that’s the only time you can do anything right now you can’t know for sure how things are going to be down the line and often when people get that promotion or you know kind of reach that kind of landmark point they thought was going to put things together doesn’t really make much difference and so then having lots of different things in your life that are important to you and prioritizing those things at all times that’s kind of the key rather than waiting for this perfect time I feel like I need to clip that and play it back to myself every day it’s so true I’m definitely that person and I think it’s especially hard when you have your own thing and you you know like with the podcast I love it so much it’s like you know the thing that I think about 90% of the time it’s so easy to get wrapped up in that and tie your entire identity to it so your book is incredibly helpful because not only does it help us to identify this within ourselves when so many of us are wandering around not knowing that we are actually not the impostor but how can we start to overcome it what are some of the practical ways that are really going to help us work through this I think one of the big things is understanding how it operates so when you go back to this idea that you know that discomfort we get is something we all experience even just knowing that makes a difference because then you’ve got a different kind of conversation in your head when you experience it and starting to really externalize that voice that says you’re not good enough you’re going to be found out your boss isn’t happy with you your friends think you’re not a good friend you know whatever it’s saying starting to think hold on a second actually that voice doesn’t have my best interest in mind and even though it feels like it’s keeping me safe and I have to do everything it says kind of like a bully you know you’re paying it off paying it off but it never goes away much better to try and stand up to it and just start to challenge some of those beliefs and I think the big part of challenging those beliefs too is that you have to almost start to collect evidence that shows you a different View and when we go back to that idea of those two rules you know I call it the myth of Lucky and Other Stories and again like before I wrote the book it was definitely a trap I fell into too so I’d written a series of books and I was you know really proud of them but I kind of thought to myself you know I just worked really hard anybody could have done it and actually it wasn’t until I wrote The Imposter cure that I realized yeah I did work really hard but actually that’s the skill and not everybody works really hard and the fact that I managed to and you know the books came as a result of it that’s something I should be proud of and so it’s just starting to unpick the excuses you’ve got and look at the reality of actually what’s going on so like that project manager always saying it’s the team it’s like well hold on who put the team together and who instructed the team and who’s the person people come to and you know the most common one I hear is I was so lucky it was so lucky and just really getting people to stop and be like was it luck or is it because You’ really worked hard and you’ve put in hours of your time and thought and effort and even with one like you know oh they really like me again being likable and getting on well in a team is a real skill and so just starting to tease apart those excuses and starting to see the kind of true picture of what’s going on um and I guess the other part of it too is really beginning to build a more compassionate voice and so often people feel like you know self-criticism is what’s going to get them where they need to go or you know like this perfectionist approach or the impostor syndrome is good actually it’s stopping and saying is feeling anxious every day a good thing you know is feeling bad about yourself a good thing when you are stuck in those moments and it all becomes overwhelming that’s what leads to paralysis or Pro procrastination what we need is a much more compassionate voice in our minds that is fair and still wants us to improve and do better on the things that we’re struggling with but in the way we talk to a friend or somebody that we loved rather than in this really punitive and self-critical way and that also means like we said at the start beginning to notice okay I felt like this before but actually it went well and updating that information so the next time you’re in that situation and the feelings come up you remind yourself okay last time it was like that but actually it went well I was really pleased with it yeah it was hard but it was worth it and so you’re starting to build information that supports you rather than always picking out the information that is kind of the one bit you did wrong yeah I always feel like this you know we all have those uh points in our lives where we have to like rewrite our CV and stuff and I always feel like when I’ve Rewritten my CV on a resume I’m like gosh darn it I have been so mean to myself and actually I have done some pretty cool stuff and those were great things that I did and I should back myself more but I guess like keeping that running document is so helpful one of the things I’ve done for the podcast is like start compiling like a monthly summary of like the achievements and where it’s hit and like beautiful feedback from people and like you say you know in those moments of self outb like thinking oh I should just go and get a real job um actually pulling that document out and going no this is