I used to think I was the only one who would feel like an impostor in meetings of “big” people. This nagging feeling that you are not good enough and all those around you are the real deal, they are so much better than you. This goes hand-in-hand with the fear of being found out and publicly expelled or exposed.
Then one day while sitting in the Leadership Institute Master Class it really hit me – not just head knowledge, it sunk in: there are many who feel like I do and we all keep quiet. Someone openly confessed he used to suffer from it and explained on how he is working on overcoming it. Then several people confirmed they are suffering from it too. Yes the imposter syndrome is real and we need to learn to overcome it!
A friend of mine suggested to me at one point I should write down all my achievements and read through them when I feel down and outright useless, a failure. She had seen through it, knew I am an achiever, not a failure and seen all those things I had achieved. My immediate reaction was to tone down what she said, and say that my achievements are not all so noteworthy after all. This is a typical reaction to protect yourself, just in case “they find out I am the imposter”. But she insisted and pointed out the things I had just told her, she made me see that these are big achievements and not little things.
I started out writing them in lists, but somehow reading through it was not that effective for me. It felt like a litany reading the always in the same order. Then I got the idea of using an old chocolate treat tin and write the achievements on little note papers. One on each paper.
When I feel down or feel useless, the big failure, I just start pulling out papers at random and reading them. Man that works! It has never failed to make me gain confidence again. Sometimes I literally had to read through all the papers, before the reality hits that this is what I have achieved and I can do great things, but it always does.
There is just something reading your achievements randomly that makes me feel good about myself again. And 90% of the time I then remember some recent achievements that I have not written down yet.
Another thing that has helped me is having an accountability partner. With one of my LIMC (PMI Leadership Institute Master Class) class mates we set short term, mid term and long term goals and meet every 2-3 months virtually to update each other. I look forward to these meetings and it is great fun celebrating each others achievements. At the same time we encourage each other and give each other ideas about those goals we missed out on.
Main take home for everyone from this is that you are somebody, you are NOT and impostor and you have achieved a lot. Document it and celebrate your small victories. They do add up to quite a lot!