A way forward – Flipping the Script

Imposter Syndrome Solutions: When looking at blog part 2 “The Imposter Syndrome Anatomy” it is natural to want to get rid of those unhelpful feelings of being an imposter or having a syndrome. But what if we “flipped the script” and reframed it as a positive?.

A different approach is the key that frees us up from all those negative thoughts and feelings, releasing energy, potential, creativity and motivation.

Here are some ideas:

Making it a positive

The Imposter Syndrome is a bunch of primitive mind feelings and thoughts that are designed to keep us safe in unfamiliar environments or situations. After all its prudent to be on alert in those unfamiliar situations. So instead of seeing it as something to eliminate, why not see it as something that can be embraced and acted upon. What if we used that energy, which we spend on trying to get rid of the Imposter Syndrome, but in a positive direction towards addressing the concerns being flagged by the Imposter Syndrome..

A few years ago I was working at a college of personal development and we were doing a short one day training on anxiety. Imposter Syndrome is a kind of anxiety. Typically we asked the students what their definition of anxiety was. One group’s reply was ” Having uncomfortable feelings and not doing anything about them”. What the students were eluding to was that anxious feelings are there to support us and we should see them as a call to action. When we don’t take action that’s when we feel anxious.

Note: Incidentally that’s why I am called ACT Hypnotherapy. ACT stands for A-ction C-hanges T-hings.

Lets look at an example. Imagine that you are starting a new job or being promoted to a more senior role. Both these two scenarios are potential causes for Impostor Syndrome. What positive actions could you take (or you have taken in the past) towards addressing any anxieties.

Here are some I’ve come up with to illustrate the point, but I’m sure you can come up with better ones:

Positive actions – Imposter Syndrome Solutions

• Accept that the Imposter Syndrome feelings are part of the process. Welcome them. I’m sure that you have felt them in the past in other situations.
• A reframe. People are promoted for attitude, the rest can be learnt. If you are promoted to a role then the expectation is that you will have to learn the role. So there will be a time of not knowing and learning.
• Remember that it is a temporary feeling, it’s not fact – you was not born with it.
• Notice, value and acknowledge your strengths. You was promoted for a reason! When we acknowledge our strengths we raise our self worth and the imposter Syndrome diminishes.
• Take advantage of your work personal development plans and get training in to fill in any knowledge gaps.
• Seek out a mentor / coach. Peoples’ willingness to help may surprise you.
• If possible shadow someone that’s doing a skill you want to learn.
• Get to know your colleagues during tea breaks and social events to build connections and familiarity.

Now image that you are in that new job doing some of the above positive actions. What difference would that make? And can you see how slowly slowly the Impostor Syndrome anxieties will fade as you get familiar with you new role. The alternative of course is to struggle on, holding on and experiencing the Impostor feelings. Which approach would you choose?

Growth Mindset -Imposter Syndrome Solutions

(Checkout Carol Dweck book “Mindset” – an excellent read on the subject)

The primitive minds’ prime directive is to keep us safe. So anything that supports that directive of safety will help diminish the imposter syndrome feelings. It’s more about the journey than the destination.

One of the ways to be safe is to adopt the “Growth mindset”. The growth mindset is one that sees any situation as an opportunity to learn and grow.

The growth mindset embodies the attitude “Feedback not Failure”. It relishes the opportunity to learn new things and to collaborate with others. Because this mindset values learning, it’ll focus on the positive and will explore what to do next to get even better at a given task.

I love this quote:

If you learn from defeat, you haven’t really lost. 

Zig Ziglar

The growth mindset achieves security by taking a positive attitude and bringing control back to the person perceiving the situation. Often when we experience Imposter Syndrome we are at the mercy of other peoples’ opinion or external events. When we reclaim those opinions for ourselves and control our reactions to events, we find ourselves back in control and so anxiety levels diminish and so does the Imposter Syndrome.

Now obviously when we are in an environment where other peoples’ opinions matter for our employment security and success, it is prudent to play to those opinions. Having a growth mindset will give us the tool to respond to those opinions in a positive, resilient and resourceful way.

In schools the growth mindset is used to motivate students by praising effort, collaboration and looking to what was good rather than whether the students have succeeded or not. Effort and positive feedback will result in success in the long run. Whereas focusing on whether you succeeded or not (the fixed mindset) can lead to disappointment and demotivation.

Challenge some of the Negative Internal dialogue – Imposter Syndrome Solutions

If you was able to record Imposter Syndrome internal dialogue I’m sure it wouldn’t be too positive. There would be primitive mind catastrophising, negative self talk. Remember the primitive mind all always operates from the worse possible perspective.

So instead of listening to it and believing what it says, do something about the self talk, as suggested by the students’ definition of anxiety, take positive action.

As Byron Katie says:

The only problem is our unexplored thoughts

Byron Katie

So what can we do with Imposter Syndrome thoughts?

