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S1, E7 The Career Coven: Imposter Syndrome
118 Plays9 months ago
The most requested topic by our listeners - attempted by us for the first time. Annie and Bec discovered in researching imposter syndrome that they’ve both had it, and they’ve both recovered (almost) from it. We cover what imposter syndrome, and how it’s linked to structures in society. We also discuss the importance of having a growth mindset in overcoming imposter syndrome, as well as more light hearted tips and tricks that can help you in moments where you feel like an imposter.
This entire episode is structured around listener questions, and we look at a couple more specifically on:
- How is imposter syndrome linked to the gender pay gap?
- How can you overcome imposter syndrome when going for a promotion?
Content recs, references & extra reading:
- Lizzo
- Dr Valerie Young’s Imposter Syndrome Institute
- Thinking your way out of imposter syndrome, Valerie Young
- Prevalence, Predictors, and Treatment of Impostor Syndrome: a Systematic Review
- Is imposter syndrome a sign of greatness? Quartz
- Growth Mindset vs. Fixed Mindset: What’s the difference? Harvard Business School
- Fix The System, Not The Women, Laura Bates
Not necessarily related to imposter syndrome but fraud-adjacent and enjoyable
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Topic Reveal
00:00:08
Speaker
Hello, I'm Beck. I'm Annie. And welcome to The Career Coven. This week's episode is on imposter syndrome, one of the topics that was most requested by everyone here we've spoken to. We just got sort of overwhelming amounts of questions about this when we canvassed everyone. So I think one that we're excited about and also maybe a bit nervous.
00:00:34
Speaker
Yeah, I do have imposter syndrome about talking about imposter syndrome. So yes, I'm excited. I know I'm going to
Understanding Imposter Syndrome
00:00:42
Speaker
learn a lot. I have already learned a lot from researching this topic, which has been good. But it was, it was definitely the most popular question, wasn't it? So excited to dig into it. And I think that probably reflects like how common this feeling is. Yeah, totally. I think
00:01:02
Speaker
the reason you and I have probably perhaps delayed doing this one is almost out of fear of not getting it right. So we probably won't get it right. And we may not cover everything, but we'll give it a good old crack. Are you teaching us that? Are you teaching us the moral of the story at the start? Surely not, surely not. Okay, so shall we start with what imposter syndrome is?
00:01:30
Speaker
Yes. So I was really surprised by this. So I'm gonna say what I thought imposter syndrome was, was just this like kind of uncomfortable feeling of like, I'm not quite like qualified to do this. I didn't actually think it was
00:01:50
Speaker
sort of more than that. And what I found really interesting is like, I don't, I don't cognitively recognise that, like quite high level version of like, Oh, I'm not qualified to do this. I feel like I do things I'm not qualified to do all the time.
Imposter Syndrome Beyond Work
00:02:05
Speaker
However,
00:02:07
Speaker
through the research I learned it's actually a feeling of like bakeness or like feeling like a fraud or feeling like a phony when you are actually like quite a successful person and that it's linked to success and achievement and that actually it can show up in all aspects of your life not just at work which was
00:02:33
Speaker
you know, a bit of a surprise to me. I like had not thought about imposter syndrome in the context of friendship or anything like that. But yeah, I guess I'd sort of under...
Roots in Fear and Shame
00:02:45
Speaker
I'd like slightly underbaked what I thought it was. I just thought it was like that, oh, I'm not really qualified to do this and I have to do it anyway and I feel a bit uncomfortable. Whereas I was really interested to learn that it's like this
00:02:58
Speaker
chronic feeling almost that you're not good enough, even when you have actually been successful and you probably are like quite good. Yeah, I was also really surprised about the correlation between success and imposter syndrome. That's obviously not a causation, but you are probably more likely to feel it if you are successful. And perhaps there is something around that around your drive.
00:03:25
Speaker
think the bit that I probably didn't appreciate in enough detail is that so much of imposter syndrome from from our reading really comes from a place of really deep seated fear and shame around your self-worth and I think that is
00:03:44
Speaker
genuinely a bit different to confidence and we can come back to it. But it's almost like having a sort of professional anxiety constantly about your self-worth. And I think what's really important to say is that lots of people have it and it's normal. And I think before doing the reading, I probably would have always said, I don't have imposter syndrome, which
00:04:11
Speaker
I think doing the reading, I can recognise patterns of when I have demonstrated those behaviours where I could probably pinpoint where I did and wasn't aware of it, which is also quite interesting learning.
Prevalence and Societal Influence
00:04:24
Speaker
Yeah, definitely. I mean, the statistics on imposter syndrome was sort of crazy high. The prevalence of it was anything from 9% to 82% or 85%, which obviously that range is massive, which maybe suggests that the quality of some of the research in this space is a bit mixed.
00:04:46
Speaker
you know, anything where you see like an 80 82 on like a kind of psychological phenomenon, you think like, my god, you know, this is a common thing that people are experiencing. But more common for some people than others, right. And that was another
00:05:02
Speaker
really big kind of take home for me is that like you can't kind of remove imposter syndrome from like the structures in which we like live and work and like grow up and I think that
00:05:17
Speaker
all the reading that I did of the kind of research papers suggested that minority groups are more likely to experience imposter syndrome and that is because of kind of racism, social stigma, microaggressions in the workplace and kind of structural issues. So I think that's really important to like highlight as well, is that it's not just about like the person, it's about like the person plus the environment in which they're in and like their lived experience.
Universal vs Gendered Experiences
00:05:45
Speaker
Yeah, and I think for me, that feels like the really big distinction between confidence and imposter syndrome is that imposter syndrome really encapsulates all of the kind of societal pressure and systems and structures that that confidence doesn't necessarily have as a kind of underscoring cause or kind of
00:06:08
Speaker
it doesn't sit in that ecosystem necessarily, whereas I think it does for imposter syndrome. And I think the person who had come up with imposter syndrome, it was originally created with it being for women and that it's something that women experience and then has been expanded out to be sort of agender at something that everyone experiences, though I think women are probably still more likely to experience it than men.