you know I am helping people people are enjoying the content and it is offering you know something that’s not you know shaming people make them feel bad and it’s genuinely helpful H that has been a game changer for me it’s so true it’s incredibly helpful yeah and that’s definitely something that I recommend too doing a CV and looking back at all your experience not just work but you know kind of all the work stuff but things you’ve done in your personal life friendships things you’ve overcome and really putting it together in my clinic I I’d get people to start it with me in the session and then go away and write it through the week and it’s amazing once you start to open that door what you start to see because you’re suddenly attending to the information differently and like you say you build this wonderful CV and I get people to read it back to me in the session and once they’ve got over the slight cringe factor of you know actually being proud of how they’re doing it’s a really amazing thing to do and the other thing I get people to think is you know imagine when you were 16 or 18 you know if you heard about this person who’d done all these things and had this list of achievements what would you think of them because I think so often we move the goalposts and where before you know we wanted to get to this point Suddenly It’s moved forward and we haven’t actually taken on board what it’s taken to get to that point and so when the goal post move you don’t have that moment like you have when you write it all down and properly take it on board and like you say then continuing it so another thing I get people to do is just write down three good things each day and it could be anything you know it could be something nice that happened it could be an achievement but it’s just about changing the way we attend to information because we’re so quick to see the negative because of how we’ve evolved with our threat focus and so it’s just almost like Runing into all the good stuff going on and again when I get people to read it back as they go through it they’re often like oh I forgot about that or because it’s amazing how quickly we forget those things they’re like oh yeah I did that last week and it’s such a nice way to kind of capture more of that and in a way I think about it as like you know if you were looking at a picture and you looked at say 5% of the picture or 10% you wouldn’t really have any idea of what it was and that’s what we do when we just look at the negative stuff or the things we’re unhappy with or the things that are not going well whereas when you take in the full picture of your life it’s paying attention to every part of it so you get a trer picture a bit like if you looked at the whole of a picture you’d see exactly what it was and so I think about it in that way and all the different ways you can do it like you describe looking back at stuff you know lots of people I work with have a kind of email folder filled with nice feedback that is kind of some at this place they can go and look and so it’s really being imaginative and working out the best way for you to remember those things but I love what you do too you know I think that’s such a good way to do it oh yeah thank you I love the picture analogy that’s brilliant because I you know just sometimes we are so damn cruel to ourselves aren’t we I kind of had a day like that yesterday where I was thinking oh you know it’s not you know you’re not doing that well and you’re not doing this and this hasn’t gone right and actually you could be dealing with it better and just taking a minute to go actually because one of the other things that I um took from you Jessie is that our our thoughts are not us and they’re not true like we can have those thoughts right and they are appropo of nothing and have an impact on nothing is that also a really important thing for us to realize really important and I think that when I was first training that’s what really was like you know a kind of well moment for me too this idea that thoughts aren’t facts and that not only that you know our mood heavily influences and colors how we feel so if you wake up and you’re feeling a bit anxious then you’re much more likely to have anxious thoughts and so it’s having that moment you know a bit like externalizing those imposter thoughts where when you’re having a bad day and you’re running through all the things that are wrong you just stop and think hold on a second actually you know is that fact or is that how I’m feeling and what else is actually going on here and if I was stepping back from this how else could I look at it or if somebody came to me and said this is going on what might I say and it can be both challenging the evidence in a really kind of practical way and thinking well you know actually I don’t know someone said something to you and maybe you kind of interpreted as them being upset with you could anything be going on with them is there anything else that was happening have I been extra senstive today because I’m not feeling so good and so challenging it in that way but I think it’s also seeing those days where Everything feels wrong as a bit of a warning sign to your mood that day and thinking okay you know I know when I’m got a really stressful week I can suddenly find myself thinking oh I’ve got too many things booked in I’m not managing this properly I should have a different approach I need to think what I’m doing and then when I just stop that kind of thought and just pause I think hold on actually I’m just not feeling good today I don’t need to reorder my life I don’t need to