Back in October of 2020, I heard the term Imposter Syndrome (also known as the imposter phenomenon) for the first time. Since I heard this term for the first time, I’ve noticed its appearance more in my day to day life and conversations with friends. However, I still wasn’t sure exactly what it meant. Imposter syndrome is defined as “ a psychological condition that is characterized by persistent doubt concerning one’s abilities or accomplishments accompanied by the fear of being exposed as a fraud despite evidence of one’s ongoing success.” Essentially, people who experience imposter syndrome in some aspect of their life tend to feel like they do not deserve their accomplishments, or that they have only succeeded due to luck. Having learned this definition led me to realize that I have lived the past few years at least with a bad case of imposter syndrome.
Thinking back on my education, I have never really considered myself to be smart. Despite doing extremely well in high school, gaining admission to some of the top universities in Canada and being very successful the past few years in a relatively challenging degree program, I have always labeled myself as someone of average intelligence who works hard, has learned how to work around the education system and who for the most part is relatively lucky. Not to say that I haven’t had my troubles with academia, but I always accepted my failures as my responsibility and chalked up my successes to over studying the right material by chance, or getting lucky and having a certain topic ‘just make sense to me’.
Unfortunately, my imposter syndrome doesn’t just apply to my academia, but my friendships, personal relationships, work and extracurricular activities. I can not think of a single extracurricular activity or opportunity I have had the chance to partake in and felt like I deserved it. It has never kept me from applying, or from facing numerous amounts of rejection, but my successes have never felt like my successes. I can’t help but feel I do not deserve the positions I am fortunate enough to hold, and that it is only a matter of time before everyone else realizes it, that is if they haven’t already. I find this can make my anxiety fluctuate between feeling like I need to overexert myself or be overly prepared to make it seem like I still have value to contribute to the team or feeling like it’s only a matter of time before they realize hiring me was a mistake. This can make holding positions in leadership can be especially difficult. How can you be expected to lead someone if you’re only successful because of luck? How can you expect your team to respect you and your authority if you didn’t earn it?
Imposter syndrome within my personal life can make me feel like I need constant reassurance from those around me. I can’t help but feel like I’m waiting for those close to me to get tired of me, admit they’ve never actually liked me or realize who I really am and decide they no longer want to be part of my life. It’s made me feel like I never truly fit in and has probably led to some sort of long lasting internal identity crisis. There was a time when I felt like my personality was nothing more than a combination of those around me, as if mimicking them would earn me their friendship. Although I am learning how to live my life more authentically, I still can’t help but question almost every aspect of my personality and who I am as a whole. I still feel like a fraud, only now, I’m a poorly disguised one.
Having focused on personal growth rather extensively over the past 8 months has been helpful in many ways, and I do not think I could ever grow out of my imposter syndrome being hit with the overwhelming realization of it, but I feel more lost within myself than I ever have before. Most of what I strongly believed to be my authentic self now feels shaken and given that we are still in the midst of a pandemic, uncertainty is something that has been anything but infrequent. Though one might argue that the scary part isn’t finding out who you are but who you will become.
If you want to learn more about imposter syndrome, this article is a great read: 5 Different Types of Imposter Syndrome (and 5 Ways to Battle Each One).