Feeling like a faker despite your success? How to escape impostor syndrome
With a perfect 4.0 from Brooklyn College and a terrific LSAT score, Chana knew she had a decent chance of getting into a good law school. Still, she was shocked and ecstatic when she got into a top Ivy League school. But on her first day, as she passed the daunting stone columns and stepped across the marble floor, her self-confidence gave way to self-doubt. Looking around the classroom at her peers, many of whom had graduated from Yale and Harvard, she suddenly felt like a fraud. Everyone else is so much smarter than I am, she thought. I don’t deserve to be here.
Sometimes, when people look at themselves in the mirror, instead of seeing what the rest of the world sees — an accomplished, successful person — they see an impostor, a fraud, a pretender. Despite having advanced degrees, career success, or being looked up to as a role model, they’re afraid that others will discover they’re not as talented, creative, or knowledgeable as everyone believes them to be. And they worry they won’t be able to continue to perform at their current level, since they just got there by luck or chance.
This is called impostor syndrome (IS), and don’t be surprised if it sounds familiar. It’s a phenomenon an estimated 70 percent of people will experience in their lifetime. It isn’t a mental illness, rather it’s a part of the human experience, and, like sadness or anxiety, it’s something most people are likely to feel at least once. Anyone who’s ever started a new job and thought, “Can I really do this?” has had a glimpse of impostor syndrome.
The term “impostor syndrome” was first coined by psychologists Suzanne Imes and Pauline Rose Clance in the 1970s. They surveyed 100 women, all who had been formally recognized for excellence in their fields, but who attributed their success to luck or believed that people overestimated their abilities.
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