change everything I just need to think today a hard day that’s okay you know and maybe I can’t even feel better today because I just need to get through it but by tomorrow I’m going to feel better or maybe I can think about the things that will make me feel better today in that moment but I guess it’s like you say it’s not believing the whole story it’s seeing it as a warning sign or seeing it as information that’s important about how we’re feeling but it’s knowing that the story our mind creates isn’t always the truth yeah and I think that has that is just an absolute Game Changer if we can recognize that and slow down our thoughts to you know when we because I think when we it now the way we operate we take in so much information and then we start to feel anxious it’s so easy to quickly spiral whereas if we could kind of acknowledge those sorts and think you know what this isn’t this doesn’t actually sound like me today something else is at play I’m going to wait until tomorrow and reassess that can be a massive massive massive game Cher for me definitely yeah it’s really helpful and so one of the things that I guess an impostor syndrome sufferer would say is but if I start talking kindly to myself and biging myself up and you know you know really getting behind myself and backing myself a I’m not going to be producing as much I’m not going to be as productive or as successful because like that cruel voice really drives me and B I’m gonna have a massive ego and no one’s like No One’s Gonna like me why is that not true yeah you’re exactly right that is what people think and really that’s what makes it so hard to change and I think it’s not underestimating how difficult it is to make these changes you know it such an active approach and it’s really making a decision that you want things to be different and that you want to try out another way of doing things and when it comes to that idea that you know you’re going to slack off and do absolutely nothing well for one the research shows that when you have this more compassionate approach outcomes are far better and that actually self-criticism leads to much worse outcomes and I think the other part of it is also seeing you know you’ve done it this way for a long time it isn’t working for you isn’t it worth just trying a different way and seeing what happens and it sounds a bit strange but I think about it as a racehorse you know if you had a racehorse you wouldn’t race the horse every day to get the result the best results out of it you’d give it time at grass or kind of you know to chill out or whatever it might be and you’d think about the food they were eating and the sleep they were getting and you’d want that that a to filter into them being the best horse they can be and I think that’s the other part of it you’re not conscientious and high achieving because of the Imposter syndrome you’re that person anyway and actually the Imposter syndrome is getting in the way of that wouldn’t it be better not to feel anxious every day not to fear being found out not to be kind of living in this way that’s constant pressure and um kind of takes away all the joy and pleasure in any successes you’ve got and so it’s really letting go of that and seeing impostor syndrome and perfectionism is what hold holds you back rather than pushes you forward you’re the person who’s doing well you’re the person who has made these kind of achievements or successes in your life and just starting to trust in that and trusting in what you need as a person to continue with that in the longer term and not burn out and be able to enjoy what you’re doing and have space for your life outside of it and I think the other part which you mentioned is also really common and a particularly British thing but you know it’s anywhere isn’t it this idea of and actually I think culturally it can be a thing that if you talk too much about yourself things will go wrong you know in lots of cultures but again I’m not suggesting that you go around and Shout from the rooftops how amazing you are or tell everybody you meet how brilliant you’re doing I’m just suggesting that you start to take on board these things for yourself so that they become things you really know about yourself and that that’s actually really important information for doing well in your life or for living well knowing what you’re capable of and how you’re doing and all the previous experience that feeds into that and again another way think about it I have all these kind of funny ways of thinking about things but is like with the tennis and how they do the seeding or say like the football with the league you know you’re not based on your last match it’s the accumulation of all of your matches that make you who you are and when you know that about yourself it means there’s room to make mistakes there’s room for failure which are totally normal but also you have a sense of how you’re going to do when you’re faced with a challenge that is backed by previous experience rather than a fear-based response oh this is good see I thought I was making this episode for Jess and now I feel like I’m making it for me I really needed this I’m sure so many people who are listening are thinking yep I’m there with you Ed I feel seen the good news is these are really Simple Solutions that we can absolutely back ourselves with and it’s so interesting isn’t it because when you break it down like that it’s just really basic it’s like pay attention to the facts not the silly voice in your head yeah and I think that’s what’s so great about it that actually it is common sense that’s what’s so