03 - The Inner Saboteur - Unpacking Imposter Phenomenon

Ever felt like a fraud, even when you're thriving? You're not alone.

In this episode of Flawed and Fabulous, Dr Munita and Shazia take a deep dive into the inner saboteur - that voice that whispers, “Who do you think you are?” We explore the roots of imposter phenomenon, how it shows up in high-achieving individuals, and why so many of us secretly struggle with self-worth, despite external success.

Expect personal stories, psychological insights, and practical strategies to shift from self-doubt to self-trust. We unpack how imposter feelings link to early experiences, perfectionism, identity, and fear - and how to start reclaiming your confidence.

If you’ve ever questioned whether you’re good enough, this one’s for you.

✨ Join us as we uncover the truth behind the mask and start making peace with the parts of ourselves we’ve been told to hide.

Edited and produced by Mike at Making Digital Real 🎙️

Transcript

Hello, welcome to the Flawed and Fabulous podcast, a podcast that celebrates showing up as your real, raw and beautifully imperfect selves. We will explore topics that are commonly seen as flaws and help you turn them into another dimension of your fabulous self. We discuss personal stories together with myths around topics such as perfectionism, imposter syndrome, fear, and happiness, just to name a few.

I'm Shazia, co-host of the Flawed and Fabulous podcast. I'm a psychotherapist specializing in trauma and work with people struggling with issues such as anxiety, depression, PTSD, and childhood trauma, just to name a few. Hello, I'm Dr. Munita, and I'm also a co-host of the Flawed and Fabulous podcast.

I'm a certified life coach, but also I'm a doctor with two decades' experience as a consultant in intensive care medicine. This gives me a unique perspective to bring to our conversations about mindset, resilience, and personal growth. In my day job, I help patients through the most difficult challenges, and in my coaching practice, I help my clients break through their limitations to achieve their maximum potential.

So, on this podcast, we're going to cut through the noise, have heart-centered conversations to energize and nourish your mind. So whether you're looking to optimize your mindset, navigate life's critical moments, communicate with inspiring topics around human flaws, join us. Let's dive in.

Welcome to Flawed and Fabulous. I'm Shazia, and today's episode is dedicated to a feeling most of us have faced, but rarely talk about. Imagine this.

You're in a meeting with all of your colleagues. Everybody's listening, contributing, being thoughtful. All you can think about, on the other hand, is that everyone received a memo saying how amazing and competent and intelligent they were, except you.

That's got to hurt. Ouch. Hi.

I'm Munita. Today's topic has affected 70% of us at some time or other, or will do. And a recent UK study suggested that 82% of managing directors and 80% of CEOs have felt this way.

It is, of course, imposter phenomenon. This is something that if you've ever walked into a room at a social gathering or a work meeting and felt that something wasn't quite right, you didn't feel like you belong there, hang on, stay tuned. We will unpack this for you today.

We'll talk about what imposter phenomenon is, the science and stats behind it, how it shows up differently in men and women, and the effects of gender and culture and identity-based influences. We'll talk about famous people and quotes that they have said that have suggested that they also felt that they had imposter phenomenon at one time or another. And more importantly, we will give you tools to help you overcome feelings of imposter phenomenon.

So, without further ado, let's dive in. What is imposter phenomenon? Well, in 1978, Suzanne Imes and Pauline Clarnes coined the phrase. They were analyzing women who were in successful workplace positions, and they wanted to analyze their emotions and how they felt about things.

Lo and behold, what they found was instead of feeling that they were successful because of their competence and capability and intellect, they felt very much that their positions, their successes were a result of good timing, luck, fooling other people into thinking that perhaps they were better than they thought they were. And also they lived in constant fear of being found out and outed as being inexperienced, incompetent and incapable. So really at its roots, it's a tussle, an internal tussle between accepting ourselves for the successes that we might be, and actually external validation and really giving a damn about what people think of us.

So Shazia, what do you think about this? Yeah, from my reading on this topic, you're absolutely spot on. Imposter phenomenon is the persistent belief that you are not as competent as others perceive you to be. You know, it includes feelings of fraud, self-doubt and the fear of being found out.