00:06:33
Speaker
But
Terminology and Classification
00:06:34
Speaker
I think you're right that it's really important to point out the intersectionality of this, and I haven't been able to find any research on it, but I would imagine that other minorities would have a similarly high index versus non-minorities when looking at this in particular, and that's because of the societal structures around it. Yeah, I would agree with that.
00:07:00
Speaker
That's fascinating, isn't it? The whole concept was sort of not invented because it's real, but like...
00:07:10
Speaker
the whole term, the whole kind of study of it was all to do with women and it being something that women only experience. That almost in my mind, like for some reason discredits it, but maybe that's like not the way to look at it, but yeah. I've also heard someone
00:07:34
Speaker
in a different environment talk about how they don't like the use of the word syndrome for impostor syndrome. But I think we should just use it as it is titled and known in kind of the popular world as impostor syndrome. Agreed. Makes it sound very, very medical. Yeah. And I think that that was also probably one of the reasons that I felt some like discomfort about talking about this because
00:08:01
Speaker
There is the structural part for sure and I think that we can totally talk about the interaction between the individual and the workplace and we will. But then there is this kind of quite deep rooted
00:08:14
Speaker
personal side of like imposter syndrome and those feelings. And it that does almost feel clinical. And that's probably reinforced by that word syndrome is like, and it's actually interestingly, not a medical diagnosis, you know, like that was all over.
00:08:32
Speaker
what we were reading is like this isn't a recognized like medical diagnostic, it's not in the diagnostics and statistics manual or whatever the mental health kind of Bible is of diagnoses. So it's not, it's not something people recognize as a like treatable condition. But yeah, it is called a syndrome, which is interesting.
00:08:52
Speaker
Yeah, but I do think that the prevalence of whatever we want to call it, a phenomenon, a kind of common anxiety, whatever we would actually term it as, the fact that it is so pervasive means that we should still talk about it even though
00:09:08
Speaker
maybe we're not therapists, or I'm not quite professional in examining your inner child. Yeah, yeah, exactly. I'd love to be an armchair psychologist. I feel that I already am one of them, you know, like, I feel like I'm quite happy to sort of do it from the perspective of like, I've only got a surface level of understanding, but I like to share my opinions quite freely.
00:09:34
Speaker
of course. But yeah, yeah, I am. I agree. You know, we're not therapists. We're not pretending to be but something you said earlier was like, you didn't necessarily identify with the label of an imposter syndrome. Me neither. I actually like went through the same journey of like recognizing it through this
00:09:58
Speaker
reading and I think that when I thought about why I feel it less now than I used to in the past I did like recognise that like coaching and professional development was part of that journey but so was therapy like for sure. Anyway we can... So on this topic I think you and I both found something
00:10:20
Speaker
really helpful independent of each other which was a researcher called Dr Valerie Young who kind of split it out into five imposter types and I think you and I both hit the same eureka moment of this is my flavour.
00:10:36
Speaker
It's my flavour of imposter syndrome. Shall we read them out? So the first one is the perfectionist. This is the one I've been coached out of, but still have some tendencies towards. But this type of imposter syndrome involves believing that unless you are absolutely perfect, you could have done better. You feel like an imposter because your perfectionist traits make you believe that you're not as good as others might think you are.
00:11:05
Speaker
The second one is the expert. The expert feels like an imposter because they don't know everything there is to know about a particular subject or topic, or they haven't mastered every step in a process. Because there is more for them to learn, they don't feel as if they've reached the rank of expert.
00:11:21
Speaker
not something I personally feel. No, I was like, oh, that's the expert sounds incredibly exhausting because they are an expert but they don't feel like an expert. Really tiring. Really tiring does not apply to me with literally anything at all. Number three, the natural genius. In this imposter syndrome type, you may feel like a fraud simply because you don't believe that you're a naturally intelligent or competent. If you don't get something right the first time around or it takes you longer to master a skill,
00:11:52
Speaker
you feel like an imposter. Yeah, which is funny because the heading, the natural genius, it's like then followed by the absolute kind of reverse articulation of that. Because I was like, I want to be the natural genius, don't we all? That's what I want to be. But then I was like, oh, no, I don't want to feel that.
00:12:18
Speaker
But anyway, that was not my one. Number four is the soloist. It's also possible to feel like an imposter if you've had to ask for help to reach a certain level or status. Since you couldn't get there on your own, you question your competence or ability. This one really made me pause because I think about, particularly for anyone who is
00:12:43
Speaker
has been in receipt of like affirmative action or like targeted interventions in the workplace where, you know, I even think back to an assessment centre where there were 10% of women interviewing for this thing that I was going for. And they ended up with a 50-50 split of men and women. And I at that time was like,
00:13:08
Speaker
do I deserve to be here because they've just gender targeted the quota. So I think that might be an example of that. And I'm sure there are other for people who belong to other minorities as well.
Exploring the 'Super Person' Type
00:13:21
Speaker
I'm sure that also might feel compounded, you know, was I promoted because of tokenism or those sorts of things.
00:13:27
Speaker
And the last one, which I think you and I will probably gas over, is the super person. This type of imposter syndrome involves believing that you must be the hardest worker or reach the highest levels of achievement possible. And if you don't, you're a fraud. Try not to unpack that one, Annie. You left a little highlight in the comments, so I feel like you've got to use. I left a highlight in the comments saying, Annie, this one, it's me. Yeah, I, um,
00:13:57
Speaker
I definitely like in the past but also to an extent now have like felt this need to sort of prove that I can work like so hard that I can kind of work as hard as anyone else and that yeah from quite a sort of from quite early in my career I think it's been like
00:14:22
Speaker
hard work is directly proportional to success and I will prove that.
