Antonia Bernardin

This post originally started as an exploration of what Imposter Syndrome was and how I thought I’d experienced it but I’ve since done yearly updates on my journey with getting past it, in the hope that it helps someone else.

This is a NSFW post, I swear a lot.

So what’s the definition of ‘imposter syndrome’?

From good old Wikipedia:

Impostor syndrome (also known as impostor phenomenon, impostorism, fraud syndrome or the impostor experience) is a psychological pattern in which an individual doubts their skills, talents, or accomplishments and has a persistent internalized fear of being exposed as a “fraud”. Despite external evidence of their competence, those experiencing this phenomenon remain convinced that they are frauds and do not deserve all they have achieved. Individuals with impostorism incorrectly attribute their success to luck, or interpret it as a result of deceiving others into thinking they are more intelligent than they perceive themselves to be. Impostor syndrome also occurs in normal human-to-human relationships. Based on this syndrome, continuing doubts about people and individual defense mechanisms are considered difficult to achieve healthy relationships. While early research focused on the prevalence among high-achieving women, impostor syndrome has been recognized to affect both men and women equally

From an article in The Harvard Business Review:

Imposter syndrome can be defined as a collection of feelings of inadequacy that persist despite evident success. ‘Imposters’ suffer from chronic self-doubt and a sense of intellectual fraudulence that override any feelings of success or external proof of their competence. They seem unable to internalize their accomplishments, however successful they are in their field. High achieving, highly successful people often suffer, so imposter syndrome doesn’t equate with low self-esteem or a lack of self-confidence. In fact, some researchers have linked it with perfectionism, especially in women and among academics.

Let’s get into the reflecting

This will be a bit of a mixed reflection because the last year has been a lot. Last August I was made redundant, the company that bought mine chose to dissolve the brand I worked for, which meant nearly four years of hard work was deleted and I was genuinely devastated. Finding the job I have now was a bit of a journey and it added up to a massive knock in confidence.

However, I started this new job, which is not so new now and it was such a good fit, I decided to use the old tried and true ‘fake it ’til you make it’ philosophy, which I talked about in one of my previous imposter syndrome posts. What was wild about joining somewhere completely new is, unlike in my job before where they saw me grow in confidence, this place knows no other version of me. Now maybe I shouldn’t be shocked to find my opinions just trusted for, you know, the job they hired me for, but it is just weird to me.

So yeah, started the year with my confidence on the fucking floor and now I’m doing pretty good. Professionally, I think Ive reached a good place with it because I was forced to leave the job I felt very safe in and the world did not end, I maybe even ended up in something better suited to me.

I don’t feel that persistent creeping dread that I’m about to be ‘found out’ for the fraud I am anymore. I wish I had some advice but it really was ‘doing it scared’ until it was so scary anymore.

Writing wise? Stress completely killed all desire to write over the last year but, as I talked about in my recent ‘Reading, writing and life update‘, my creative brain is back and really excited to get back into it. I think I’m finally really ready to give it a real go. I don’t really get that feeling of ‘who the hell am I?’ to presume someone might be interested in anything I write. I’m going to write it and hopefully people will read it. I just feel fairly neutral about it.

Last year I thought I was maybe done with needing to talk about this topic but then the year was a real roller coaster and here we are. Hopefully next year I’ll feel like I’ve said all I needed to.