If you spend half of your day wondering if you deserve that new role you just landed or questioning your manager's decision to make you lead that huge project, welcome to the club!
Your subscription to the "Imposter Syndrome" magazine is here! New issues are out every day, reminding you how much "not-enough" you are about everything. Enjoy!
You are not alone.
Jokes aside... I hope it helps you know that most people go through these feelings sometime in their careers. Especially if you want to grow you will find yourself in that situation every 3-5 years.
But because we all are having the same issues doesn't mean yours does not matter, on the contrary! It probably means that these issues are a real problem but also that you can get different advice on how to fight them.
Practical advice
Talk about it.
If you feel like a fraud, talk about it with friends, family or colleagues. Saying out loud what is on your mind helps you debunk it. Most of the time imposter's thoughts are saturated and completely made up. So when they are spoken and materialized is easy to be seen as what they are, imaginery facts to prove something that is not there.
Create a list of successes.
Next time you get the new issue from Imposter Syndrome magazine, read it, talk about it, and then write a letter back to the author explaining why you disserve what you have. In the letter, try to introduce yourself with your full title, and then talk about what you have succeeded in the past. Write down a numbered list of all the things that you have achieved that lead you to the current status you are in. Save that list and stick it somewhere easily accessible. This will make you fight against imaginary thoughts with an arsenal full of concrete facts. The thoughts will not stand a chance here.
Ignore it.
Ignore the thoughts and lose yourself in the tasks. Last but not least, maybe even my favorite one, is to ignore the imposter syndrome issues altogether. Let the current task, whatever is in front of you at the given moment, be your main focus. Let the thoughts of feeling a phony come and go, dissolving them with your actions, proving to yourself that you can do the job and deserve where you are. Beating the thoughts with actions, and realizing that they are just thoughts, weakens them in the long run!
Conclusion
These three actionable pieces of advice are not meant to magically work for everyone, but I strongly recommend trying them out for some time. You also have to experiment and find out what works better for you. In any case, do not let the subscription to these harmful thoughts keep going unchecked, monitor your mind and cut down the costs to the minimum.
Start by sharing your successes in the comments!