00:14:29
Speaker
And the older I get, the more I think that is, of course, not necessarily true. I do believe in working hard for the things that you want, but I wouldn't say that I see them as linear at all. A lot of success is luck and timing. But definitely, when I look back on earlier feelings of imposter syndrome, it was absolutely driven by that feeling of
00:14:58
Speaker
I'm going somewhere, I'm going somewhere, I'm working so hard, I'm working so hard, I'm working so hard and like that, that sort of should be rewarded by this like very quick progression, this very quick achievement. And then, you know, when that didn't happen or it didn't happen as I expected, then there was probably like feelings of imposter syndrome or it like,
00:15:19
Speaker
or that hard work wasn't being recognised, I think, in the way that I expected because I thought this linear work and achievement line existed and that I was on it and sometimes the feelings of imposter syndrome would come when I was like, sorry, is anyone seeing what I'm doing? Can you see? Why is no one noticing? And actually, in being a very hard worker, and I'm sure that you've had this
00:15:49
Speaker
sometimes you are very under the radar because you are executing and delivering so consistently that people just start to sort of rely on you which is really good but they're not always like
00:16:02
Speaker
you don't always recognize your superstars. Sometimes you're just like, yeah, she's like, she's so efficient, you know, whatever. And I think there's like an interesting thing that I can see with other people that I work with that happens to the like hard worker, high achiever where actually it almost becomes implicit that they're valuable and they're good and therefore they get less praise and therefore they get less feedback. And definitely this cycle of
00:16:32
Speaker
imposter syndrome because they believe that like and you get starved of it and you're like I'm hungry for the compliments yeah yeah exactly and then you can and I've definitely seen this happen with these like high achieving personality types then you can get resentment because like actually I I'm
00:16:52
Speaker
burning the midnight oil here. I'm doing everything I can. I think I'm so consistent. I'm working so hard all the time. Why is no one saying well done and actually in closed rooms, they're all saying, you know, they're great. They're really consistent. Yeah, give that project to her. Like she'll be fine. Give that to them. Give that to him. But actually, because you just don't feel it and then you can get resentful quite quickly because you're just working so hard on this with this belief that like hard work and achievement are completely linear.
00:17:22
Speaker
Yeah, I think you're so bang on. It's almost like it doesn't need to be said because it's assumed knowledge that you know that this is great work, which is so annoying. I've always made a really conscious point because I've been that person before of if I ever hear a compliment in a room that a person is not in to then share that with them after so that they know that that conversation is happening and that they're recognised for it. I think for me, for this one in particular,
00:17:48
Speaker
I think this form of imposter syndrome for me was around on trying to be on the hamster wheel of working hard, getting promotions, trying to make that linear progression. And I was able to do that. Which to be clear, you have done that very successfully, yes. I have been able to do that, but what I will say is that
00:18:12
Speaker
the cost of that was that what I was really afraid of and a bit ashamed of was my age. So I was so interesting. That was my like major insecurity was like I'm leading a team of 55 people and I'm 30. And a lot of them are older than me. And
00:18:34
Speaker
you know, I, I feel like I have to demonstrate through extremely hard work that I have earned my position rather than feeling really comfortable in that. And I think the result of that is just epic burnout, like that's not stable. And I think that is actually the root of like when I started setting my boundaries really well, and I start I changed jobs and I reset kind of most of the foundations and quite a lot of how I identify in my work around
00:19:03
Speaker
Not doing that because the cost of that was extremely high Yeah, yeah, and it's so interesting as you were saying that I absolutely felt that when I moved into a corporate and in like quite a senior position because I
00:19:21
Speaker
I had always been in just very small teams where, you know, sometimes I was older than the people I was managing, but often it was similar age and everyone was sort of under 40. Whereas when I moved into a bigger organization, I was really line managing like a huge variation of kind of ages and experiences. And I definitely felt imposter syndrome because of that, but specifically because of my age, but actually like,
00:19:49
Speaker
you know, bar a few people who definitely did say things like 100%. Interestingly, the people who said things were always women, to me. But like the experience of managing different ages and different, you know, different people was like, so amazing. Like one of the best things to get out of that experience and the people I was managing, I don't think did treat me
00:20:16
Speaker
like they did, I didn't have to prove anything to them, which was really nice. But, but yeah, I definitely felt that same feeling when I was the first time I was managing people who were older than me, maybe like had much more career experience than me. Yeah, that really relates.
Challenges of Managing Experienced Teams
00:20:35
Speaker
I think also, it's
00:20:40
Speaker
I think you have a big hurdle to get over whenever you first line manage people who are significantly more experienced than you. But it is something that you like really grow into. And I went to a really great training at RADA, which it was a few years ago now. So it's probably changed when it was for women in leadership. And I sort of spoken about it and they had said that the best thing that you can do is just say like, I'm not here to control you. I'm not here to demonstrate
00:21:08
Speaker
power over you. I'm actually just here for you to help to help you to do a best job. And that that really helped me at that time. I mean, I just have to have one more anecdote before we continue to get back to it.
00:21:23
Speaker
about a man who genuinely made me feel very self-conscious about my age. He was probably about 15 years older than me and he had been one of the project leads of a program that I was brought in to kind of fix because it was all going completely wrong.
00:21:39
Speaker
And I had sort of brought in a new kind of structure for the project and how he would manage it. And he, he called me and he said, what you need to understand back about project management is you can't have two women deliver one baby in four and a half months. And I was like, are you, are you speaking to me in the language which I understand, which is my, my womb?
00:22:08
Speaker
That is insane. Wow. Genuinely wow. What an analogy. So patronising in so many different ways. Anyway, let's keep going. I hate to think about that man anymore in my life.
Roots Compared to Confidence
00:22:30
Speaker
So should we talk about the difference between imposter syndrome and general confidence?