And you can imagine how much anxiety this causes. It will keep you constantly on edge in a state of high alert. Through this episode, we are going to refer to this as imposter phenomenon and not imposter syndrome as many of you have probably heard as the popular term.

And this is because it isn't a mental illness. It's a psychological pattern and it is surprisingly common. We are going to refer to this as the phenomenon rather than a syndrome.

And you know, we don't want to make it clinical. Someone like Maya Angelou, I don't know if you all have heard of her, but she's a well-known poet and Oprah Winfrey's mentor. Even someone like her, who's written loads of books, has said that, I have written 11 books, but each time I think, uh-oh, they're going to find out now.

I run a game on everyone. So this is very common. It can affect anyone regardless of job, title, education, or success level.

Initially, it was thought that this affected women more than men, but this is not true at all. It is just that women talk about this a lot more and men tend to internalize these feelings. In fact, an article published in the U.S. found that a greater number of men experienced impostor phenomenon and strangely, a large number were in the college professor category.

For us, well for me actually, sometimes I feel it, especially with this podcast, because I'm thinking, who on earth is going to listen to, or who wants to listen to us two middle-aged women who are no one and from nowhere? We're not Oprah, we're not Mel Robbins, so why would anyone want to listen to us? But I try and pull myself back and I think, okay, why are we doing this? Because we enjoy it, we're having a good time, and we're opening up discussions on everyday issues and so then that makes me feel better. So M, how big of a problem do you think this is? I know you love your numbers. Well, the data is overwhelming.

70% of people from the Journal of Behavioral Science have been affected as we've discussed. A recent KPMG study showed that 75% of executives felt this and college students, 40% of college students are affected. But the most striking one of all my data that I've had a little look at is that only 25% of men feel that they haven't felt it.

So again, the reporting is slightly biased because rather than telling us that 75% of men do feel it, we've gone for 25% of men don't feel it. So it's one of those things, yeah, that people don't really want to admit to, least of all maybe men. So interesting.

Yeah, these numbers are staggering. I just never imagined that so many people felt this way. That's right.

An impulsive phenomenon surrounds us. It doesn't discriminate, but it does show up differently depending on your identity. So Shazia, you're going to tell me a little bit more about this.

Yeah, when I read up about this subject in more detail, I didn't realize that this phenomenon had been categorized. You know, there are five categories. And I think this is a good time for us to dive into this and talk about these different five categories.

The first one is the superman or superwoman complex, I would say, where one feels the need to succeed in every facet of their life. This could be in work, home, parenting, everywhere. And we've seen this, right? We talk about our friends sometimes.

I've seen friends who I've like thought, oh my God, this is a superwoman. She just manages everything. But you can imagine, again, how much stress this must cause.

This is one of the primary reasons for burnout, especially amongst women, because they've got this feeling that they have to manage everything at a really high level. Number two, the genius. So the genius doesn't usually have difficulty in gaining new skills or attaining facts or revising for exams or planning for a PowerPoint presentation at work the next day.

So when they have to work a little bit harder, when they have to spend a slightly unusual amount of time, they take that upon themselves as incompetence. Then we have the soloist. This person views asking for assistance as a weakness.

And then they find themselves in a situation where they feel completely worthless. And this is very prominent in men, because for men, showing that they need help suggests that they're weak and vulnerable, and this leads to further insecurities and the threat that, oh, I'm going to be replaced in my job. Yeah.

And then there's the expert, number four. This is somebody who feels that they have to know the absolute minute detail of every single thing. And if by some chance they can't, they are really upset by this.

This is predominantly women that feel this way and goes some way into explaining why women will not apply for a job unless they have 100% of the specification criteria in the job advert, whereas men will go for it at 60%. And also would explain why women don't speak up in the workplace, why they would sit back, wait for all the ideas to be generated, come up with a brilliant idea themselves, only never to say it. And number five, Shazi.

That's the perfectionist, and we know about the perfectionist, don't we? We do. One who wants to do everything totally perfectly, achieve 100%, and anything less than that is considered to be a failure in the eyes of the people that they interact with. So I'm wondering, you know, if you're listening to this and you experience the imposter phenomenon, which one of these categories do you think you fit into? Well, I think I can recognize myself in category five with the perfectionist, but don't take my word for it.

