How to Beat Imposter Syndrome

This is the final part of my Imposter Syndrome series, how to beat imposter syndrome.

If you want a recap on the series:

👉 Is it really Imposter Syndrome?

👉 5 Key Influences Behind Imposter Syndrome

👉 My Imposter Syndrome Story

Let’s recap what Imposter syndrome is, with a definition.

Imposter Syndrome: A psychological pattern in which an individual doubts their skills, talents, or accomplishments and has a persistent internalised fear of being exposed as a "fraud", despite evidence of their competence.

To Summarise Imposter Syndrome

👉 It’s caused by HOW you think. 

👉 This way of thinking is persistent.

👉 Evidence exists of your competence.

With that covered, let’s kick on...

Let’s recall the five key influences of imposter syndrome and how to use each one to beat it.

The Subconscious Mind (You AI)

I previously explained how you can think about your subconscious mind as your own version of Chat GPT.

Your AI assistant runs on autopilot.

It constantly sends you thoughts or suggestions about how it thinks you should think about a given situation.

It can do this based on the data you’ve trained it with.

When you give your attention to something, you are training your AI…

So, it has a lot of data to work with.

Being trained on that data leads to your imposter syndrome responses.

Worse, if that data has been repeated often, it probably now lives in the cache used by your AI.

That means it has priority over other potential thoughts.

Knowing this, you can be more purposeful about what you expose your AI to. 

You can actively avoid negative and unhelpful data and start training your AI on quality data, resulting in more helpful and constructive thoughts.

The rest of this issue is focused on training your AI with tips from high-level actions to low-level thoughts.

It takes time and patience, but for me, this is how to beat imposter syndrome.

Habits

Habits can be big or small.

They’re most powerful when we know them and most dangerous when we don’t even realise we have them.

Self-Talk

Self-talk is a habit many of us don’t realise we have.

It’s how we tell ourselves stories about our capabilities and how others perceive us.

I like to say:

There are two types of people in this world… Those who talk to themselves… And those who don’t realise they talk to themselves…

Self-talk provides vast amounts of data to your AI.

Unfortunately, most people’s self-talk is critical... of themselves.

It’s estimated that you’re engaged in some form of self-talk for up to 70% of your waking day!

That’s a lot of repetition and a lot of data.

Look out for three main types of self-talk:

Informal self-talk:

This consists of informal statements you make to yourself and others. Here are some examples:

From:

🔴 “I was just lucky…”

🔴 “Everyone else is smashing it…”

🔴 “Everyone knows more than me…”

To:

🟢 “I created this opportunity”

🟢 “I just need to focus on me”

🟢 “I’m improving; that’s what matters”

Primary Questions:

We send our AI down a particular path with the questions we ask.

When you ask questions like:

🔴 “Why am I so stupid?”

🔴 “Why do I always mess up the interview?”

🔴 “Why would anyone follow me as a leader?”

Your AI makes it its mission to find evidence of all the times you’ve been stupid, messed up an interview or failed an attempt at leadership as if trying to prove your suspicion correct.

However, replace them with questions such as:

🟢 “How can I be better next time?”

🟢 “What can I learn from this interview?”

🟢 “How do I improve as a leader?”

And you’ll send it on a very different mission, a more positive and helpful one.

Affirmations:

Affirmations are statements about yourself.

If you recognise these:

🔴 “I’m a failure.”

🔴 “I am always late.”

🔴 “I’m not good enough at…”

Try switching them for these:

🟢 “When I fail, I always learn.”

🟢 “I’m improving my punctuality.”

🟢 “I’m trying my best.”

With enough repetition, you’ll provide your AI with quality data and also start to believe it.

So, start to build awareness of your self-talk.

Out loud and in your head…

If you don’t think you talk to yourself, pay extra attention…

Here are a few more examples of more constructive self-talk.

👉 “I can learn”

👉 “I can improve”

👉 “I tried my best”

👉 “I’m a hard worker”

👉 “I have a history of great work”

👉 “I worked hard to get where I am”

👉 “My skills are an asset to any company”

👉 “I worked hard to create that opportunity”

👉 “Becoming a senior or leader is a journey”

🟢 This is a short version

The full version concludes with:

--> Negativity

--> Beliefs

----> I am… I often…

----> Validating

----> Reframing

--> Your Wellbeing Processor

----> YOU are NOT your thoughts…

--> Thought Recursion

----> Reframing

------> How can I think about this more constructively?

--> High-Level > Low-Level

You can find it here:

Rich’s Recommendations

Check out my recommendations to improve your wellbeing, mindset, leadership or tech skills:

👍 Jade Wilson - Senior Sofware Engineer at Microsoft.

Newsletter: Tech Unfiltered

👍 Ryan Murphy ’s weekly newsletter, The Software Engineering Times, is simply a place to help you grow and learn as a Software Engineer.

Newsletter: The Software Engineering Times

👍 Neo Kim ’s weekly newsletter to learn system design:

Newsletter: System Design Newsletter

👍 Nick Cosentino 's weekly newsletter to help you level up as a software engineer!

From a Principal Engineering Manager at Microsoft.

Newsletter: Dev Leader Weekly

👍 Mayank Ahuja - Subscribe for Software Development Insights (under the hood).

Newsletter: The Curious Mak : A Developer's Perspective

Conclusion

I’m sure you’ll agree this isn’t your typical “How to Beat Imposter Syndrome” article.

I wanted to give you the low-level details so you can understand why the high-level advice is essential and how it can ultimately help you. 

What I’ve discussed here is powerful because it can be used in any situation, not just to beat imposter syndrome.

There's not much in this world that you can control, but you have much more control over your thoughts than you realise, directly or indirectly.

I'll leave you with a quote that sums things up pretty well...

People who don’t feel like impostors are no more intelligent or capable or talented or qualified than those who do.

The only difference between them and us is that in the exact situation that triggers an impostor response in us… they are thinking different thoughts.

That’s it.

VALERIE YOUNG - co-founder of Impostor Syndrome Institute.

Remember

There's nothing more important than your own wellbeing!