00:22:36
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. So I wouldn't have been able to answer that before. The thing that really resonated with me was this feeling of shame when you perceive that you don't achieve something or you're in your kind of imposter zone. It's like, it's not just that you don't feel confident that you're about to do something to the ability
00:23:02
Speaker
that you would like to, it's actually that you feel incredibly shameful, sort of regardless of the outcome. And that made me feel very sad actually, because I remember feeling a bit like that sometimes. Why couldn't it have just gone better, really like shameful? And that's not something I often feel now. But yeah, I think that shame stood out to me as different to,
00:23:30
Speaker
the sort of general confidence discussion that we were having. What about you? Yeah, I think for me, it's like a bit more deep rooted than confidence. And I think both of them have crossover. I think both of them
00:23:48
Speaker
result in quite self limiting beliefs. And I think if you if you think those beliefs are true, you are probably going to hold yourself back in both of them. And we talked about that in the confidence issue, right? The kind of story you tell yourself. It's a bit of a self fulfilling prophecy sometimes. Yeah, totally. And
00:24:08
Speaker
And again, armchair psychologist, I sort of feel like the narrative of imposter syndrome isn't just like the last five years. I think it's actually like decades of what you've been telling yourself. Whereas I, for me at least, confidence fluctuates a bit more circumstantially.
00:24:30
Speaker
This almost feels like it could be independent of the circumstances of kind of what you're going through at work. It's much more deep rooted than that. And I think that's also why it's such a difficult concept to wrap your head around because it is inherently really personal. And I would expect that everyone has a probably a slightly different flavor of the root of their imposter syndrome and what it means for them.
00:24:59
Speaker
For me, the really big distinction I think I mentioned earlier is that
00:25:03
Speaker
I think imposter syndrome has so much more to do with societal structure than confidence necessarily. I think confidence has something to do with it. But for me, imposter syndrome is really about the societal context in which you're operating and what you have been conditioned to believe to be true about you and the various different aspects of your identity, which I think is a lot heavier than like, I'm not sure I'm good at my job.
00:25:32
Speaker
Yeah agreed and it's sort of there's a relativity isn't there within imposter syndrome like you're comparing yourself to something that maybe you have never even seen maybe you have seen it but you are inherently
00:25:47
Speaker
comparing yourself to a true or fictional version of this expert or someone that would do it better or do something to a higher standard whereas i feel like confidence it can cross over into that it can be relative but it's not like relative by definition whereas this feels like you are comparing yourself to a different standard that you
00:26:10
Speaker
always assume that you have not reached, regardless of what other people's perception are, and sometimes regardless of the feedback that you get. So yeah, I think that's part of it as well, this sort of inherent relativity of imposter syndrome. You're the imposter and therefore someone else is not an imposter.
Who Doesn't Feel It?
00:26:30
Speaker
Yeah, and I think it's fascinating if you think about people who like don't have imposter syndrome,
00:26:35
Speaker
Um, and like, like, who are they? Actually, my, my partner doesn't have it. I can tell you that. Did you always, I bet he doesn't either. So I did a bit of reading and I come up with my own framework. It's no one else's framework. It's probably full of shit, but I'm going to tell you it anyway. Um, sorry, sorry. Are we creating IP here? Intellectual property?
00:27:04
Speaker
I think we can, we can own it as a brand. We can share it. I think actual fraudulent people don't feel like they're imposters. I think they're actually so effective at being a fraud, like that they don't feel fraudulent.
00:27:20
Speaker
And then- Yeah, like that Bitcond, like that Netflix thing, Bitcond. I think it's called Bitcond. I haven't seen that, but it sounds like I would love it already. Yeah, yeah. Like a real fraudster. Yeah. Yeah. Like Dr. Ruja, if we're talking about Bitcond. Oh, it's like Dr. Ruja. Such a kind of quite niche reference that I don't think a lot of people will get, but let's keep it in. I'm just going to put a podcast in the show notes if anyone didn't get that reference. It's phenomenal. Fascinating story. She's like-
00:27:49
Speaker
top 10 most wanted and presumed dead now. Anyway, I digress. It's a fascinating series. Anyway, the second category, I think, and this is not my phrasing. I don't like the phrasing of it. So in our little framework, we're going to have to rework the names, but this is people who would, again, not my phrasing, too dumb to realize that they're dumb. It's just like,
00:28:17
Speaker
That is going to need a rephrase. Let me rephrase this in like more my words. I think there's probably people who over index on self-confidence or under index on self-awareness relative to how they're performing. I think that's how I'd say that diplomatically. But that is just like they have no idea that they should even feel
00:28:44
Speaker
any level of concern or fear or anxiety about something. And then I think there's just people who have, who have kind of inner confidence that's at the appropriate equilibrium to their performance. Yeah. Yeah. That's maybe the nicest one. I'd say that's where like normal people, normal people who are probably successful operate if they don't have imposter syndrome.
00:29:10
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. So that's where both our partners would sit on that one. So it's sort of like frauds, idiots, normal. Yes. If we were to sort of shorten it. Anyway, no one's an idiot.
Rare Consistent Confidence
00:29:24
Speaker
No one's an idiot. I can scratch that from the record. There are no, there's no such thing. I don't want to offend anyone. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. You're right. You're right. So it's pretty,
00:29:36
Speaker
I don't know if I reflect on number three, you know, which is, I guess what we kind of aspire to. I don't know many people who are really consistently at like, such a clear kind of confidence, equilibrium or like, just that that comfort level. I'm aware that I know a lot of overachievers, right? So I would probably
00:30:05
Speaker
not know that many people that actually have found that balance yet. But I do think it does play back to that, like how common this feeling is.
00:30:16
Speaker
I personally take like tholus or find it reassuring that other people have these feelings too and have to manage them rather than feeling like isolated and sort of why is this happening to me? And so I do think that, yeah, for anyone who really, really struggles with this, it does feel quite rare to meet people who are at this constant kind of confidence equilibrium. For me, they are certainly the outlier rather than the imposters.
00:30:46
Speaker
Yeah and like maybe just also over indexing in white male wealthy backgrounds. Yeah I can only think of privileged white men. I think that's the only area of people I know that's the only demographic where I can be like I think that's where they probably hang out. Which really plays into your point about societal structures right?
