Can You Stop Feeling Like an Imposter? (Mostly)
Author and psychologist Jill Stoddard tells us how
Jill A. Stoddard is a clinical psychologist and the founder and director of the Center for Stress and Anxiety Management in San Diego, CA. Her new book is Imposter No More: Overcome Self-Doubt and Imposterism to Cultivate a Successful Career.
If you read only one self-help or psychology book in the foreseeable future, let this be the one. You’ll find yourself nodding all the way through—easily recognizing your own habits as a self-doubter and/or self-diagnosed imposter. Jill offers realistic ways to shift our thinking and get out of the doom loops—at least to some extent, because life ain’t perfect.
Some of the views expressed in this interview reflect Jill’s opinions based on anecdotal evidence. Her book, however, is grounded in research and professional clinical practices. All pull quotes are taken directly from the book.
This conversation has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
“If you look to the places where imposter syndrome shows up most for you, what you’ll find in that very same spot is what matters to you.”
You stress the importance of becoming psychologically flexible, which you define as “our ability to show up to each present moment fully—aware of and open to all our thoughts, emotions, physical sensations, and urges—and to make conscious, deliberate decisions to do what deeply matters to us.”
Is this easier for older adults (middle-aged and beyond) or younger adults?
Research suggests that younger people are more psychologically flexible. But I wonder if it’s a U-shaped parabola. We’re good at this when we’re younger, then our ability diminishes, and then it comes back. Kids do this better, more naturally, when they’re young. We tend to get worse at it as we age.
Early on, we’re not expected to know as much, so maybe we don’t struggle with imposterism as much. But maybe as we get accomplished, we do more social comparison.
But there’s a gender piece. I’ve noticed that when women get to be around 50, around menopause, they reemerge into the world as powerful—giving zero fucks for the first time in their lives. I don’t see that in the men in my life. They’re getting more rigid, more stuck in their ways, with age.
“The more something matters, the more you are apt to worry about being good at it.”
Let’s touch on how our capitalist, materialist, Western culture creates a warm petri dish for imposterism.
I think this is cultural, but we’re also innately wired. In populations studied across the world, the inner critic appears to be pretty universal. So I think it’s evolutionary. Early humans who hunted, gathered, and traveled together had a survival advantage. If you were kicked out of the group, you died. So you ask yourself, Do I have value? Do I measure up? Am I seen as less than? If so, they may kick me out.
Today, we know that the strongest predictor of overall health and wellbeing is the presence of healthy relationships in our life. Loneliness is more deadly than smoking.
I think there is this innate, very normal tendency for us to be engaging in social comparisons, having imposter thoughts and feelings, to worry about the future. I think all of that has been since the dawn of humanity. And the culture in which we live now has created this petri dish—where this is on steroids. Social media is a modern-day technological construct adding fuel to that fire.
“[T]he imposter voice can arise for anyone in any context where they feel like an outsider.”
You write that around 30 percent of people don’t suffer from imposterism. And they’re mostly men. What’s going on there?
These are people who exhibit the Dunning-Kruger effect: a failure in self-awareness where people with limited competence wrongly overestimate their knowledge, skills, or abilities in a given area. They have narcissistic traits.
[Another predictor among those lacking imposter syndrome] is people who have not experienced marginalization—white heterosexual men of privilege. The culture tells them they belong at every single table. They don’t have to work that hard to succeed, in most cases. They’re the ones who haven’t experienced this doubt.
There are cis, straight white men who grew up poor or with abusive parents [for example], who do cultivate self-doubt [because they have experienced being marginalized]. It’s not that if you check the majority boxes you can’t have imposterism, but the people who haven’t experienced marginalization are the ones who haven’t experienced this doubt.
“We don’t escape being human without a generous helping of pain. But sometimes we get to choose how much we suffer. Being present with our experiences while letting go of judgment reduces suffering and offers freedom.”
Some people feel deeply that they deserve the outcomes they seek—whatever those are. They think in terms of I should… Is this attitude a cover-up for imposterism and psychological inflexibility?
This is entitlement and entitlement is part of narcissism. There are hypotheses out there that narcissists who come across as beyond arrogant are the most insecure. With self-doubt and imposterism—there’s a level of humility there. Maybe that results in avoiding opportunity or over-achieving to outrun [feeling like an imposter]. But I do think the entitled person’s complete lack of humility is more problematic.
Is there a meaningful distinction between self-doubt and imposterism (as you call it), or is this just semantics?
I think that imposter thoughts and feelings are just a specific type of self-doubt. Self-doubt is the larger umbrella. You can have doubt about whether you’re smart enough to graduate from college. But imposter syndrome is where you think, I’m going to be found out; they’ll find out I’m not smart enough when I get bad grades.
I have doubts about my ability to cook because I’m not a very good cook, but I don’t worry about being exposed as a fraud. This is self-doubt without being imposter syndrome. Maybe if I did the work to learn how to be a good cook, and then felt I wasn’t as good as other people, then imposterism would kick in.
I think doubt has to be a part of our being. About how you make decisions. I would make a ton of bad decisions if I didn't second guess my worst tendencies. Having said that, it can also control not making a good one.
I'll have to look for that book.