nice about it when you think about it you’re like yeah that is right actually this is within my control too this is something that I can make a difference with and also you know if I heard that somebody else talking about it I’d be like yeah fair enough why can’t I apply that to myself you know have the same rules yeah absolutely and so we kind of touched on this a little bit earlier but should we be sharing a voicing these thoughts that we’re having with other people will that kind of help us to work through this both ourselves personally and collectively as a society yeah absolutely and I think it’s always about choosing the right people to share it with so people that you’re Clos to and who you trust in and you know I think that that applies both within our personal lives but also at work you know if you’ve got a boss who’s more open about I remember somebody saying to me they’d gone to this meeting and afterwards their boss had said to them oh do you think it went all right and they suddenly had this moment where they realized my boss gets nervous too and that meeting that I’m turning up and feeling a bit stressed about they’re also feeling stressed about and so I think when you’re a bit more transparent at work then it makes a massive difference in terms of understanding this is how these things go rather than this is a problem with me and again in your friendships and in your personal life and in your relationships it’s so important to show all of yourself because you get a chance for other people to open up and Echo those stories but also you don’t feel like you’ve got to be a certain way to be accepted or to fit in and like we already said you know it’s our insecurities and our vulnerabilities and the things that we muck up on that actually you connect most with other people over as much as I you know love hearing about my friend successes which are also really important to talk about and I think again it’s something perhaps people don’t do enough I also want to hear the stories of the things that have been been difficult and the things that have gone wrong because that’s what I can really identify with and relate to and so when you share that you start to get a different picture of how things are and you’re not just seeing that kind of swan gliding you’re remembering their paddling furiously underwater too yeah absolutely I do find it incredibly endearing and when you start to share other people start to share more I’ve um been working um well there’s like a couple of people that I’ve worked with in the past who have this facade of everything’s amazing and it’s all brilliant and aren’t we having a fabulous time and it’s all so funny and lovely and you just think I don’t really know who you are and it doesn’t make me like you anymore and and I’m sure you’re a lovely person but I just don’t I can’t really get a grip on you or understand who you are as a person and I think it’s so much more endearing when people share their truth and say you know what I found this hard and I also think you know a lot of the time I like to share things that I’m finding difficult not because I want to offload on people but because I want to say like you know everyone’s going through it you know if everyone’s having a time and I think that makes people feel a lot better right yeah and I think that the stories it’s you know I think about it as the stories we share that kind of makes up how we see ourselves and how we think about ourselves and how we think about other people and when you share those more personal parts of your story both good and bad actually that gives you a much kind of Rich uh framework to kind of connect to others and to start to understand yourself and in a way when you don’t say the difficult bits and you’re showing this kind of perfect picture probably there’s not much room to say the good bits either but also for people to really be behind you on those good bits because they know what it’s taken to get there and when you’re more open as much as that can leave you feeling vulnerable actually that’s the best solution to vulnerability because it lets you see again that you’re human and that when you open up and say about the awful morning you had your friend can open up and say exactly the same probably um and if they can’t they know about what that’s like from another time you know and that’s when you get to really see it and really believe it it’s all very well knowing the theory but until you sort of live that and change things and see the evidence it’s much harder to update your view yeah absolutely so you obviously have spent a long time researching this you’ve written the book it’s what you do it’s your job do you is it something that you still struggle with I think writing the book made a huge difference and I would definitely put myself in the category of I didn’t realize quite how much I had it so for me one of the things I found hardest was going and doing talks and you know going and standing up in front of people and even writing the book I’d say to people you know I’m not a real author because I thought of myself psychologist who happened to have written a few books and I think again with things like perfectionism you kind I kind of thought well I didn’t do anything perfectly so I’m not a perfectionist and then suddenly when I thought about how it can narrow your focus or the expectations you set yourself or what you take on board or those moving goal post I was like oh tick tick tick you know suddenly you’re seeing it so it was a really interesting book both personally and professionally but it has made a difference I