00:31:11
Speaker
really, really does. And I also think, you know, we know a lot of overachievers, we know people who work really hard, those sorts of things. I suspect there's also probably a lot of people who would never admit that they feel like an imposter, because that also feels a bit shameful to say it out loud and be like, I feel like I shouldn't be where I am and I don't deserve what I've got. That feels, yeah, a bad thing to say out loud.
00:31:35
Speaker
Yeah and it's not a sexy brand, it's not like a, I'm confident, I've got it all, you know, I'm smashing it in life, whatever. It's not like the Instagram life or the TikTok brand of like everyone's dreams, right? It's like a personal brand that shows like a lot of vulnerability to kind of say that publicly and I think that
00:31:55
Speaker
people are getting there but it's it's certainly by no means um it's by no means easy and it's by no means common but um but yeah i think i think there's loads of shame around saying that you feel imposter syndrome and i actually think it would be very hard for for men yeah so the privileged white men are probably like well i definitely can't say that
00:32:20
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. And as you say, you know, that if the history of the term has also been kind of attached to women, right, that was going to make it even harder for men to actually speak up and say that they're feeling this when we know they are right, of course they are, of course they are.
Systemic Causes of Imposter Syndrome
00:32:34
Speaker
But they are probably taught more how to hide that from the very young age.
00:32:41
Speaker
What a lovely aspect of masculinity. Yeah, let's not go down this rabbit hole actually. That's not on topic. So we were going to talk and we've spoken about this a bit around the kind of root causes of imposter syndrome and I've put in our show prep notes that this is where I'm going to enter a rant because
00:33:05
Speaker
But when I knew we were doing an episode on imposter syndrome, I had a really strong reaction. I always have a strong reaction to imposter syndrome because what I get unbelievably cross about is just the framing of the entire thing on the individual.
00:33:21
Speaker
Um, and actually like, if I could rename it and reframe it into something that actually reflects what I think is the cause of it, I would feel much happier with it. And, you know, I've always said like, I hate imposter syndrome. It's not because I don't recognize people's feelings about it, but I just, I just think the entire framing of it being around the individual is wrong because the root cause is like.
00:33:45
Speaker
like centuries of oppression, which I'm gonna try and avoid going into like a really leftist rant, but it is really about like the system, the structure, the narrative, like how we have been brought up since we were children and taught to behave and kind of internalize and absorbed all of those narratives about, you know, the conditions of my identity and the different aspects of my identity. And therefore, you know, that's like a lot of historical legacy oppression
00:34:14
Speaker
that we have been conditioned into. And that has sort of played out manifestly in the workplace with like how much you're paid, what your policies are and your beliefs and your norms. And like, this is why I get really fucked off about imposter syndrome. It's not that I don't think that people feel it, like people definitely feel it, but I just really don't think it's actually anything to do with the individual. It's on the individual to kind of make themselves feel better and, you know, tackle
00:34:44
Speaker
gender pay gap and all those kinds of things. But it's actually, you know, that fixing the symptom isn't fixing the disease. Okay, not a medical term, but yeah. Yeah, you're like, you could fix all the symptoms. You could fix everyone's imposter syndrome by blaming on the individual, but you won't tackle the root cause. It will keep coming up. There will keep being generations of people that feel this
00:35:08
Speaker
because unless you fix the kind of systemic root cause issues in society. There's a really good book, which I'll put in the show notes, which is Fix the System, Not the Women. I think it's by Laura Bates, but I will cut that bit if it's not. She's my faith. She'll be a chapter in my memoir alongside Greta Monge. Different, but the same.
00:35:35
Speaker
going to be going to be great coming soon. Okay, though. But being practical, right, if those if the recourses are at the system, which I totally agree with, how can people like how do you think people can manage
Challenging Systemic Structures
00:35:51
Speaker
it? Because I think you are right, like, unfortunately, it is usually up to the individual to manage their own imposter syndrome. So what do you think you would advise there?
00:36:06
Speaker
I mean, I would just advise every single person listening to like really examine what are the structures that help or disadvantage people that are just really ingrained in the system. And I think one of the places where I've worked previously had really good diversity and inclusion tracking and equity around who's getting pay rises, who's getting promotions,
00:36:33
Speaker
What are the performance ratings cut by different aspects of a person to make sure, well, just to understand what is going on. But like data obviously really helps. But what I try to do and I spent the last however long, 11 years of my career.
00:36:57
Speaker
is that every opportunity that you have to challenge something like that, even if it's on an individual level supporting another individual, but if you can challenge it on a wider level, you should, is to, you know, champion people who have been discriminated against to help them fight that case. And I think a lot of this is around advocacy and change happens
00:37:21
Speaker
a groundswell when it's most effective. And I think it's almost the responsibility of everyone, every single opportunity and at an individual level that might be me coaching someone
00:37:37
Speaker
to get a promotion when they don't feel like they're ready and actually being like a bit of a pusher, like Tina Fey in Mean Girls. But, you know, actually being quite assertive about telling people they need to go for those opportunities and also telling yourself like, even if you don't feel ready, you should go it because actually, what you need to do is overcompensate for how many years of oppression and suppression and repression that we've all had.
