Think of any given role you hold in life; professional or personal. How many times have you experienced or currently experience one of the following?

• Self-doubt
• Lack of confidence
• Low self-esteem
• Feeling like a fraud
• Feeling inadequate
• Avoiding recognising your competencies, achievements, or successes
• Fear of success
• Fear of failure
• Regularly comparing yourself to others

If you went along nodding your head, you’re not alone. Because all of these are typical experiences of imposter syndrome (IS).

A term that has become so common, it almost seems criminal if you don’t experience it and yet we all know it can be crippling and stop even the most competent individuals in their tracks.

So to start with, let’s tackle the language. A fellow coach, Julie Genney, rightly questioned how a phenomenon became a ‘syndrome’ in the first place. Imposter syndrome is not an illness, it is not a recognised diagnosis, and there is no recommended ‘treatment’, so why the need to attach medical terminology to something that is in fact such a normal experience? Why not in fact simply call it what it is? Self-doubt. And suddenly, just like that, it’s a lot less overwhelming.

In fact, the concept that always comes to mind for me is something called the ‘Zone of Proximal Development’ (ZPD). This theory suggests that progress comes from manageable jumps in learning and skill development but it is equally recognised that these jumps will stretch us and may induce a sense of fear. And so whether it’s our first taste of that weird looking broccoli that we really want to hate but actually it’s okay, realising it hurts to fall and learning to balance, or the first time we make a friend at school but we might say or do stupid things at first. Every bit of life in childhood is a leap of faith in ourselves to work it out from experience. Yet somehow, we seem to land in adult life suddenly terrified of the choices and situations we find ourselves in, wondering if we really have what it takes to work those out too.

So where does it come from? I have a few theories:

• The invisible journey: We’re living in a world focused on fast and instant results over the time, effort and mistakes it takes to reach success. A world that makes the 1% look like the 99%. As a result, there is a misconception that we must jump and jump perfectly each time as if we were born to do whatever challenge we take on in life - something that is simply not true.
• We’re great at telling ourselves stories: Ever heard of Wason’s confirmation bias? Peter Wason, a psychologist, demonstrated that we seek out and pay particular attention to information that supports our existing beliefs. So if you already planted that seed that ‘I can’t do it’, you’ll often keep paying attention to anything that supports that, even if there’s clear evidence you can. This also feeds into our choices of who we surround ourselves by and even the messages we pick up from news or social media.
• We’ve created a comparison monster: This speaks to both points above in that the online world has created an endless resource to compare ourselves against any number of high achievers. The result? A double edged sword. It is very easy to fall into the trap of feeling inadequate ourselves but also to perpetuate the cycle by thinking the people around you could always be better.

As much as one can analyse how self-doubt creeps in and the effects it has, it is of course important to recognise that there are ways to combat it. So here are just a few tips and tricks that you might find useful.

• Is it fear or is it excitement? Many of the thoughts and feelings we experience when doubting ourselves can easily be fear or excitement. The language we use frames the situation so it’s important to take pause and consider what words accurately describe our experience. It could be the difference between feeling like a failure or jumping forward confidently.
• Look for the evidence that ‘I can’. The phrase is often like a square-peg-round-hole situation. It just doesn’t come naturally but where our instinct is to say ‘I can’t’, it’s vital to take pause and look for the evidence that ‘I can’. A number of people I’ve worked with have said they can’t multi-task or organise themselves and yet when we pause to remember they are parents, suddenly it becomes clear that they in fact multi-task and organise both themselves and their family every single day.
• Surround yourself with support (in and out of work). People want to be with people but we always have a strong desire to be accepted by the people around us. If the people you surround yourself with encourage you, support you, strengthen you, it is almost inevitable you will feel more confident and able to take on bigger challenges without fear of failure.

Self-doubt is of course a huge topic but also highly personal so it is impossible to capture everything into such a short article. If this resonates, please share, post or email your thoughts, and feel free to get in touch if you’d like to talk about this more.