#076: When Your Own Work Feels Like a Fraud, Even When It’s Working

Why Go Deeper Than Social Posts

This is a whole lot to take on. And my aim was to make it so that I could share all of the things that were a part of the original Synol research on imposter phenomenon in a way that was bite-sized and accessible. And in a way that as you look on it, look at it, you can see yourself. I'm your connections and community guy host, Dwight, and this is a special edition where I'm going to do a dive into imposter syndrome. We hear the term a lot, but this is going to be the treatment that's going to inject a little bit of my own personal experience with it and also a little bit of the uncanny way that I can't help but go down a rabbit hole and want to go deep. When I first wanted to do this project, it was because I got the idea that, oh, just giving a little overview would be something that would be popular. And as I researched, I found out, oh, it's very popular. It's the subject of a whole lot of carousels on Instagram and all kinds of fluff posts and all kinds of things that really don't have substance. I went to the root to try to figure out what was going on and found out that we came to this idea of there being imposter syndrome from the work of an Atlanta psychiatrist named Dr. Pauline Rose Clantz. And she started working on this in the 70s. Back then, it wasn't called imposter syndrome. That's almost

The Origins Of Impostor Phenomenon

a marketing shift in how it's treated. What she did was work that resulted in the 1974 publication of a book that she called Imposter Phenomenon. And I find it really telling. As I look through the book, there are a couple of nods that the editors had where, well, for one thing, there's no E in imposter. And just it's one of those curious things that I would wrap my head around and find fascinating. But she actually came up with something of a framework, I would say, but not more, not a framework. The just the way that she was able to parse what it was that she observed. There were characteristics that were just part of it. And we're going to go through that in this episode so that you can have a grounding in something that's a little deeper than something that scrolls by you on the socials. So the very first thing that she calls out is that there's this concept known as the imposter cycle. And we probably all are acquainted with something like this. There's the idea that there's some big project that you have to take on. And so what happens is you build up some anxiety and you're going to react

The Imposter Cycle In Real Life

by either diving in way too early to try to make sure that all the bases are covered and nothing falls through the cracks because you're so worried that it can go wrong and it will end badly for you. Or you procrastinate and then you're spending all that energy uh to make sure that it happens. You make the deadline and it's all good. And I'd say that you probably have the experience of it being successful, you don't remember it though, and then you attribute it to good luck or just the you know the last minute scramble. It's it requires you to be in that mode of putting out the fire and and being to the wire in order to make it happen. And you never really have a moment to celebrate it. And so the next time something big happens, you go through this again. Over time, that's going to have some really bad effects for you. I mean, your your health is going to be compromised from having that be the way that you work up to big projects. So the next thing that she covers is this notion that you have to be special or you have to be perfect. And that's something that's kind of at the root of what it is that leads to this whole idea of the imposter phenomenon. It's the the way that as kids, we're

Needing To Be Special Or Perfect

we're given all these signals that we need to be the best. You always have to be the best. And you experience that for a while. You are in a small pool. Let's say your little cohort, when you're going through elementary school, you're you become the smart one or the the great dancer or the the the artist because you can draw and you're the one. Well, in life, you start progressing to things where you're in larger pools, and all of a sudden you aren't so special. And this is something that's most traumatic when this realization happens late. You you find yourself in a big school. Uh, let's say you're in college, and it's a situation where it's been filtered and they've gotten all the best from all over, and you're suddenly just a face in the crowd. That can be devastating. And we've all experienced something like this. Uh I I know in my own experience, I was an only child. And so I found myself in a very exclusive group most of the time because most of the time it was just me. Yeah, I would have a few friends here and there, and I would get involved in activities for schooling, scouts, and that kind of thing. But I, as I was reading about how this happens, I couldn't help but think back to my own life and how, wow, this is a real thing. I've I've experienced exactly this. And yeah, it can be a real slap in the face when all of a sudden the things that maybe came easy to you are they're not that special. They're not that great. You're just another person, and you you are are suddenly having to compete where you didn't before. So uh another thing that's kind of related is what she calls the superwoman or superman uh perfectionist bent. You know, you have to be the superhero at everything. And so this shows up as perfectionism. It's where some of that procrastination comes from. You have to be the best. And I know that I experience this as some of the resistance that comes when I'm trying something that I'm new at. Like right now, I've been I'm an emerging artist when it comes to drawing. And I can appreciate the concepts, but it is so frustrating to me because I am doing exercises at the very beginning. I'm learning to see. And I know so many talented artists that where when they're creating something or when they're putting a pencil to a paper, it just flows out of them and they uh don't have to struggle with every little bit. And so I feel like such a failure as I'm I'm going through and just trying to work through the boring exercises for perspective and shape and uh getting over the the little uh tricks that my eyes play on me as I look at things. Uh and yeah, I mean it's it's one of those things where I'm I look and I see that it should be easy, but it's really hard and it's uh a frustrating experience. It makes it to where even though I know the thing that I need to do is practice more, it's unpleasant. And so I'm I don't do it, and it kind of perpetuates a cycle where I'm not practicing and I'm not I'm not engaged in the thing that I know that I need to do because it doesn't feel so good. Um, the another thing that she talks about is the fear of failure. So kind of dovetails with that whole that whole perfectionism as an imposter, you're just terrified at the idea that things will go badly. And we talk about ways of of dealing with this where you want to frame those those feelings

Fear Of Failure And Anxiety Reframes

of nervousness, that stage fright, or you know, those those things where you have that anxiety. If we frame it in a way to where we know that it's a signal that we care, then it's something that we can use to help propel us forward. But it's a a real thing. I I know that there's a lot of emerging research that tells us that we need to acknowledge the feelings that are coming up. Uh, whereas I know that at other times we were told to just suppress it, put it in a closet, compartmentalize. Uh where the the real science falls on that and what works for you is is probably going to be wildly variable. And that's okay. Um, but an another thing that Dr. Clantz covers is uh just um a little too much humility. Uh she she calls it the denial of competence and discounting praise. So we you can't take a compliment. Someone says you did well and you can't hear it. It's like you've got your your bad colored glasses on and you filter out all of the things

