Impostor syndrome - is it real?

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Yesterday, I came across a surprising headline about the late, great TV presenter and master interviewer, Michael Parkinson.

It talked about how Parkie, who had chatted with such global heavyweights as Muhammad Ali, John Lennon and Dame Helen Mirren:

• “Suffered from “impostor syndrome”

• ”Was less self-confident than he appeared”

• Struggled with feelings of insecurity and was “constantly questioning himself” despite his media success.

How about that?

Now, over the past several years, I’ve discovered something that has been HUGE for me - namely that every experience we have comes to life through the power of thought.

If we don’t think it, or jump on board with a given thought, it can’t come to life for us.

There is nothing “out there” we can perceive outside of our own thought machine.

We aren’t seeing what’s out there like it’s a movie on the screen. Rather, our minds are projectors - taking in some raw data and shaping it according to our beliefs, conditioning, past experiences, and so on.

In fact, you can call those projections “experiences.” We experience the world internally, projecting it outwards, and we have to name those experiences to bring them to life.

We have to name them and label them so we can talk about them, and relay them to other people.

So, when a particular experience - or let’s say a flow of energy - arises when we are talking to people we perceive as more qualified, wealthier, or “higher status” than us, we might call our EXPERIENCE of that energy something like “impostor syndrome”.

And because we relay it as something called impostor syndrome to others, and many, many other people have that same experience, that energy becomes a “thing” called “impostor syndrome”.

What happens then?

Well, everyone agrees upon the label, knows what the label means, and so it is done. Impostor syndrome is now a thing. (Only if you don’t see that clever thought illusion at work!).

And because it’s not just a thing but an uncomfortable thing (who wants to feel insecure talking to people or presenting at work?), it can and it does become a condition (it’s called a “syndrome”, after all!).

And because we humans tend to go to town on uncomfortable stuff, innocent old insecure energy labelled as “impostor syndrome” also becomes something to be…

-Grappled with

-Managed

-Coped with / dealt with…

Or even:

OVERCOME (that’s a big one)

And sometimes, or many times, if you feel you haven’t achieved the above and gotten it to disappear or even just lessen, it may feel like it’s hanging around like a pesky old weight on your back.

After all, whatever you resist (in the form of wanting to conquer, push away, or do-something-with), well, it kinda persists, doesn’t it!

Unless….

-We don’t take that energy to heart, or make it ours.

-We allow it do just be there and do its thing, until it passes. (Energy always just wants to come up and move on, by its very nature).

(Do waves stick around? Does the sun not come up and down? Does the wind not rise and fall? Stop me, I’m getting poetic).

Unless…

Unless we observe those feelings - or maybe even embrace them - so that the monster or syndrome suddenly looks like a friendly little bubble of energy instead.

Just doing its thing to help “protect us!”.

Remember - your mind just wants to have your back, but the end result is it may just keep you small, if you let it.

For me, I’ve often had the experience of apprehension before an interview or presentation at work, before going on to nail it in front of an audience (as per others’ comments, not mine!).

The moral of the story?

That “impostor” energy can be there, and whether you call it impostor syndrome or yikkety-yak, it’s still just energy.

After all, you can’t see it, hear it (except as the chatterbox inside your noggin), taste it or smell it. You can’t put it in a box.

And if it comes and goes like the waves at sea, how real can it be?

(There’s that emerging poet again).

So when it comes to the energy label called impostor syndrome, you don’t have to buy into the story. You don’t have to believe it’s even as serious as a syndrome.

Over to you

What about you? Agree, disagree? Do you struggle with this experience we call impostor syndrome? I’d love to hear what you think!

I’m passionate about this topic, so much so I even recorded a short video on the topic a while back! You can find it below if you’d like to hear more.

Coming up

I’ll talk about other “experiences of energy” and how they may not be what we thought they were, after all.

Key word being “thought” 😉 

Talk soon, and please do reply with your questions or comments. I am also taking requests for topics, so feel free to chime in with suggestions!

Best,
Anton

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Anton McCarthy

Coach & Content Creator

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