On paper, your investments in
stocks, real estate or even cash may look like your greatest assets.
While all those things are
super-important, you have something else that’s even more valuable.
It’s
the investment called you
Finding ways to increase your value
while doing the things you love may be the most important thing you do.
Maybe you pursue more training to
qualify for a raise.
Maybe you find a way to sell the
photography you did as a hobby.
Maybe you find a way to turn your
freelance writing into full-time work.
They all involve doing something new
for you, but when you head down this path, you are probably going to run into
this thing, this fear that you’re bumping up against the limits of
your ability.
Then, the voice inside your head may
start saying things like:
- “Who gave you permission to do that?”
- “Do you have a license to be an artist?”
- “Who said you could draw on cardstock with a Sharpie in Park City, Utah, and send those sketches to The New York Times?”
I think you get the idea.
It’s at the moment when you’re most
vulnerable that all your doubts come crashing in around you.
When I first heard that voice in my
own head, I didn’t know what to make of it. The fear was paralyzing.
Every time I sent a sketch or
something else into the world, I worried the world would say, “You’re a fraud.”
During a session with a business
coach, I shared my fear.
I was shocked when she told me this
thing had a name.
As you’ve tried new things or done
anything outside of your comfort zone, you’ve probably felt that fear, too.
The first step to dealing with this
fear is knowing what to call it.
Two American psychologists, Pauline
Clance and Suzanne Imes, gave it a name in 1978: the Impostor Syndrome.
They described it as a feeling of
“phoniness in people who believe that they are not intelligent, capable or
creative despite evidence of high achievement.”
While these people “are highly
motivated to achieve,” they also “live in fear of being ‘found out’ or exposed
as frauds.” Sound familiar?
Once we know what to call this fear,
the second step that I’ve found really valuable is knowing we’re not alone.
Once I learned this thing had a
name, I was curious to learn who else suffered from it.
One of my favorite discoveries
involved the amazing American author and poet Maya Angelou.
She shared that, “I have written 11
books, but each time I think, ‘Uh oh, they’re going to find out now.
I’ve run a game on everybody, and
they’re going to find me out.’”
Think about that for a minute.
Despite winning three Grammys and
being nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and a Tony Award, this huge talent still
questioned her success.
I’m also a big fan of the marketing
expert Seth Godin, and even after publishing a dozen
best sellers, he wrote in “The Icarus Deception” that he still feels like a
fraud.
I’ve heard that American presidents
can feel this thing, too.
The first time they find themselves
alone in the Oval Office, they think to themselves, “I hope nobody finds out
I’m in here.”
So now that we know its name and
that other people deal with it too, our third step is to understand why we feel
this way.
I think part of the impostor
syndrome comes from a natural sense of humility about our work.
That’s healthy, but it can easily
cross the line into paralyzing fear.
When we have a skill or talent that
has come naturally we tend to discount its value.
Why is that? Well, we often hesitate
to believe that what’s natural, maybe even easy for us, can offer any value to
the world.
In fact, the very act of being
really good at something can lead us to discount its value.
But after spending a lot of time
fine-tuning our ability, isn’t it sort of the point for our skill to look and
feel natural?
All of this leads to the final and
most important step: learning how to live with the impostor syndrome.
I recently listened to Tim
Ferriss interview the clinical psychologist and author Tara Brach.
In her book “Radical Acceptance,” she
shared a really cool story about Buddha and the demon Mara.
One day, Buddha was teaching a large
group, and Mara was moving around the edges, looking for a way into the group.
I envision Mara rushing frantically
back and forth in the bushes and trees, making plans to wreak havoc.
One of Buddha’s attendants saw Mara,
ran to Buddha and warned him of Mara’s presence.
Hearing his attendant’s frantic
warning, the Buddha simply replied, “Oh good, invite her in for tea.”
This story captures beautifully how
we should respond to the impostor syndrome.
We know what the feeling is called.
We know others suffer from it. We know
a little bit about why we feel this way.
And we now know how to handle it:
Invite it in and remind ourselves why it’s here and what it means.
For me, even after six years of
sharing these simple sketches with the world and speaking all over the world,
you think I’d be used to it.
In fact, the impostor syndrome has
not gone away, but I’ve learned to think of it as a friend.
So now when I start to hear that voice in my
head, I take a deep breath, pause for a minute, put a smile on my face and say,
“Welcome back old friend. I’m glad you’re here. Now, let’s get to work.”
No comments:
Post a Comment
You need any property? Send us a request.