Have you ever felt like you are a fraud just waiting to be exposed? Do you believe that everyone around you is smarter than you? I have.
If you’ve felt this way, guess what, we’re not alone. Many of the people around us probably feel like they don’t belong, ironically, including those who look like they have it totally together. Studies suggest that 25 to 30 percent of high achievers may suffer from the belief that they are not deserving of their accomplishments. There are some patterns that emerge for those of us who battle feeling unworthy, particularly the trait of perfectionism, and we often faced, or self-imposed, high pressure to achieve during childhood.
I grew up in rural China, the child of illiterate parents. When I was awarded the chance to attend college in Dalian, I was convinced my classmates all came from big cities with good schools and knew infinitely more than me. I felt like an imposter. Realities reinforced this self-belief: My high school lacked the faculty and resources to teach anything beyond rudimentary chemistry and physics. Surely my classmates had abilities I could never match. What could I do but try to outwork them to fill in the gaps that made me a fraud?
This pattern continued, both the imposter syndrome and the attempt to outwork my peers. When I entered doctoral studies at the National Polytechnic Institute of Grenoble in France, my Chinese peers had attended first- and second-tier Chinese universities, and even their preparation was vastly outmatched by our French colleagues, for China in the early 1980’s was a very backward country. I not only faced a vast chasm in the knowledge I would need to excel in the rigorous, highly specialized requirements of a doctoral program, but also a stark language barrier. All instruction took place in a foreign language. Later, after a post-doctoral program in the US, my position as the first Chinese engineer at a major US HVAC manufacturer created anxiety so severe that at one point, I was transported to the hospital by ambulance.
Taking Control
They say the first step in overcoming any condition is admitting you have it. That took me a long time. The belief that I was an imposter followed me into the C-suite of international companies. Slowly, I learned to look beyond myself and to study the organizations I worked within. With time, I saw that nearly everyone doubted themselves from time to time, and that those who seemed most confident were sometimes masking weaknesses. I learned that I needed to measure my own achievements rather than comparing myself to others—a hard lesson I failed many times. I also learned that I had to promote myself. Not to become a braggart, but to amplify my or our team’s success on projects or risk going unnoticed.
I was even slower to recognize that there was often a presence of systemic discrimination where, as an Asian and an immigrant, I encountered bias, conscious and unconscious, that created an environment that fueled my insecurities, a portion of what we have come to know as the Bamboo Ceiling. Those who have not been historically represented in corporate workplaces can, in some organizations or with some leaders, face a higher bar to entry. With time and continued hard work, most colleagues came to see that we were united in our goals to design, produce, and sell high-quality products and advance the company’s interests. The wiser parts of me came to understand that those who could not accept me as their equal suffered a condition I would never be able to change.
Just as I became a wiser person as I worked in different environments at ever-higher levels of responsibility, we’ve grown as a society, and smart companies recognize the value of diverse perspectives and experiences and purposefully build corporate cultures that are pluralistic and inclusive. The first step for an organization in recognizing that it can remove the conditions that make individuals feel like impostors is the same as it is for the individual—awareness of their existence.
For those who suffer from imposter syndrome, admitting that we don’t know something triggers our worst fears. We’re afraid to ask for help or accept feedback because we don’t see it as personally directed. But it’s liberating when we do. One key is to seek out mentors. Solicit mentorship from those who have walked similar paths. (You may just find out that they once shared your same doubts.) And if you’re older, reach out to those coming behind you; your help may allow them to unleash all the great ideas they are keeping bottled up in their fear.
Here’s some additional advice from those who know more than me on practical ways to confront these feelings.
Originally posted on Forbes.com