Actually, the Dr. Adam Kay, which he wrote the book, This is Going to Hurt, with the television series, his pretty much his entire book revolves around his feelings of imposter phenomenon. And so if you want to get an in-depth idea of what it's like to feel that way 24-7 in every facet of your life, there will be a good book to actually signpost you to at this stage. And it's a really funny book too, so it's definitely worth a read.

It is. And remember, any success stories that people with imposter phenomenon encounter are often met with notions of, oh, it was great timing. I got so lucky.

Do you know what? I knew nothing about it. So I had to put 150% into that exam. And then, you know, and they overcompensate.

And so this leads to burnout, as you quite rightly point out, Shazi. So what is the cost of all this, Munita? What do you think actually happens as a result of this phenomenon striking people? Yeah, so negative self-talk is propelled into the stratosphere. We have an internal conflict.

We want others to see us as part of the same group that they're in. We can't just correlate that we might actually be that person. But actually, the truth is the inner critic that we have starts taking on a vicious cycle of telling us, no, no, no, no, no, you don't belong.

No, no, no, no, no, your skill mix isn't good enough, and so forth. There are some theories which are interesting, I think, to try and explain why imposter phenomenon happens. And some of them revolve around the family dynamics during early childhood.

They're interesting because they're contradictory in themselves. You know, parental expectations, mixed messaging, both over-criticism and over-protectionism have been implicated. So, you know, yeah, I mean, I can see that.

For example, you know, growing up, if you're constantly hearing messages, both verbal and nonverbal at home, you know, that you're falling short academically, professionally, you're always going to feel inadequate, you know. Now, if we dive a little bit into the neuroscience, imposter phenomenon isn't just psychological. It is neurobiological, and it involves lots of brain areas and transmitters working together to create these negative feelings, negative self-talk, and this burgeoning of the inner critic.

Now, Em, this is your geek territory, so I'm going to let you take over for this bit. OK, I am actually not going to geek out on this one. What I'm going to do is I am going to try and marry the neuroscience with the symptoms that you get with imposter feelings, because everybody knows kind of the origins of it.

The headline, if I had to give you the 10 o'clock news, is I want everyone to remember that when imposter phenomenon becomes chronic, the brain systems that normally protect us from a threat, remember that fight, flight, freeze mode, actually have gone rogue and have slightly become autopilot. So, if I focus on one of the biggest symptoms of imposter syndrome first, it's fear. It's the old amygdala root again.

The amygdala gets heightened sensitivity. It starts firing off. And this time, the central command, the higher brain, doesn't stop it.

So, it goes unabated at 150 miles an hour, regarding every single thing as a threat. Your cortisol goes up, and we've heard all of this before. So, and if I focus on the self-doubt bit, this I find very interesting.

So, we have a reward part of our brain, a reward pathway. So, if we do something with some success, or we do something that gives us an influence around some pleasure, we would release certain hormones, dopamine, oxytocin, and we feel good. You know, if we go to the gym, we release endorphins.

And this forms part of the slightly addictive thing about exercise and so forth. But with imposter phenomenon, even though you encounter success, you recognize it. The sensitivity of the brain is not the same.

You have a slightly dampened response. You don't feel as good about yourself. In fact, you don't feel anything.

You don't feel that you have made a contribution. You don't feel you fit into that group. And so, either the amount of neurotransmitters is released is a little bit less, or the brain is not so sensitive in imposter phenomenon.

All of that gives you a vicious cycle. You're getting self-doubt. You're successful.

You're overworking. You don't believe yourself. The hormones don't make you believe yourself.

And it carries on and on and on. However, I love neuroscience. I'm a bit of a geek, as you all have recognized.

And I would only say one thing to my listeners, that the neuroscience provides a silver lining, okay? Because of the neuroscience, we know that this process is not perpetual and cannot be reversed. It can be reversed. It can be altered through techniques, which we'll talk about at the end of the podcast.

And the brain's activity is plastic. It isn't rigid and hardwired. So, that's why I like the neuroscience, because it gives me an index and an idea as a coach as to how I can help my clients.

