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Susan Albert of the Cleveland clinic defines imposter syndrome as the feeling that everyone else knows exactly what they’re doing, but you feel lost.
Whether you are a student, recent graduate or experienced professional, imposter syndrome can affect your perception of yourself and your abilities. Â
Imposter syndrome may not show itself in every area of your life. It may only be among friends, it may only be at school, or maybe only at work.
In this episode, Michel shares three specific traits that are indicators of imposter syndrome. With this knowledge, you can be more mindful of where you are making fertile ground for the imposter syndrome to grow and infest other areas of your life.
Please go to UpSkillCommunity.com to review show notes and join a community of leaders investing in better understanding themselves so they can address the imposter syndrome in their work and lives.
In episode 41. I shared a story of Paul, a high achieving professional with top-notch presentation skills. Who’s imposter syndrome, made Paul so anxious about presentations. So uncomfortable about sharing strategies. And last because he actually did not believe the overwhelmingly positive feedback he consistently received on his presentations. Susan Albert of Cleveland clinic. Defines imposter syndrome as the feeling. That everyone else knows exactly what they’re doing. But you feel lost. You feel unsure? You feel on deserving? In this episode. I take a look at what the imposture syndrome actually looks like, actually sounds like in our daily lives.
Michel Shah:Â
Welcome to UpSkill Talks brought to you by McGraw Hill. I’m your host, Michel Shah lead UpSkiller at UpSkill Community. UpSkill Talks is a podcast for leaders, leaders who are actively seeking innovative and creative ways to interact lead themselves and others. In every episode, through real life stories and enlightening conversations, we will explore the challenge. And opportunities real leaders face in today’s ever-changing workplace. We will present you with real strategies for you to leverage your soft skills and produce transformative results. Thank you for joining me on this journey. Let us begin.
You are likely to experience imposter syndrome in some aspect of your life. You may not even recognize it. You may have the feeling. And did not really know what imposter syndrome is, what it means, how it shows up, how it affects you. And others, you care about. Or others you work with. I’m going to cover some characteristics of imposter syndrome, helping us. To go through these and think about how they impact us, if at all. But the ones that impact us to identify how they impact us and to try to walk it back. As much as possible if you’re a high achiever, one of the three characteristics that I’m about to share in this episode may very likely impact you. So let’s dive in. And take a look and figure out how we can eradicate these three characteristics of the imposture from our lives It may look like over preparation. Taking far more time to prepare. For a meeting. Uh, presentation. And event. Justin conversation. An interview. And evaluation, whatever that event is, it may mean taking way too much time to prepare for it. And you know, that you are taking an own reasonable amount of time to prepare. So there is proper preparation. There is. Under preparation and there is certainly over preparation. And so that scale is one that you want to be mindful off when you are thinking about imposter syndrome. Am I preparing, given it just the amount of preparation required. Is this under preparation or is this over preparation? Under preparation is for a different podcast. The appropriate preparation is what we want to target over preparation is where we’re sitting with this imposter syndrome. So that’s one thing that imposter syndrome may look like in your life. Over preparation. Check on yourself. It doesn’t show up in every aspect of your life. Pause and reflect on the areas of your life, where you find yourself tending to over preparation. That may be a clue to an area where the imposter syndrome may be showing up. Check carefully because what we want to make sure. Is that we’re not providing fertile ground for this imposture to take hold in our lives. We want to begin by disrupting where it is, so it doesn’t get comfortable and start to spread in our lives. So that’s over preparation. Another area. That you may notice. Imposture syndrome showing up in your life is in overworking. Very similar to over preparation, but this goes to the actual effort that you put into what you’re doing on a daily basis. Overworking for many different reasons, overworking to compensate for how you’re feeling. Overworking to impress others. Overworking to meet expectations, overworking to be noticed. Overworking just to be included. To feel like you belong. Overworking to XL overwork and for whatever reason, The question you have to ask yourself. Why do you feel the need to overwork? So that question, I actually posed to myself a while ago, because this is an area that I am working on myself. So there’s working effectively. There is. Offering less than is required to work effectively, but there are certainly offering far more than is required to meet the standards set for you or those that you’ve set for yourself. And so this overworking is something that we have to pause, take a look at how you’re working. Take a look at what’s required. Look at this scale from very little effort to meet the standards, to the appropriate effort, to meet the standards to far too much effort to meet the standards. Think about that and think about the economics concept