Feel Like A Fraud? 8 Ways to Slay the Impostor Syndrome

Episode #6, Firmsconsulting TV

I understand the challenges you face. At age 25 I was an immigrant with poor English, no degree and earning $500/month as a receptionist: as described in my biography. On Firmsconsulting TV I want to teach you how I changed my life to become a rapidly-promoted management consultant, banking director and FC partner in South Africa and Canada. 

Today I want to talk about one of the biggest roadblocks I faced in my life, that I know many of you also face, yet hardly ever talk about. And that biggest roadblock was … myself.

This is something I struggled with a lot early on in my career. No matter what I would achieve, it felt like I was not good enough. Even when I was consistently promoted ahead of my peers across several firms. In fact, many times, just before I was promoted I thought I would be fired!

What I was experiencing over and over again is something called an impostor syndrome. It occurs when we feel we achieved our successes by luck, timing or due to other external events, instead of our effort, character, talent and abilities.

It is when we consistently discount our achievements and face internal resistance to go after major opportunities because we are afraid to fail. We are afraid we are not as good as people think we are.

Interestingly, experiencing impostor syndrome moments is particularly prevalent among high achievers (the Firmsconsulting community is an elite group of high achievers so this topic will be highly relevant for many members of our community) and most common among women.

We spoke about the myth of confidence in the first episode of Firmsconsulting TV. I believe the Impostor Syndrome is related to this discussion.

The thing is, if you are anything like me and don’t have confidence ingrained in you from childhood, no matter how extraordinary your achievements are, you will still likely feel like you are not good enough, no matter what you end up achieving.

Therefore, the impostor syndrome is really a manifestation of low confidence. And fortunately, you don’t need to be confident to be successful. You just need to manage your impostor syndrome so it doesn’t prevent you from taking action.

It’s clear we have to learn how to control the impostor syndrome, especially during the early stages of our lives when we don’t have a track record to use as a reality check.

Over the years I adopted 8 practices that helped me keep impostor syndrome in check. Chances are you’re struggling with impostor syndrome too. If that’s true, today’s episode highlights 8 ways to slay the impostor syndrome which can really help.

Make sure to take action. Remember, insight without action is of little help. And if you have any thoughts or insights on this topic, please share in the comments. I would love to hear your thoughts and ideas, and your story may just be what someone else needs to have a breakthrough.

With all my appreciation and care,

Kris

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