Okay, Shazi? Geeked out now? Yeah? I'm totally geeked out. And you know, I love this part as well, listening to the science behind this. Another interesting part about all this is that it shows up differently in men and women, you know? So, for many women, imposter phenomenon is rooted in conflicting societal expectations.

Society mantra is, be confident, but not arrogant. If you have an opinion, you are overbearing or scary. Be ambitious, but likable.

Be competent, but never intimidating. I don't know if any of you have watched Barbie, but the speech by America Ferrera captures this beautifully. If you haven't watched it, I suggest you do.

It's available on YouTube, and we'll share it on our Instagram page soon. This kind of double, you know, back and forth of, must be this, but also this. Double bind, essentially.

It creates a pressure cooker for self-doubt. In someone like, you know, as well established as Emma Watson once said, it's almost like the better I do, the more my inadequacy increases. Yeah, it's all over.

It's, you know, it's quite prevalent everywhere. So, what do we know about the studies looking at imposter phenomenon? Because there are so many. I'm going to just give you a little flavor of it right now.

But there's a paradox, because logic would tell you that the higher up in your workplace, the more confident you get at home, the more confident you are in your societal roles, means that your imposter phenomenon should come down. No, actually, there's a paradox. The more successful you become, the more big of a character you become in your societal roles, the worse the imposter phenomenon becomes.

Hewlett-Packard did a study in men to say, look, men will apply for a job, as I've said before, when they've only got 60% of the desired qualifications, whereas women will work over prepare, overthink, overmanage themselves, tire themselves out, and still not apply for the job, even when they've got 100% of the qualifications. So, and as for women of color, LGBTQ plus individuals, or those in male-dominated fields, well, the imposter feelings are amplified by under-representation and stereotype threat. So, Viola Davis, one of my favorite actors, well said, I wake up and feel like I don't belong, like I'm waiting for someone to tap me on the shoulder and say, hello, you're not supposed to be here.

And she is so right. She captures it beautifully. And what about men, Shazia? Yeah, I love Viola Davis, by the way.

She's such a strong woman. Yeah, and for men, it is masked differently due to social norms around masculinity. Instead of expressing self-doubt, for example, men may overwork and seek validation through achievement, you know, work all hours of the day, late evenings, things like that, weekends, they struggle silently, you know, avoid asking for help or showing vulnerability, because that is perceived as a sign of weakness.

Someone like Tom Hanks, you know, said not too long ago, actually, that there comes a point where you think, how did I get here? When are they going to discover that, in fact, I'm a fraud and take everything away from me? So, men are always conditioned, you know, conditioned to appear confident and in control, and many internalize their struggles, and that leads to burnout. And that impacts not only their professional life, but, you know, it will spill over into family life, in their relationships. So, the effect, you know, it has a ripple effect on the wider environment that you live within.

Yeah. So, you know, public figures, Howard Schultz from Starbucks, the CEO, he said, look, very few people get to become a CEO. And when they get there, they know exactly what they're doing, and they're qualified to be a CEO.

Everybody sits in that chair, and they kind of just, oh, wow, I'm here now. Now what? And so, you know, impostor phenomenon doesn't just show up in work, because we focus a little bit on that, but it impacts other things that you've been alluding to. So, you know, let's talk about parenting, you know.

I tell you, we know about it. We know about playground talk, playground walk, outfits, academic pushing, and so forth. You know, I had my daughter at a school.

I remember going for a walk with a very dear friend of mine, who shall remain nameless, but she knows who she is. And, you know, she was telling me she had this planned for her daughter, that planned, and she wasn't boastful. She's not a boastful character.

But I walked on that walk and thought, my God, I am a really rubbish parent. I am not planning any of this. I really pulled my socks up, and I learned from that woman.

I would say, you can turn around your impostor phenomenon and use it to your advantage. You can learn from it. You can do.

I'm not asking you to keep up with the Joneses. I'm just saying, if it's logical and it makes sense, why not do it? So, I would say thank you to that person for helping me, because she helped me raise my daughter to the level I have. And, you know, there are lots of these things.