Discounting Praise And Denying Competence

that are coming to you, or people are trying to give you a genuine compliment, praising your efforts. And it's not that you're you're trying to to sabotage yourself, it's just you you really you can't hear it. You're on the alert for things to be bad. Your negativity bias is so strong that you would not be able to receive anything unless it confirms that you're not good enough. And we've all experienced that. I know that when I stepped to the mic for the first time to record a podcast, I was intimidated. And even things that were very simple and in the other context, I was thinking, oh my goodness, I've got to do this for my podcast. Oh, well, that's that complicates it. It makes it harder. I'm going to be judged. People are going to see this. Ooh, I don't know if I could do that simple. I don't know if I could put together an outline. I don't know if I could show up on camera. I don't know if I could talk into a mic. And everything just became so much more high stakes. And the only thing that that got me over it was just knowing that the only way was through. I had to do it. I had to keep doing the thing before it wasn't a big deal. And yeah, it's it was hard for a while. Thankfully, I had Maddox that I could lean on because this is his second podcast. I've appeared on on other shows before, but it's a different thing when it's your podcast. Uh, and the final thing that I want to share about what Dr. Clantz says about the original research was there's uh fear and guilt about success. And some of this is is what's what we inherit from the the culture at large or from religion in some cases. You know, I I know that one

Guilt About Success And Social Roles

of the things that's held in high esteem is being humble. And so if you toot your own horn, then you're you're being seen as as uh not adhering to what it is that's a part of your faith. That's a pretty hard thing to deal with, but it doesn't necessarily have to be religion, it could be because of the way that uh gender roles are portrayed. Uh if you are a woman and you are bold and you are assertive, then you're afraid that people might not think very highly of you. And unfortunately, we have a lot of famous examples where that's exactly the case. Where just because someone uh did it and they were wearing a dress and they had their reproductive equipment on the inside, they were seen in a not so great light when if you had someone that was doing the exact same things, saying the exact same words, they were given the highest praise. And it just uh it we we do funny things. But uh aside from from gender uh and religion, it could be family position, it could be race. There are uh all kinds of things that we can attribute to how we expect people to show up because of their race or their uh or their heritage or um their position in uh in different hierarchies, you know, whether they're old or young, um, whether they're uh native-born or foreign. And we we expect people to to follow a role or we expect ourselves to fit within a role. And it's in that effort to try to be the representative that you want to uh make sure that you show up in the right way, that you have all this pressure to be a certain way. And it it makes it to where uh talk talk about being an imposter. You're you're trying to wear all the hats and thread the needle and and be exactly who you're supposed to be, whether it's because you want to make your mother proud or because you want to to be the the best example of the first of whatever it is that you're you're doing in any case. So this is a whole lot to take on. And my my aim was to make it so that I could share all of the things that were a part of the original Sentinel research on imposter phenomenon in a way that was bite-sized and accessible, and in a way that as you look on it, look at it, you can see yourself. And so when you think about all six of those areas that I talked about, I'd like for you to just reflect on what it was like when you were taking on a big project that you cared about, and maybe you got a little bit worked up and you knew that things had to get done, and so you you

Breaking The Pattern With Support

concentrated your efforts and your vision narrowed a little bit, and you were just all into it. And when it was all done, you did you didn't have a chance to celebrate your wins. That's not a a kind way to treat yourself, but I've been there. I I know I know I've done it. I've I've been in that that same boat. Uh whenever you you're feeling uh those feelings, uh, or whenever you're in the thick of one of those things, or if you see someone else, that you you look and you can kind of see that there's this checklist of how they might be working themselves themselves up into a frenzy being in kind of an imposter cycle. Um you need to allow for there to be time to breathe. And when it comes to these things, a characteristic of impostors is we're not gonna know when we're going through it because we're we're so engrossed in that experience. The anxiety is so high. Uh, a lot of times I I like to use the expression that you need a mirror to see your own face. Right? If if you've got something stuck in your teeth, you're not gonna know it unless somebody tells you. That's why it's a good idea if things are feeling off, you reach out for the help of a trusted friend, a therapist, or a coach, because they're going to be able to give you some outside perspective. I would not recommend that you ask Chat GPT or Claude or Gemini because those things are tuned to try to figure out what it is that you want to hear. Uh sad to say it, but you need to talk to a a living being that can have the perspective of their own experiences and will uh be able to handle things that you are sharing with them because there's that trust that's built. You you know that it's it's not one of those things where they're going to um want to uh make it so that you suffer for sharing your your deepest, darkest secrets, but they can listen and they can reflect what it is that that you're saying and how you're showing up. And they give you a little bit of a moment to pause. Um along those lines, uh that's definitely one of the things that that I engage in whenever I'm in a uh in a partnership with a client. You know, it's one of those things where that container is sacred and we what what happens in the container of that that exchange between coach and client stays there. And we are able to just have that be a moment to explore and go through things that allow us to see those things that maybe we're a little too close to. And it's an opportunity to get in touch with yourself and extract some of that inner wisdom. That's all that I wanted to share on this edition of the For the Love of Creatives podcast. There will be more on these topics to come, along with the fun interviews that we have with creatives of various stripes, the dancers, the authors, the singers. Uh, look for all of those things in your feed. I'm glad to have this moment to uh have just a little bit of you and me time, just for a little bit, but look for Maddox to show up in future editions. I'll see you the next time you tune in. Take care.