don’t feel imposter syndrome now you know when I go and do those things things which I still get really nervous about I don’t think I’m an imposter I shouldn’t be doing this I think well of course I’m going to feel like this this is out of my comfort zone and I’m not so confident doing these things and when I kind of have that moment of why do they think I know what I’m talking about I kind of think well because I’ve been doing this for like 15 years and I’ve got five different degrees and you know I just remind myself of those things so it’s not that you never get the thoughts it’s just that you just have a different answer to them and knowing like what’s your comfort zone and what’s not and what’s going to come up and how that’s going to feel and it doesn’t take away from the stress I might feel before say a really big event that I want to go really well but it just changes what I think of myself in the runup in terms of my ability to do it and knowing it feels hard because this is a big deal and I care about it rather than because I’m an impostor and I’m going to be found out oh gosh I love this this is fabulous I feel like I’ve had the same experience that you probably not as a profound one but same experience that you had writing the book in this interview thinking oh God I thought I was making this for Jess but it’s definitely about me and so is there anything else that’s really important to remember when it comes to dealing with impostor syndrome or one thing that you absolutely want people to remember when they’re thinking about this I think it’s hard to distill it down to one thing almost because the thing that I discovered when I researched the book and wrote it is how much fits under the impostor syndrome umbrella so it is perfectionism or fear of failure or insecurity or self-doubt it is your relationships and how you’re doing you know it’s this broad the umbrella is imposter syndrome and there’s this broad kind of human experience that lies underneath it and I suppose it’s just maybe that’s the final thought it’s just remembering what it means to be human that it’s not that perfected highlights real that that’s not what we should be reaching for our hoping for and actually you know I’ve worked with some really outwardly successful people who have hit all those things that we might hope to achieve and it hasn’t changed how they feel so it’s knowing it’s not a thing or a place you get to that makes you happy it’s knowing that thing we talked about today it’s how you kind of live every day and appreciating what you’ve got and slowing down and backing yourself and having space for your relationships and being real in those relationships those are the things that really matter and those are the things that give you more confidence in yourself but also allow you to enjoy your life more um and I guess it’s remembering that because that makes a huge difference when you’re having a difficult day and isn’t that so liberating you know we don’t have to strive for that next you know you know promotion or that next pay rise or that next Accolade because you know obviously that’s one part of our life but as you say we need lots of different rafts we can invest really invest in those other areas of our lives and not feel guilty about that because those are what is going to bring us true joy and contentment rather than chasing the next thing exactly and that then you know you can still be high achieving and you can still want to reach your goals but you’re in it while you’re doing it rather than waiting for that point so you can still aim high and want to do well it’s just how you do it that changes and the experience of it that changes and then you get so much more out of life yeah that’s one of the things I’ve been trying to focus on this year is the joy of doing rather than trying to get to that accl because I think so many people found they get the Accolade yeah it feels great for like 10 minutes and then you’re like okay what’s next you know yeah and that’s what I about that it’s not a race you know it’s an adventure and when you think about it what you do each day has the biggest impact rather than these kind of great big things that are in the distance and so it’s changing that mindset to how you live each day and how you treat yourself and how you think about yourself and you know looking outside yourself at other people and what’s going on for them too that’s what living really is rather than you know this perfect idea oh gosh this has been good I needed this check in thank you so much jessame it’s been an absolute joy to chat thank you for having me I’ve Loved speaking to you oh so great I know you guys will have loved that as much as me and I hopefully you’ve been listening to it too and going oh my gosh yep I’ve definitely either got much worse impostor syndrome than I thought or I definitely have impostor syndrome and I didn’t think I did and hopefully we’re giving you some great Solutions there Dr jessame hibid is a clinical psychologist and her book is the Imposter cure how to stop feeling like a fraud and escape the Mind Trap of impostor syndrome if this is really hit with you and I’m sure it has you’re going to find the link to the book in the show notes and uh where you can check out more of Dr Jess’s work too because it’s all so bloody helpful you’re going to love it thank you so much for joining me it is such a joy to join you every week I really really enjoy it cuz as you heard I learn as much as you guys do so I’m absolutely loving this I’m really grateful to you for joining me I’m edar I sincerely hope that’s helpful …