There's an idea that impostor phenomena, it's a lot of people faking it before they're making it. Now, Martha Beck, I won't go into it. It's quite a long thing.

What I might do on an Instagram thing, Martha Beck's reference about blue Smurfs is really quite entertaining from one of her books. So, if you want to hear it, type in Martha Beck's blue Smurf story into YouTube. I'm sure you'll have a bit of a giggle.

Comparing yourself to other people, you know, Shazi, we've all done it. Yeah, I mean, I have compared myself. I remember during school holidays, you know, Munita, I would see parents taking their kids here and there and to the farm and to the playground and swimming.

And sometimes I would have nothing planned and I would be thinking to myself, oh my God, I'm such a bad mother. These kids are just sitting around, I don't know, playing in the backyard, not doing all these exciting things. And I'm just not a great mom.

But they're okay, thankfully. Yeah, we've done it. They're at the other end now.

We are okay, Jack. Yeah, we have done it. Exactly.

Doesn't this show up in academic or learning environments as well? It definitely does, yeah. I mean, you know, 60% of PhD students feel this way. And it may be because a lot of people start PhDs and MDs and they never finish them.

So there's this phenomenon, are you a starter? Are you a starter finisher? So, you know, there's some validation in that as well. And I get that. University professors you've alluded to, American College University professors, male, seem to have a preponderance of imposter phenomenon feelings.

So, you know, but also I want to talk about, you know me, the generation game. Generally speaking, imposter phenomenon is greatest in Gen Z. The lowest prevalence is in the baby boomers and then there's a bit of a mishmash between. But there's sort of an inverse relationship between age and imposter phenomenon.

The younger you are, the more likely you are to actually have those feelings. Isn't it really a surprise? I don't know, Shazi. You know, Gen Z have experienced shifting sands for all aspects of life.

You know, pandemic, education, social media with perfectly curated posts, you know. Yeah, they've been through a lot, they have. They've been through a lot.

I mean, look at the job situation. Traditional jobs have been superseded by constant need for upskilling in an increasingly digital workplace. This is compounded by the constant threat of job redundancies, the emergence of artificial intelligence.

Yeah, we see this even in relationships with all the dating apps. Is it a surprise that imposter phenomenon is on the rise with all these apps when a swipe left means rejection in response to this one-dimensional profile picture, you know, and the comparison that everybody's making with each other. Even in the therapy world, you know, I sometimes feel threatened because I have clients now who are using ChatGPT and Claude in between sessions.

In fact, I had one client stop therapy sessions because she felt that ChatGPT gave her better responses. So, you know, at one point I thought, oh my God, what am I doing? I'm going, it's not a question of being replaced, but am I good enough to compete with these AI bots? Yeah, I mean, none of us are safe, you know, depending on, you know, the Gen Z work from, the Gen Z have gone into the workplace. There is a massive work from home culture.

That means they don't see that many people. They don't get to meet and socialize, important social interaction. That brilliant apprenticeship thing that you get from your boss when you're hanging out the office and you're seeing them do all these shortcuts, that isn't happening.

They can't imagine, therefore, how they could be the boss. Imposter feelings creeping, cynicism and apathy creeping. And, you know, you can see where they're at.

So, you know, I'm really sympathetic to that generation for a lot of reasons. And this one is nothing short of that. So what about cultures and geography, Shazi? Yep, that has a part to play as well, 100%.

You know, we've been talking about the Western individualistic culture that we live in, every man for himself. And that's how we function. Absolutely.

Not all cultures are like that, though. The Japanese are interesting. The Japanese are very much a collectivist culture.

They like to do things for togetherness and for the greater good. And you know what? I think for them to stand out from the crowd is a little bit shameful, a little bit guilt ridden as a result of it. And personal success should never come at the expense of the community.

So that minimizes feelings of imposter phenomenon because you never rise above the parapet visibly or publicly enough to be able to do that. And you can contrast that with immigrant families, OK? So when people migrate, the sacrifices they've made, their children are pushed so that they're successful. And that success is sort of like, if you like, a repayment or a grace for all the sacrifice that they've been under.

And I recognize that, I'm sure. You know, do you? Yeah, we can both relate to that country, being immigrants. In Asian cultures, for example, humility is emphasized.

