As a leader, you want to make good decisions – for your team, your business, your family, and, of course, for yourself.
But with imposter syndrome, there is no ‘of course’ when making decisions that involve you.
It colours your judgement in decisions that affect you personally and can prevent you from making the best decisions in several ways.
Imposter syndrome is the secret feeling of being a fraud, when you’re not, and a fear of being found out. You discount your success and you feel that you’re not quite good enough.
It affects over 70% of high-achievers at some point in their career, which is a lot of leaders making important decisions.
A subtle effect of imposter syndrome comes from the feeling of not being good enough.
Despite working very hard and getting great reviews and career growth, you feel like you haven’t really earned your success, that you’ve just got lucky. You might even be a bit embarrassed at your success, because you don’t feel like you deserve it.
Then when you have to decide on things that benefit you personally, you shy away from them. You think that you’ve already had much more than you deserve, so you ‘put others first’ instead.
For example, you may not get outside help for your home, such as a cleaner, nanny or gardener. Instead, you struggle with trying to do everything yourself, taking up your energy and precious downtime and not allowing you to switch off from a busy week.
At work, you may not ask for skills training, coaching/mentoring or development programmes. Or you may not ask for a raise or another promotion. Because you feel you’ve already been given more than enough, it even seems greedy to ask for more. It’s a sense of not deserving other people’s investment of time and resources in your personal or career growth.
This means that you don’t get the support and development you need, which increases your stress, reduces your productivity, and, ironically, makes your imposter syndrome worse.
So the imposter syndrome feeling of not being good enough is causing you to make poor decisions that hold you back and drag you down.
It makes good sense to accept support and development when you consider your life and career logically. But how can you choose good options when you feel like you don’t deserve them?
Here are three little hacks you can use to side-step imposter syndromes distortion of your decision making.
1. The Ripple Benefit
When you get good support and development, you are less stressed and have more energy, more productive and happier.
Ask yourself who around you would benefit from that and how.
Your team benefits when you have time to support and mentor them. You’re more present with them so they feel valued and are themselves more relaxed, creative and productive.
Your family benefit when you more time and energy for them and can enjoy happy moments together with you.
Your family also benefit financially when you are earning more from raises and promotions, and can enjoy a better quality of life.
When you are calmer, you are more creative and inspired and you inspire everyone around you.
When you consider everyone who would benefit, it’s easier to make a good decision and you’re doing it for everyone. It no longer feels mean or selfish to you.
2. The Ripple Costs
If thinking of who else benefits doesn’t help, flip it around and ask yourself who else is paying for your decision to stay stuck, anxious or overwhelmed and how.
For example, when you work excessively long hours due to imposter syndrome – through over-preparing, perfectionism and procrastination – your family is paying the price by not having you with them. Relationships with your partner and children suffer as they don’t feel like they’re important to you.
Your worry about work means you can’t switch off and you’re constantly distracted. Your family doesn’t get your full attention.
At work, you may compare yourself to your team members and feel a little hostile towards them. They don’t get your full support for their own development, and following your example, their careers don’t develop as well.
If your stress is causing you to lose sleep, your mood suffers and you become more irritable. This negatively affects everyone around you at home and at work.
When you count up who is paying the price of you avoiding support and development, you can see that you’re not really putting other people first at all. This may help you to decide to make a better choice.
3. What if this happened to a friend?
Imagine that instead of making a decision for yourself, you were helping a dear friend make that decision.
Because it’s a good friend, of course you wish good things for them, like support, growth, development and career success.
Seeing your situation from the outside like this removes the influence of an unconscious fear that you don’t deserve it.
You gain dispassionate clarity to make good decisions that solve your problems and benefit everyone around you including yourself.
Imposter syndrome has a significant impact on your life and career as it is.
Ultimately, imposter syndrome is not ‘cured’ by mindset shifts, you need to eliminate its root cause.
These three little hacks may help you climb out of that negative spiral or the feeling that you don’t deserve more, and maybe take a step towards deciding to get rid of imposter syndrome for good!