of diminishing marginal utility. That at a certain point, you put in more effort and it actually does not yield the related outcomes that you should ordinarily derive from that effort, because you’ve hit the point at which. You put in. The maximum amount of effort that makes sense for a particular project or job or anything at all that you’re doing. So that’s something to, to pause and think about. To what extent are you overworking? Why do you feel the need to do this? This is where we can identify the imposter seeping in. Then we can modify our work to be effective without overdoing it without going beyond the point where it’s diminishing returns for our work. We can catch the imposture in that place and we can disrupt that imposture so that it does not continue to bleed all of our energy and effort One thing we need to think about is the relationship between the outcomes, the rewards, the results, and the amount of effort we put into our work. So think about. When you’re putting in the appropriate amount of effort. What do you get? And the, when you double that or putting way more than that, how much more do you get? Do you get double the results, triple the results? At what point does the effort not produce any additional results for you? That is when you realize that you’re now in the zone where the imposter has showed up and he’s using up your energy and not giving you any rewards for that extra use. And that will actually help the imposter to build on itself. Because you’re going to be putting in more work and not getting more benefit and you’ll begin to feel worse about yourself. So that’s overworking is another area. That we need to pay attention to when we are monitoring the imposter syndrome. The third one is this group. Is perfectionism. Over preparation, overworking and perfectionism are all related to each other, but they show up in different ways. And so it’s important for us to take a look at all three individually. Perfectionism. Is a big one. It affects so many of us. I am at the front of the line when they were given out perfectionism. In fact, I struggled with even publishing the podcast because it needed a lot more editing than I was able to give it. And so it’s so important that we recognize that we can produce value without being perfect. That’s a hard lesson to pause and to realize what are we good at? Why are we doing this? Who will benefit from what we’re doing and do they need it to be perfect? Does it lose its value completely. If it’s not perfect. Could it be imperfect and still produce value. And so that we do not. Spend more and more and more time. On something that’s good enough. In business, we talk about the MVP, the minimum. Viable product. I think perfectionist can. Look at this concept as something to help us to gauge. When we’ve hit the minimum viable product, perhaps that’s the time we need to have someone else look at it. Because perhaps what’s the minimum viable product for us is good to go for most other people. So people who suffer with perfectionism. Meet others around them who can help them to recognize when the work is good enough to go. So we don’t burn out ourselves. Burn out and overwork. To get it just marginally better. With 10 times the effort. This is the challenge for people who suffer with perfectionism. Did you realize that perfectionism. Was a symptom off the imposter syndrome. I certainly didn’t know that until I started researching imposter syndrome a few years ago. And so this is what I mean when I say we may very well suffer with the imposter syndrome, but don’t understand it very deeply. So we don’t realize the areas that it’s showing up in our lives. And so I want you to take a look at the over preparation, overworking and perfectionism. It may not show up at work. Maybe it’s when you’re hosting that party at home, maybe it’s with your children, that it shows up. Think about where in your life is this showing up? Because if it’s showing up and we’re giving it fertile ground, it will seep into other areas of our lives. So let’s pause and look at these three areas. And think about the strategies that we can use to reduce the effort to where it needs to be, to produce the results that we need to produce and provide no more effort, no more energy, no more stress than is required to get the job done. These three characteristics over preparation, overworking and perfectionism. Our classic for those who suffer with imposter syndrome. Remember imposter syndrome, doesn’t show up everywhere you are, but wherever it shows up is an area that you want to be able to identify and get clear on and begin to remove the fertile ground where this imposture has the ability to grow. In the next episode, I will continue with other ways that the imposter syndrome shows up so that together we can work at removing. The imposture from our lives one characteristic at a time
Michel Shah:Â
Thank you for listening to this episode of UpSkill Talks brought to you by McGraw Hill. We bring you new episodes every Monday. Please take a moment to subscribe, leave a five star rating and a written review at apple podcast. Or follow us on. By Google podcast or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts, don’t forget to share UpSkill talks with other leaders like yourself. So they too may gain the skills and insights to produce amazing results. Please go to UpSkillCommunity.com to review show notes and learn how you can join a community of leaders from across the globe. Collaborating to lead in a more meaningful and impactful way. I’m your host, Michel Shah. And again, thank you for joining me on this episode of UpSkill Talks.
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