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Overcoming Imposter Syndrome

Imposter Syndrome is a cruel partner in your professional journey.  If you're not familiar with the term, it is essentially the feeling that you do not belong in a particular profession or that you do not deserve a specific role or set of responsibilities.  (You may read more in the Wikipedia article.)  I did not hear the term myself until I participated in a mentoring group for young employees at my current job - some of the young employees said they had this, and I won't deny a bit of surprise when I read what it is.

If you feel this way, you're obviously not alone.  A good friend of mine suffers from this in no small amount in spite of the fact that she's an upper mid-level manager at her company with an organization of approximately 40 people reporting to her.  She feels this way because she never completed college, but fails to realize that her hard work and dedication to being the best that she can be is why she has been repeatedly promoted through the ranks of her company.  She constantly calls herself a hack or someone who has only been successful in avoiding being "voted off the island."

Personally, I have a very specific opinion on this subject:

  • You are not allowed to feel this way.
  • You are not inadequate.
  • You are not undeserving.
  • You are valuable.

If you doubt me, consider my earlier blog entry on Business Impact.  In that article, I said:

"...business impact is therefore the journey from the current state to the future state.  Put another way, any activity that advances the journey in the correct direction toward the desired future state is considered to have 'business impact.'"

When looked at through the lens of your current employment or your current set of responsibilities, you have to understand that you were given your current role or hired into your current job after a purposeful decision was made that was based on the perceived business impact that you would have.

In other words, you're where you are because you deserve to be there.  You have the skills, talents, and experience to succeed in your role, to move the business in some way so that it's closer to the desired future state.

Let me give you another example:

At my current company, applicants who wish to become Solutions Engineers have to pass a three part interview process: the first two parts are interviews with the hiring manager and one of their peers or key members on their team.

The final part involves executing a miniature sales cycle that lasts two weeks.  During that time, you not only have to conduct a discovery session with a fictitious CIO (via role playing) but then you have to create a fully functioning solution to the use case given to you using technology that you've had no prior exposure to and present that along with a full slide deck establishing context, business impact, and quantifiable conclusions at the end.

This is not a small task.  At the beginning of it all it is overwhelming.  But even after people succeed and are hired, they still feel like they don't deserve the job.  They ignore the amazing accomplishment that they've just completed and focus on what they feel makes them inadequate because they are comparing themselves to people who have been at the company for 5, 10 or more years.

Recently, a good friend of mine, award winning composer Chance Thomas, recently posted some thoughts on overcoming Imposter Syndrome.  I've quoted a snippet of those thoughts below, which start with a translation of a poem called The Great Yes by the poet Constantine Cavafi:

THE GREAT YES

   To every man there comes a time,
   When he must declare the Great Yes.
   He who has the Great Yes burning inside,
   Immediately reveals himself.
   And so saying…
   On he goes, to the victory.

I was struck by the idea that we human beings can develop a positive internal awareness which grows to become so radiant, so vibrant, so inescapable that everyone around us immediately recognizes our competence, without internal dissonance. Brimming with the Great Yes, such a person progresses naturally, perhaps even inevitably, to success.

This is the opposite of imposter syndrome. 

Develop that positive internal awareness by trusting in the decision to hire you, to promote you, to give you that extra project.  It wouldn't have happened if those who made the decision didn't believe in your ability to succeed.

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