What we can do is take advantage of the observation that we can’t think two thoughts at the same time.

So if we choose to switching to more positive thoughts we take back control of our experience and feel the benefit of that positive thinking.

Remember that everything starts with how we think: Think a positive thought —-> Feel a positive feeling —-> Behave in a positive way. The opposite is true too.

The other good news is that when we are thinking positive thoughts we are not listening to the Imposter Syndrome ones.

Here’s two examples of this strategy:

Simply replace unhelpful thoughts with positive thoughts and feel the benefit of those new thoughts. Notice how more resilient and motivated positive thoughts make us. Here’s where positive affirmations are useful. (See the blog “Self talk, how to make it work for you”)

Challenge your negative thoughts ! Is what you are saying to yourself true?

Check out Byron Katie and her “The Work” process. Here are some of her questions.

Think of something that you tell yourself that isn’t very helpful. Here’s my example “I’m not qualified to write a Imposter Syndrome blog” – You can think of your own.

Now ask these questions to yourself:

• Is that thought true ? Answer intuitively simply “Yes” or “No”.
• If your first answer is yes then ask the supplementary question. “Could you absolutely know that to be true?” Yes or No.
• Explore the effect that thought has on you by answering these two questions:

How do you react when you believe that thought?

Who would you be without that thought?

And finally replace the thought with a more helpful one, e.g. “My take on the Imposter Syndrome maybe be helpful to some one”. And notice what difference that makes.

Conclusion: So by taking back control of our internal dialogue, the primitive mind can relax and the Imposter Syndrome will diminish.

Unlocking the Syndrome – melting the ice -Imposter Syndrome Solutions

In the anatomy of the Imposter Syndrome (blog part 2), the final step of the process was to make our feelings into a syndrome. This is because the feelings were too uncomfortable and to get some relief from the feelings we moved them outside of ourselves and the feelings became a syndrome.

The use of a syndrome is helpful as it relieves those uncomfortable feelings and gives us a cause, something we can blame.

Other times it can be unhelpful to see things as a syndrome as it moves the cause outside of ourselves. For those that who are into NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) a syndrome is a normalisation, i.e. a verb converted into a noun.

In order to take back control and get unstuck from the Imposter Syndrome we need to convert the noun back into a verb. When we do this we see the Imposter Syndrome as something that we are creating by our thoughts and feelings. The good news is that since we are doing those thoughts and feelings then we can choose to do something different. (A bit like the internal dialogue mentioned above).

Syndome Melting Question (noun into a verb)

Here’s some questions to help unmelt the Imposter Syndrome.

• How are your Impostering? (I know its not necessarily a word but you get the gist of what it’s trying to do)
• What are you saying to yourself ?
• What action are you taking in reaction to the Imposter Syndrome?
• What actions are you not taking that you should be taking?
• Where is your focus? Outside of yourself on other peoples’ imagined opinions, on the event?

The above are some questions that return ownership of our experience back to ourselves so that we own them and so have direct control over them. Once you’ve un-syndromed your feelings you can take some of the actions mentioned in the previous sections, e.g. challenging the negative internal dialogue, adopting the growth mindset etc, and regain control.

Conclusion

So the above exploration of the Imposter Syndrome is just an exploration. I’m sure that there are many other approaches and solutions to it. However I do hope I have positively contributed to the discussion and you have gone away with some more understanding and some options. In essence the above talks about:

• Welcoming the Imposter Syndrome as a positive, a natural response to an uncertain new environment
• Owning the experience and taking action – addressing the shortfalls the Imposter Syndrome is flagging.
• Some strategies to alleviate its effect on us, i.e. dealing with negative internal dialogue and un-syndroming it so that our thoughts and feelings are within our influence.
• Adopting the Growth Mindset to reduce too much focus on external factors like other peoples’ opinions.

Imposter Syndrome Solutions and Hypnotherapy

Solution focused hypnotherapy (SFHT) approach to the Imposter Syndrome is aligned with the above strategies. It supports the individual in take back control in new and uncomfortable environments. It guides the individual back into the intellectual / rational mind where they can take positive action to address any concerns that have been flagged.

Solution Focused Hypnotherapy does the above by raising the levels of the wellbeing neurotransmitter serotonin through:

• Explaining the workings of the mind.
• The 3P strategy of Positive Action, Positive Interaction and Positive Thinking.
• The use of relaxation to relax the primitive mind and gain access to the intellectual mind.
• Positive suggestions.
• And a lot more.

If you want to find out more about the Imposter Syndrome, how the mind works and how we create resistances such as anxiety, depression, anger, contact me at ACT Hypnotherapy for your FREE no obligation consultation. During the consultation you will learn what to do about those limiting emotions so that you are free to live the life you want.

Accreditation: National Council of Hypnotherapy (NCH), Association of Solution Focused Hypnotherapy (AfSFH), Association of Neuro-linguistic Programmers (ANLP)