00:38:03
Speaker
that would be my rallying cry. It's like, you need, you have to overcompensate for it. That's what I would say. Great. You've rallied me. Great. Sure. And in fact, you know, I think that if you spoke to a lot of successful women of maybe the like six, like they're around 60 or late fifties now and have sort of been through their
00:38:34
Speaker
the core of their career. I definitely believe that you can still be very successful at that age. But you've been through lots of the challenges that people are facing. A lot of them would say get more political, I think, as their advice. Because once you see these structures that are potentially reinforcing these systems and reinforcing these problems over and over again, and once you've seen them in many different workplaces, then you realise that
00:39:04
Speaker
lack of a better term the system is fucked and it doesn't really matter where you go so you have to like make noise about that and yeah it certainly does matter on on a very individual level I think and I certainly try and do the same as you which is like where I see it you know I call it out and you know we'll take a very strong we'll take a very strong line um
00:39:28
Speaker
And I find that quite easy, which is actually a privilege, in many ways, to feel like I'm just not going to do that, not going to stand for that. But I really understand that that's not, that's not easy. And that's not something everything everyone feels. But definitely I do think a lot of a lot of those kind of more experienced women would say to the younger generation, get political, because that is how it's going to change. Totally. And I feel like
00:39:57
Speaker
so much of the equation around whether you do or don't do that comes with the kind of level of risk that you
00:40:06
Speaker
either objectively have or perceived to have in yourself about the consequences of you taking those actions. So like one of the places where I used to work, I sat on an anti-racism board and I felt as a white person it was my duty to be quite forceful about calling out things that were wrong and you know policy changes and how we implement them and those sorts of things in a way that
00:40:31
Speaker
you know, perhaps if I was a person of colour, I might be tarred with a brush of being too aggressive or, you know, those other kinds of stereotypes that might feel more character damaging. So I think you're right to say that we as white women also have a privilege in being able to do that. But that's also about like, intersectional feminism, right? Is that we advocate in the places that
00:40:58
Speaker
we don't necessarily have identities with but we support everyone through that journey. Yeah, definitely, definitely.
Managing Imposter Syndrome
00:41:07
Speaker
So I think my sort of tips on combating it from my personal, I guess from my personal journey, by sort of like examined with a therapist like what are you actually aiming for? What does that look like? How is it different to what you have today?
00:41:23
Speaker
And I think understanding the role of luck in success and timing and chance and really that the world isn't just fair and linear was another big thing for me of like, oh, okay, so like, potentially at any time I could become really successful, but also at any time it could be taken away for various reasons. And it's not just going to be this clear single path for anyone actually. And that has been really helpful for me.
00:41:51
Speaker
it makes me put a lot less pressure on myself yeah i love that and also like how exhausting to put that much pressure on yourself so we've still got like at least another three decades of work like i know i'm tired already
00:42:07
Speaker
I honestly do think I look back at like graduate Annie, and I do feel a bit sorry about her. I'm like, oh my god, like what were you doing? You should have been doing like more fun stuff. You shouldn't have just been like working in a hotel and Exeter and Devon on a specific thing. Like for your entire 20s. That's what it felt like. That's not true, by the way. But like, you know, I definitely
00:42:32
Speaker
I definitely think you're right. It's a marathon, this career, not a sprint. And I look back on how much imposter syndrome I probably felt when I was younger and how hard I worked. And I don't think it was pointless, but I do think that it was painful. That's what it was. It wasn't pointless, but it was very painful.
00:42:49
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, definitely. I think when I was thinking about this and what I would recommend, actually, we've spoken about this before, but this is back in the confidence episode, but this is around looking for actual evidence objectively about the narrative that you're telling yourself. And to get to the actual crux of what you're telling yourself, you might have to unpick that later about five times and say,
00:43:18
Speaker
I, you know, I don't think, I don't think, for example, now I don't think I should be a VP. And then you go, why don't you think I should be a VP? And you keep asking why until you get to the nub of it. And then when you realize what that is, and you say it out loud, you're like, that's a really psychopathic to say about yourself. It's really unkind, but it's also just objectively not true. And I think
00:43:46
Speaker
just actually putting your thoughts down on paper or with a friend or with a coach to unpick that and have a moment of really looking at yourself in the mirror about how you're talking to yourself is I think really important. The other thing that I would say that is something to think around this is I think a lot of imposter syndrome when you think about
00:44:12
Speaker
the concept as a whole and that you're fraudulent if you're caught out because you don't know something or you don't have a skillset. I think if
Growth Mindset and Learning Opportunities
00:44:20
Speaker
you flip that concept, what it's actually about is being really comfortable growing and learning and being really comfortable with the uncertainty in your knowledge or the future of what's going on and just getting really okay with that. And I think we'll also put this in the show notes, but
00:44:40
Speaker
There's loads of literature around growth mindset and fixed mindset. But I do really believe if you can reframe in your mind that the things that you don't know are actually opportunities to learn, not things to fear, that's really helpful. I just couldn't agree more.
00:44:59
Speaker
And we live in such a changing world. I would say, technology-wise, things are changing so quickly at the moment. It's absolutely unprecedented. And the reason I bring that up is
00:45:15
Speaker
no one is going to be an expert in this level of change. Like you just couldn't possibly keep up. And as you say, that means having this kind of more growth mindset, like you there is you are unlimited in how much you can learn and like the opportunities to learn is much less.
00:45:39
Speaker
But it's a much more calming way to look at what is actually a very possibly destabilizing climate that we're in. It's like, I can learn about this stuff. It's not going to outsmart me, rather than just like, oh my God, everything is changing so fast in so many ways.
00:45:57
Speaker
in a way that we haven't seen before. How could you possibly keep up as an expert? And I think we did talk about this, because I've had some feedback on it. But, you know, we talked about the power of like really credibly being able to say like, I don't know, but I'll find that out. And
00:46:12
Speaker
people love that I got so many messages like I love that that actually is really reassuring when someone says that because they're not lying to you and so I think tools like that are really good even if you're in a presentation and an actual expert asks you a question you don't have to lie to them and pretend you know you just say that's a really good question I'm gonna go and look at that afterwards and I'll come back to you I don't actually know at the moment but I'm sure I can find an answer
00:46:38
Speaker
great they think like great they didn't lie they're they're gonna look at that that's really interesting and you are not you know you're not stupid you look really smart there's nothing worse than when when someone asks a question and instead of saying that and they obviously don't know the answer they crap on for like five minutes with some waffle and then everyone's like oh this is the worst um just definitely say you don't know it it's really good okay you heard
00:47:06
Speaker
You had a hot tip for the listeners. No, I don't want to do it. We clipped this out of the other one. But now I think you have to.
