Lately, I’ve been meeting my friends’ inner impostors. “I can’t help but wonder if I deserve this job at all,” impostor Nat confessed. As an aviation graduate, she never thought she’d find herself in media or PR. “I don’t even know how I’m surviving in this industry!”
There’s impostor Anna on her promotion to VP: “I’m just worried I don’t have the experience to take this on.”
Then there’s impostor Ria — yes, me — who sometimes still can’t wrap her head around her new job. (You’ll meet her shortly!)
The impostor syndrome. Isn’t it just so absurd?
Because, in a nutshell, it goes like this: You keep your head down, put in the work, and wait to be recognized for your effort or capability. Then when someone finally gives you that recognition (a promotion! an award! a mere “that was great work!”), you’re suddenly like, “Uhm, I don’t know what I did to deserve that… but thanks?”
For many people and in varying contexts, it cannot be helped: When the inner impostor strikes, it casts its shadow over your hard-earned milestones, rendering you unable to savor or feel worthy of where you are. What’s supposed to be a cause of celebration and pride now triggers your anxiety. Now, you find yourself contending with an Undeserved Good Thing.
So I listen to my friends battle their inner frauds. They tell me about their Undeserved Good Things. I try to give them a TED, I mean, pep talk.
Kidding aside, I thought it was worth sharing and fleshing out my thoughts. If you are dealing with impostor syndrome, my hope is that this gives you the safe space to sit with your inner impostor and finally rein them in. Because I know that you know: You’re better than them.
A redeeming thing
Obviously, impostor syndrome is a pesky thing, but beneath the insecurity and anxiety, here’s what I see: someone whose heart is in the right place.
Because if anything, impostor syndrome is a sign that you care deeply about the work. Your ability to deliver — to meet a particular set of expectations — matters to you because you don’t want to take the responsibility for granted. You want to show up with your best self.
I also think impostor syndrome is a fair sign of humility. Arguably, there is a fine line between being humble and shying away from yourself (I dive more into this later on). But I’d like to think that skewing towards modesty is generally desirable. Humility is what enables you to keep learning. To keep asking questions. It’s what keeps you mindful of your gaps and weaknesses, which then pushes you to find ways to manage them.
That you take your work seriously and are able to stay grounded — these are admirable, powerful things. To me, they are foundations for success. Sturdy inner compasses. And when you have them, despite the impostor syndrome, I think it’s only a matter of time until you come into your own.
A better word than “deserve”
Impostor syndrome is born from a gap in your perception of your worthiness. In your mind, you = x. The Good Thing = x + 1.
And you know: x =/= x + 1
So: you =/= Good Thing
The math isn’t mathing. Hence: The Undeserved Good Thing.
So what can we do?
Let me introduce to you: Impostor Ria.
Impostor Ria is four months into her job called sEni0r sTRatEgiSt. It’s her first time working in an advertising agency, and she’s had a considerably different professional background.
But for some reason, she has landed this role as a strategist. A senior one at that. She’s expected to know things, provide “strategic routes”, and give “strategic guidance”.
And at the back of her mind, she can’t help but think: But what the hell do I know?
Now, back to me, the real Ria.
I think back to how exactly I got here: Seven years ago, I started in the consumer goods industry, covering sales and trade marketing. Five years later, I realized my love for storytelling & communications, and I decided to shift to media. The following year I would find a LinkedIn post: “We are looking for brand strategists of all levels!”
(My job then was “content strategist”, which, to quote a former colleague, was simply a glorified version of a copywriter. The reality is that this job differed vastly from the one I have now.)
I knew I didn’t have experience in brand strategy, but I e-mailed my resume anyway. The most I could cling to then was my gut feeling that this sort of work aligned with a lot of things about me: My passion for storytelling and communication. My affinity for frameworks. The way I enjoy organizing thoughts and big-picture thinking.
So I prepared for the interview. I got sick in the testing phase of the application, but I powered through it. I gave my absolute best in every step of the process. And I got the job.
Now allow me to digress a bit — I promise I will make my point!
When I was writing this personal essay, I asked for professional feedback, and the editor commented on one sentence: “This doesn’t feel earned.”
Earned.
That really struck me. She wasn’t saying that I had no right to claim what I wrote, only that I should dig deeper, trace back the events once more, and unearth what I really had been thinking and feeling. So that’s what I did. I revised the piece, and only then did I truly understand what she meant: She wanted the sentence to feel warranted. She wanted me to explain how I earned it.
What if instead of wishing we felt like we “deserve” the Undeserved Good Thing, we thought about how we earned it?
See, our inner impostor usually says: “That wasn’t you. That was just luck!”
So what if we just recounted our steps, took a hard look within, really saw our abilities and experiences and talents in our mind’s eye, internalized our own efforts, gave more credit to ourselves — and told our inner impostors to STFU?
Because where you are? It could not have been just a stroke of luck. The truth is you’ve maneuvered your way into where you are — even if you didn’t know that that’s where you were headed.
You are where you are — you’ve earned where you are — because of the choices you made. The chances you took. The work you put in. And the unique basket of experiences and traits and perspectives you carry with you.
Now if after recounting your steps, you still feel insecure, or you feel raw for whatever Good Thing has been bestowed upon you, let me share with you what my favorite boss told me when I couldn’t find it in me to believe in myself: You are a diamond.
All finely cut diamonds start out raw.
Raw does not mean unqualified or unworthy. It just means there’s a little bit of polishing to be done.
Who loses?
Remember my friend Nat in the intro? She’s actually a micro-influencer. A magazine wanted to do a feature on her for Pride Month, interview and photoshoot and all.
And here goes impostor Nat: “I really doubt myself whenever I get invitations like this. I get so scared. It’s such a huge responsibility to speak for and represent the LGBTQIA+ community. I mean, who the hell am I?”
Taking cues from my inner Uncle Ben, I told her: “Sis, with a great platform comes great opportunity.”
I continued: “This isn’t just about you anymore. Because you already have a following. Either you use it for stuff that really matter, or you use it to sell shit.”
Ultimately, when you let your inner impostor get the best of you, when you shy away from the Good Thing, you are also shying away from your potential to make an impact. The opportunity becomes an opportunity cost. Those who could’ve gained from what you had to offer are robbed.
When faced with the prospect of stepping up, perhaps it might help to think of it as a see-saw: on one end is your potential, the other end is the pressure. The trick is to weigh in more on the earlier.
Because that Undeserved Good Thing isn’t just a Good Thing. It’s a way to create some kind of impact. A chance to touch one more person’s life. To share your good fortune, your rich perspective. To stand for and inject the world with more of what you believe in.
Reining in your impostor syndrome isn’t easy, but letting it win comes at much too high a cost. As Valerie Young put it: “Everybody loses when bright people play small.”