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The Imposter Syndrome Prescription

Millions of people are suffering from the same psychological syndrome. There hasn’t been a known cure … until now.

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Millions of people are suffering from the same psychological syndrome. There hasn’t been a known cure … until now.

But before we talk about the cure, we need to understand the disease. The diagnosis is simple. Consider the following questions:

  • Do you ever feel like all your accomplishments have been due to luck, chance, appearance, connections, or anything else that isn’t your own smarts, drive, and talent?
  • Do you ever worry that you’re going to be exposed as a fraud, even when you’re well into your career or area of expertise?
  • Do you feel like everyone around you is smarter, works harder, and does a better job than you do?
  • Do you find yourself terrified of making mistakes and constantly believing you are likely to make one no matter how expert you get at your career?

If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, you’ve got a case of imposter syndrome – and if you answered “yes” to all of them, you’ve got a grave case of it indeed.

What Is Imposter Syndrome?

What IS “imposter syndrome?” As a Master Coach who works with high-achieving lawyers suffering from self-doubt and anxiety, I see it every day. Here’s how I define it:

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Imposter Syndrome is the state of being afraid that you will be exposed as a fraud, or as an “imposter.”

It’s generally accompanied (and exacerbated by) perfectionism, black and white thinking, and intense fear of rejection and failure. These thought patterns create a perfect storm of insecurity, anxiety, and stress.

Why Is It A Problem?

Well first of all, it just feels terrible. So first things first: You feeling anxious and insecure is a problem worth solving in and of itself.

But it’s also worth solving because of the way it interferes with you getting what you want in life. Those voices will drive you to prioritize external validation and to shy away from risks and change. You feel insecure, so you don’t go for that promotion. You don’t negotiate for that raise. You don’t ask that cute barista out. You don’t set boundaries with your parents. You don’t wear that bikini – or mankini as the case may be. You’ll hold yourself back in life and undermine your own success and happiness because you’re convinced you don’t deserve it and that it can be snatched away at any moment if the truth is revealed.

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Imposter Syndrome doesn’t go away on its own. There’s no level of accomplishment that will mute those voices in your head. The thoughts your brain is offering you – that you don’t deserve your success, that you accidentally got where you are, that you’re not smart enough or good enough and someone is going to figure it out – those thoughts can apply at any level of your career, at any year of your marriage, at any weight or body size, in any friendship or relationship. There’s nothing you can change externally that will resolve those internal voices.

How To Fix It

The good news is, it can be cured. You just have to focus on the cause of the problem: Your thoughts.

The socially advised cure for Imposter Syndrome is generally just telling people to “be more confident” and “believe in themselves.” How brilliant! Why haven’t we thought of that?!

Just kidding, we’ve totally thought of that. And it doesn’t work. And in fact it makes you feel even worse when it doesn’t work, because then you feel hopeless on top of whatever you were already feeling.

Here’s what does work: Actually changing your thoughts. Not through positive thinking or just ordering yourself to think differently. But through carefully constructing a path from the way you think about yourself now to how you’d like to think about yourself in the future. That means figuring out exactly how you think now, exactly how you want to think about yourself, and exactly what incremental thoughts you need to practice to get you from here to there.

Example:

  • Current thought: I only got this far because I work hard, and now that’s not enough.
  • Goal thought: I’m a brilliant lawyer.
  • Incremental thought to practice now: Being a lawyer requires analytical thinking; it would be hard to do well being a hard worker who wasn’t actually smart.

The prescription for Imposter Syndrome isn’t a magic pill. It’s a practice of literally rewiring your brain so that new, confidence-boosting thoughts become natural to you and your old anxiety-producing thoughts wither away along with the neural circuits that created them. Neural science teaches us that the neurons that fire together, wire together – like a physical habit or pattern, neural paths get stronger the more they are used. That’s why you can’t just tell yourself not to think something. And you can’t just erase an existing neural pathway by wishing you didn’t think it. But you can create and strengthen a new neural pathway that will eventually become your brain’s default path.

Kara Loewentheil, J.D., C.M.C., is a former litigator and academic who now runs a boutique life coaching practice, with a focus on women lawyers. As a Certified Master Coach, Kara is intimately acquainted with the unique challenges attorneys face in their professional careers and personal lives. Kara teaches her clients cognitive-based techniques for dealing with stress, anxiety, and lawyer brain so that they can build the lives and careers they want. She is also the host of the only podcast that teaches lawyers concrete solutions to their unique lawyer problems, The Lawyer Stress Solution, available on iTunes. To download a free guide to taming your anxious lawyer brain, go to www.thelawyerstresssolution.com/guide.

 

 

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