00:47:19
Speaker
So I just, like, do really appreciate, like, pumping myself up with some music.
Empowering Tools for Confidence
00:47:25
Speaker
You know, if I'm feeling nervous, if I'm feeling not confident, maybe if I'm feeling an imposter syndrome, you know, I'll put on some Lizzo. I'll put on some music that is, like, quite skewed towards kind of dominant, powerful female energy. Or as I put in the notes, some bad bitch energy. Capitalised, BBE. Yeah.
00:47:48
Speaker
Yeah, well, it's not big dick energy, it's bad bitch energy. But like, you know what I mean? There are like tactics and ways that you can kind of make yourself feel
00:47:59
Speaker
hyped up and use your nerves as a positive rather than negative. And I have found that really helpful. I do find that really helpful still. And it's a bit of a lighter tip. It's not like introspect, go to therapy, examine exactly the way you talk to yourself, which by the way, I also did and
00:48:20
Speaker
as soon as you were saying it I was like I remember that session about how I talked to myself and I remember what a big breakthrough that like five whys was in this imposter syndrome era but then there's also just like listen to some fucking lizzo and like don't worry about it like um
00:48:39
Speaker
They split the crowd. It may split the crowd because it's a real thing and it's usually chronic. But like, there are some like lighter, more practical things that you can do to make it feel less hard day to day and less heavy. And I do find that like music and like stuff that is particularly, in my case, like quite
00:49:00
Speaker
quite like created to amp up women is helpful. So that's now I've done it and you're not gonna let me edit it out. I'm just in the pod. I'm not, I'm obviously not editing that out. Although I will say I, so like I have the same thing. I think my song, I actually have two songs. One is, one is Bad Bitch Energy, which is,
00:49:30
Speaker
work with Britney Spears. I mean, that's so good. It's also like maybe deeply problematic, but also really good. I know. And and I obviously say that like, God bless Britney, her book was, yeah, I think she still needs help. But that song is a real G up. And
00:49:54
Speaker
The other one that I recall, actually, I don't know why, but I specifically like listening to this one in the car, like really loud and singing along, which is not necessarily BBE, but... Blinding lights by the weekend. It's just such a failure. Yeah, the weekend is high on my pump myself up list, like...
00:50:20
Speaker
There is just something about some of the filth in his songs that I find actually deeply motivating. I'm like, yes, let's get this all out on the table. This is smut. It's filth. I love it. There is a problem where some of the best G-up songs are hyper problematic. Yeah. But sometimes you just got to do what you got to do and maybe just pause
00:50:49
Speaker
the little bit of feminist understanding in the lyrics while you're cheering yourself up for your feminist act overall. I'd say like we can take that. Exactly. It's about the energy. Yeah, it's about the energy. It's about absorbing the kind of fuck you energy, not that like, not that in presentations and stuff where we feel I'm across the syndrome, we want to feel like fuck you, but it's like absorbing that energy of like, I'm going to smash it, like this is going to go well.
00:51:15
Speaker
um or just like a bit of like i don't care right i'm gonna do it it's gonna be fine because i'm just gonna get it done and um yeah i think that
00:51:26
Speaker
Lots of them are problematic and that's okay. That's actually not our problem to solve. I would say it's not our problem to solve. We should take the positives where they are. Okay. Let's move on to the user questions to round us off.
Confidence vs Arrogance
00:51:40
Speaker
So I'm going to start with this one. How would you be confident without being masculine or arrogant? Yeah.
00:51:55
Speaker
So to your point earlier, lots of the ways that we recognize confidence and confident behaviors are inherently masculine. So this is really hard to like answer without acknowledging that what looks like confident has been defined by male behaviors. So honestly, when I first read this question, I thought I don't give a fuck about being masculine.
00:52:16
Speaker
like honestly I don't. But I do respect that many women do not want to come across as that and actually do give a fuck about that. And what I would say is like you've got to kind of, maybe this isn't
00:52:33
Speaker
helpful but that's what comes to mind is like you've got to kind of find your style of confidence that is authentic to you and there are some really amazing people who are very kind of quietly confident they execute their confidence they wait for everyone else to speak and then they say like one amazing sentence and like that is their vibe and that is fine that is a way to be confident
00:52:57
Speaker
it might not, it probably isn't like the typical kind of masculine way to be confident, but it can be incredibly impactful. And I think you have to kind of find the style of confidence which works for you. Unfortunately, in very masculine or typical environments, it may be very hard to have a different style of confidence because of
00:53:23
Speaker
confident behaviors being typically masculine behaviors. But then I think you have to influence, as you've talked about on many other episodes, like how you can still be yourself. And if, if being yourself means retaining a female energy, that's fine. But like,
00:53:40
Speaker
still influence and get your outcomes through like a different way. But I would, I guess, encourage this person to think like, what are the behaviors you're labeling as masculine? Are they behaviors that you want to do or not? Are they truly masculine? Or are they actually just behaviors that anyone can exhibit? And is that masculine label really helping you get to like where you want to go? Because it's certainly going to like exist and
00:54:10
Speaker
in the structure that we're all in. But it's like, is it helping you to label certain behaviours as masculine? Like, possibly not. But yeah, everyone's got to find their style. And then with arrogance, you know, I do think arrogance is really different to confidence. And, and we talked about that a lot in the confidence episode. So I guess I would encourage this person to kind of go back and listen to that. But, you know, there are, there are ways to feel
00:54:41
Speaker
There are ways to be credible and confident and respectful without going anywhere near the arrogant territory.
