Impostor Syndrome
On living with anxiety — the psychological experience of believing your success is the product of luck and deceit.
Impostor Syndrome
Some time ago, I had the opportunity to interview Joseph S. Nye, a Harvard professor and author of Soft Power. It was a morning interview at a hotel in Yeouido, and I remember being extraordinarily nervous. Part of it was the English interview — speaking with a native speaker always puts me on edge — but more than that, it was the prospect of meeting an author I had genuinely admired in college.
The problem was that my nervousness wasn't simply excitement. It carried a subtle undercurrent of anxiety. In addition to my fixation on English, there was a fear of being exposed — of revealing my inadequacy. The thought kept circling in my head: am I really in any position to interview Professor Nye? Won't I embarrass myself with clumsy questions?
Not long ago, I came across the term "impostor syndrome" in the news. Impostor syndrome is a psychological term for the experience of believing that one's success and reputation are entirely the products of luck and circumstance — that one has been deceiving those around them. People with high self-expectations are particularly prone to this: fearing failure deeply, they put on a "mask" as a way of cushioning the psychological blow of worst-case scenarios.
It's a term that dates back to 1978, so it's been in use for quite a while. When I first encountered it, I filed it away as an interesting concept. But the more I reflected on it, the more I recognized this experience — in myself and in many people around me.
The most frequently cited examples of impostor syndrome are Emma Watson, who played Hermione in the Harry Potter films, and Natalie Portman, who played Mathilda in Léon: The Professional. In an August interview with The Telegraph, Watson said: "The more I accomplish, the more incapable I feel. I'm afraid that eventually people will figure out how incompetent I am."
Natalie Portman, in her Harvard commencement speech, said: "When I arrived at Harvard as a freshman in 1999, I was sure there had been some mistake. I didn't think I was smart enough to be at Harvard. Every time I opened my mouth, I was struggling to prove I wasn't just a dumb actress."
Impostor syndrome originates in the desire to meet others' expectations. The problem is that meeting those expectations often requires giving 120% — and when that becomes the norm, you start to feel depleted. The gap between your own self-perception and how others evaluate you grows, and you begin to think the world's assessment is inflated.
Rather than growing through the success of a project, you begin to fear that the success is only pulling you toward harder challenges you won't be able to handle. "I'm not that remarkable..." becomes both an expression of anxiety and a self-protective mechanism against future failure.
The more severe cases are where it becomes genuinely damaging. Rather than protecting oneself, the person becomes crushed under the weight of real pressure. Self-depreciation and the feeling of burden can lead to extreme choices. The case of scientist Hwang Woo-suk could be seen as a manifestation of impostor syndrome taken to an extreme — though in his case there also appeared to be a grandiose dimension: a desire so strong for external validation that he resorted to fabrication.
Anyway, coming back to my own situation — reflecting on recent months, I suspect I had been slipping into a mild form of impostor syndrome. I found myself thinking frequently that my achievements and performance fell short of what past evaluations or the expectations of those around me might suggest. It had been functioning as a kind of stress. A feeling of wearing a "mask" against my will.
Anxiety can sometimes be the force that drives effort and leads toward excellence. But in many cases, it leads to a sense of helplessness. It may be time to look closely at my own face beneath the mask.
How to Overcome Impostor Syndrome
1. Come off it. Letting go of some of your excess self-importance will go a long way in helping you feel less like a fake.
2. Accept that you have had some role in your successes.
3. Focus on providing value.
4. Keep a file of people saying nice things about you.
5. Stop comparing yourself to that person.
6. Expose yourself totally.
7. Treat the thing as a business/experiment.
8. Say "It's Impostor Syndrome" and it immediately becomes a little less terrible.
9. Remember: being wrong doesn't make you a fake.
10. "Nobody Belongs Here More Than You"
11. Realize that when you hold back you're robbing the world.
13. Stream-of-conscious writing.
14. Say what you can.
15. Realize that nobody knows what they're doing.
17. Realize that you are never you.
18. Authenticity is a hoax.
19. See credentials for what they are.
20. Find one person you can say, "I feel like a fraud" to.
21. Faking things actually does work.