Dealing with Imposter Syndrome at Work.
by Morenikeji Haruna
How do you feel at work? Do you feel capable and put together or do you feel inexperienced in spite of your knowledge and experience? If you can relate better with the latter, despite the accumulation of knowledge and skills you have as well as the success seen in your life over time, you may be dealing with imposter syndrome.
Harvard business review describes the phenomenon this way ‘Imposter syndrome can be defined as a collection of feelings of inadequacy that persist despite evident success. ‘Imposters’ suffer from chronic self-doubt and a sense of intellectual fraudulence that override any feelings of success or external proof of their competence’.
This is a psychological state where the subject feels like a fraud or feels they are not good enough. In the workspace or professional world, it comes with a fear of being exposed at work as not being good enough for their role or the job assigned to them. It’s a real feeling experienced by even the most competent of professionals and Pharmacists are not exempted.
Personally, I remember my first awareness of imposter syndrome as an intern. Only six months into the internship year, I was transferred from the head office of the company I worked to one of the branches as the Pharmacist on the evening shift. Whenever a patient came with cases I hadn’t encountered yet in practice or even a few cases I had, I felt I would be exposed soon as a fraud although I had the requisite knowledge gotten through the time spent in school. I figured the patients would discover me as an intern and then decide my experience was insufficient to cater to their health needs. Maybe you can relate
As Pharmacists, the syndrome can be peculiar because we deal with the health of our patients or clients (as the case may be). We don’t want to make decisions that will affect their health negatively but feelings of imposter syndrome can make us do just that. These feelings will keep us from giving our best when we need to, holding back our contributions in teams, launching an innovative idea. It is in fact a limiting factor in our professional and personal growth.
How can we deal with this syndrome? How can we prevent these thoughts of being exposed as fraud keep us from moving forward?
Truly there’s no one size fits all solution to this but I’ll share four tips that have helped people deal with this syndrome.
1. Recognize the symptoms when they occur: If we are truly in tune with ourselves and are aware of the various feelings we experience, we can tell when this syndrome creeps in. Most of the time, the syndrome is associated with symptoms such as extreme lack of self-confidence, feelings of inadequacy, constant comparison to other people, anxiety, self-doubt, negative self-talk, dwelling on the past, and irrational fears of the future. Once you catch yourself in any of these feelings, take this as an alarm bell in your mind and squelch them before they hinder you.
2. Seek Support: When we feel this way, it’s easy to assume that we’re alone in our struggles when in reality, we are not. Other people feel or have felt this way too so one good way to work through these feelings is to seek support from people. Trusted colleagues, family, professional mentors, friends could be a source of encouragement at the times we feel this way. We should open up to trusted people about how we feel. Talking about it helps reduce the burden of bearing all the thoughts associated with the syndrome.
3. Mindshift: Imposter syndrome is majorly associated with how we feel and our feelings emanate from our mind, our thought processes, and systems. A paradigm shift as regards how we view ourselves and our thoughts will go a long way in helping us through this syndrome. For example, rather than think we are not doing well at a job, we could choose to embrace the thought that tells us that ‘“we are doing well” and then commit to working on the areas of our weaknesses. Basically think thoughts that are helpful, not those that only serve to limit you.
4. Take risks where appropriate: All symptoms of imposter syndrome lead to one culminating effect at work. Inability to give out our best selves to our work. We could work all we want, but with these underlying thoughts, we would not evolve to be the excellent people we ought to be. Taking risks at work in spite of our feelings would build confidence in us and also enable us to take hold of opportunities when they come.
Our healing from imposter syndrome will take us on a journey where we build confidence in our work, take hold of opportunities and leave the voices of negativity behind. I hope we learn to live boldly, be confident in what we have to offer, and lean on people when we find ourselves struggling. Take a step today towards the future you see and don’t be hindered by this syndrome.
To see true stories of professionals who have struggled with this click Right here. If you’re struggling as well you would see that you are not alone.
PSN-YPG Lagos Cares
