Imposter Syndrome Blog
Blog posts and information on Imposter Syndrome and related topics including worry and self-doubt, perfectionism, procrastination, and self-criticism.
Awareness & Imposter Syndrome When people come to therapy for imposter feelings, they often want to jump straight to the solution:“How do I stop feeling this way?”“How can I finally feel confident?” It’s understandable as feeling like a fraud is exhausting. But the truth is, we can’t change what we don’t yet understand.That’s why the […]
4 Step Framework for Working with Imposter Syndrome Introduction Imposter feelings can be surprisingly persuasive, even when you’re doing well, earning respect, delivering results, being told you’re capable, there’s a part of you that quietly doubts you, “They’ve got the wrong person.” You might find yourself over-preparing, avoiding visibility, or pushing harder than ever to […]
The Five Imposter Types Summary Over the past few weeks, I’ve shared a series of posts exploring five common imposter patterns: the Perfectionist, Expert, Soloist, Natural Genius, and Superhuman, as identified by the work of Dr Valerie Young. This final post brings everything together. It’s not another “type” or framework to memorise, it’s a chance to step […]
The Superhuman Imposter In the fifth post focusing on the five types of Imposter Syndrome as identified by Dr Valerie Young, we look at the fifth type which is less about perfectionism, knowledge, or doing things alone, and instead is about doing everything, and still feeling like it’s not enough. This is the Superhuman Imposter: the […]
The Natural Genius Imposter In the fourth post in this series looking at the different types of Imposter Syndrome as identified by Dr Valerie Young we will be looking at the Natural Genius, the fear isn’t about being wrong, it’s about struggling at all. This type believes that competence should come easily. And when it […]
The Soloist Imposter This is the third post in the series looking at the one of the five patterns of Imposter Syndrome identified by Dr. Valerie Young. In the previous two posts we looked at the Perfectionist Imposter, and then the Expert Imposter. For others, imposter syndrome isn’t about being perfect or knowing everything, it’s […]
Imposter syndrome doesn’t show up in the same way for everyone. For some it shows up through perfectionism and in my previous blogpost I wrote about the Perfectionist Imposter (click here to read). For others it can show up as expertise and the belief that you should always know more, have all the answers, and […]
In an earlier blog post I wrote about the 5 different types of imposter syndrome as defined by Dr. Valerie Young. Click here to read. In this post I write about one of those types in more detail – The Perfectionist Imposter. The Perfectionist Imposter Imposter syndrome shows up in different ways for different people. […]
When self-doubt or anxiety hits, it can feel like being lost in a storm.The skies are dark, the winds are loud, and it’s hard to see clearly. In earlier blogs we’ve explored how to steady yourself (Dropping Anchor), why fighting feelings makes them worse (Dropping the Struggle), and how emotions are like the weather, constantly […]
We all know what it’s like to wake up to a grey, rainy morning. You may not like it when you wake up to these conditions but you also recognise there is not much you can do about the weather as you don’t control it, you only control how you what you do when it […]