00:54:49
Speaker
I would just add to that that when I was thinking about this and I was thinking about like every professional woman who I've met and if I think about the number of professional women who I think have come across as arrogant, I would literally say it's less than one percent. I'm really struggling with examples. I can think of one person right now and that's it and actually I think the risk of coming across as arrogant
00:55:19
Speaker
if, if you're a woman is probably really quite low. And I think I genuinely associate arrogance mostly with men is what I'm now discovering, as I say the sentence out loud. But so I think well, it's interesting, because I don't think it would be laid, as you say, it wouldn't be labelled or recognised as arrogance in women, it would be recognised as something else. So I definitely worked with someone who I think
00:55:47
Speaker
was a woman and she's incredibly successful and amazing someone I like really idolize and I think some people would have labeled her as arrogant but she was also labeled as like quite introverted quite shy you know she was she was more of the like few words high impact than lots of words um and I think that
00:56:15
Speaker
Yeah, you're more likely to label certain behaviours, like, and recognise them as arrogance when they're men. I don't know if that's actually helpful. But I can definitely think of some one woman and it's only one in my entire career. So I think that really also echoes your point that I have ever heard someone say I think she's a bit arrogant. And in all honesty, she was reserved and incredibly beautiful.
00:56:42
Speaker
And I think those those two things together, comp like with confidence, and frankly, exceptionally good at her job as well. Those those things like swelled up to like, is she a bit arrogant? Like maybe she's a bit dismissive. But like, I've never I've actually never heard that leveled against like another woman.
00:57:02
Speaker
Oh, I just had, I'm not going to talk about it now, but like, there's just a whole separate thing about how some, how attractive someone is in the workplace, which, yeah, dimension, but I'm not going to go into it, but I think that's a really interesting point.
00:57:19
Speaker
We've actually already
Impact on Gender Pay Gap
00:57:20
Speaker
covered this one. The next question was on what role do you think imposter syndrome plays in the gender pay gap? I think it's huge. I think they're both structural issues. And I think every individual should just be hunting for more pay if you're on the wrong side of the pay gap for yourself and in the policies of them. Hunting that pay, hunt it down. Ask for what you deserve.
00:57:46
Speaker
Yes. Okay, last question.
Combating Imposter Syndrome in Promotions
00:57:50
Speaker
What can I do to stop imposter syndrome or self-doubt when going for a promotion? I think something that you, I think you said earlier, but you've certainly written in our notes for this, was that you found like journaling and writing things down like really helpful to kind of break down these
00:58:10
Speaker
these beliefs, I think that like really keeping a record of the things you have done, the results and why you deserve that promotion and really evidencing it first to yourself can help you
00:58:25
Speaker
not feel imposter syndrome when you are in that room. Like the more evidence and like ammo you bring to a meeting like that, the easier it's going to feel for you because you really have done the work and you're confident in it and you can show it with examples but also the easier it's going to be to actually like give you
00:58:44
Speaker
the pay rise itself because everything that the person with making that decision needs is kind of there presented by you so I think I really practically I would say like keep that record have a working doc of like projects that you've done that have gone well keep it updated every month just keep track of things where you've like really you know
00:59:04
Speaker
had a big impact, shifted an outcome, done a good job and then take that in but also read it, read it yourself, read it regularly, read it every month to tell yourself like I'm making progress because for everyone some months don't feel good but usually you will have done a couple of things in that month that have like moved something, shifted something along and it can be hard to reflect on that so I would say kind of write things down, really prep for that meeting and I don't know if it would
00:59:31
Speaker
know, I don't know if it would specifically address imposter syndrome, but I think it would address like, the actual need of like, nail the meeting, get the money. Yeah, I agree. I mean, that was a way better answer than the answer that I was going to give, which is just I always have a kudos folder in my email. So when people say nice things, just found them in like a little compliment folder. So when I need a little G app,
00:59:55
Speaker
go and read nice things. Also good advice. And also good advice. The other thing that I think you told me that and the first time I did that was a few years ago, it actually was nice. It was nice. Lovely to just have a refresher on only compliments. The
01:00:11
Speaker
Specifically not feedback. It is compliments. It's not feedback. It's a compliments folder. It's not a feedback folder. No one needs to write feedback if that's not going to make you feel good. The other thing that I would say, when going for a promotion, this is advice I give to anyone who I'm line managing, is
01:00:32
Speaker
Before you're going for a promotion, I really think you should basically already be acting and delivering at that level so that you feel very confident going in that. And the way that I manage that with people who I manage is to, at the start of the year, whenever it is for appraisals, set your objectives like the grade above you already are.
01:00:52
Speaker
And if you deliver them, that is like the perfect evidence point of I'm operating at this grade, I should be promoted. And I think it also helps you try on the feeling early of operating at that level. So that by the time it actually comes to a promotion, I, you know, I spoke to a friend who's recently gotten, um, kind of acting position for six weeks and
01:01:17
Speaker
I'm sure she wouldn't mind me saying she was feeling quite nervous about it. And actually, I think trying on the feeling and just seeing what it feels like to act more senior, like no one will even know. You can tell them you can just, you know, waft around like you're a bit more senior and see what changes and see how you feel. I think that sounds quite fun. Yeah.
01:01:40
Speaker
Right.
Conclusion and Encouragement
01:01:41
Speaker
Okay, that's it. I think that like worth saying this whole episode was kind of structured from user questions themselves. So I hope that we have like managed to answer a lot of those in this kind of rambling. But
01:01:58
Speaker
Yeah, thank you for sending us questions. It makes our life a lot easier when you tell us sort of what you want to hear about. I'm back handing over to you to do the little sign off. Oh, good. This was actually more fun than I was anticipating it being. It was like the funness really overtook how
01:02:15
Speaker
how I felt about this episode. So very good. Loved it. Thanks everyone for listening. We've got a random email from like a bot telling us that we ranked really highly in the careers podcast area of Singapore. So thank you to everyone who has been giving us five stars and listening to us and sharing with us
01:02:38
Speaker
because apparently we start rising the ranks and we have global listeners everywhere. So if you could do us one favor, it would be to help us find other people who would find this beneficial. So you can do that by giving us five stars, sharing with your pals, you know, doing your thing. Okay. Bye. Bye.