You know, people downplay their accomplishments and internalize these feelings of inadequacy or become frustrated that then they don't get recognition for their achievements. In many cultures, talking about their success feels like bragging. And then that silence can feed the inner critic.

So it's all very intertwined and connected with so many different aspects of life. Yeah, and it's amazing, isn't it, how different it is in our culture compared to the Eastern culture, for example, as a generalization, I suppose. Yeah, definitely.

So, hey, wow, we have galloped through all the things we think are interesting about imposter phenomenon. So now let's change our perspective a little bit and look at tools to navigate and help you overcome these feelings. Number one, name it.

Give your imposter voice a persona. Externalizing the voice helps you separate it from your true self. Oh, that's just negative Nelly talking again.

Treat the voice in your head as a very dear friend. Listen graciously, acknowledge what it's saying, but don't necessarily follow their suggestions. Yep. 

Number two, ask yourself, what actual evidence do I have that I'm a fraud? Keep a brag file, like an email folder, a notebook or a digital document where you save compliments, successful projects, milestones. Sometimes you can even keep like a brag jar. And each time you do something nice or you achieve something, you put a little note in that jar, which you can access at times you're feeling this imposter phenomenon.

Number three, talk about it. Vulnerability reduces shame. Vulnerability, we've talked about this, that means externalizing, voicing your concerns is never a sign of weakness.

And in fact, you'll probably find that when you articulate it, people around you will also say, yeah, I feel like that too. Yeah, I'm hearing you, you know, and empathize with you. For sure. 

Number four, mentorship and community. Having someone further along the path who says, I've been there too, I get it, can be a powerful reminder that, you know, that doubt doesn't equal incapability, basically. Yeah, 100%. 

Number five, cognitive reframing. Change your internal script. Instead of I'm not qualified, say to yourself, you know what, I'm doing okay.

I'm starting, I'm progressing, I'm taking baby steps, I'm heading towards this goal, and that's okay. Yeah. Number seven, journaling.

I love, sorry, this is number six, journaling. Writing down the fear of being a fraud helps you to inspect it. Ask yourself, is this based on fact? Is this based on assumption? Most of the time, some of the things we fear are based on assumptions rather than fact.

So, when you write it down, it, when you're looking at it, it feels more manageable and you can analyze it more critically. Yeah, absolutely. Number seven, celebrate progress.

I mean, how often do we actually celebrate progress? We don't, we just talk about negative things. So, let's not aim for perfection. Shift your goal from being flawless to making progress.

Embrace that concept that we talk about of being good enough. Number eight, mindfulness and self-compassion. Practicing present moment awareness helps reduce the spiraling thoughts of negativity.

Self-compassion tools, really important. Kristen Neff is a professor of education, educational psychology at the University of Texas in Austin, and she has written several books on self-compassion, and I suggest you check them out because they're really easy tools and it's a lovely read, honestly. Number nine, affirmations grounded in truth.

Create reminders like I've totally got this. A favorite of mine is mirror talk. First thing in the morning, when you get up, you go to brush your teeth, look in the mirror, point your finger at yourself and say, you know what? I'm proud of myself.

I'm making progress. I've started, so I'll finish. Mirror talk is a big thing for me.

I'm going to try it. Yeah, yeah, you definitely try. I love it.

And I tell the other one, the other mirror talk thing is I'll tell my clients to high-five themselves and tell themselves in the mirror, you are awesome. And that always is a feel-good factor. So, most importantly, feeling like an imposter doesn't mean you are one.

Eckhart Tolle, philosopher, will tell you, you are not your mind. Actually, the fact that you're having these imposter feelings means you're growing. You're being curious about yourself and curiosity shifts the dial from rumination to creativity and exploration of options.

Yeah, imposter phenomenon whispers, you don't belong here. But the truth is that if you didn't belong, you wouldn't even be in the room. Your self-doubt is not a weakness.

It's a sign that you care. It's a sign that you're pushing forward. And with that, we're going to sign off from the two biggest imposters you have ever met.

Yeah, who do you think we are? I'm going to start calling you Oprah now. Oh, thank you very much. All the best and enjoy listening.

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