How to Cope With the Anxiety of Imposter Syndrome

Anxiety often tricks us into believing that we are destined to encounter a dangerous situation or circumstance. Imposter syndrome is the incorrect and unhelpful belief that we are incompetent and thus powerless to handle life’s many complicated situations. Put them together and they can create a vicious combination that convinces us of our ineptitude in the face of risk.

Picture it this way: You feel worried about your performance at your job even though you have no solid evidence to support that your job is at risk or that your performance is subpar. You have evidence to the contrary, such as positive reinforcement from supervisors and yearly increases in your salary. This is anxiety: an unsupported worry or dread that permeates a safe situation. The anxiety then brings about a belief that you are not, actually, capable of doing your job, that you are incompetent, and that you are simply fooling everyone by appearing capable. This is imposter syndrome: an untrue self-belief about our competency. This example illustrates how one can feed the other.

Anxiety and imposter syndrome, when working together, can lead us to a generalized sense that we are not only unsafe but also incapable of getting through the perceived unsafe situation. In the example above, you may begin to assume the worst about your job: that you are certain to be fired and that your livelihood is at risk. Though none of it is true, it feels like a certainty; that’s how intense anxiety and imposter syndrome can be. How do we overcome this? In simple terms, if we uproot the anxiety, the imposter syndrome will fall by the wayside. This begins by meeting our anxious thoughts and assumptions with rational and logical counterthoughts. When anxiety tells you “I am going to get fired,” an accurate counterthought is, “I just received positive feedback in my yearly review.” Pull on the thread further and “I am incompetent” is countered by “I am doing well at my job and I know how to do my job.”

Recognizing our competency is no small task. We have a human tendency to minimize our positive attributes and magnify those that we see as negative. This negativity bias can lead us down a path of incorrect beliefs about ourselves. If we do this often enough, it is easy to understand why we begin to see ourselves as incompetent imposters. Think for a moment about the many things—big and small—that you have achieved in your life. Consider your successes as much as you do your setbacks. Reflect on the times you have worried about something only to see it turn out okay. Give yourself due credit for the times you navigated complicated situations.

If we accept that anxiety and imposter syndrome feed one another, we can also recognize that challenging one will work to naturally reduce the other. As our world begins to feel safer, we begin to feel more confident. Likewise, as our trust in ourselves becomes stronger, our world becomes less frightening.