Imposter syndrome is an old friend of mine. From as early as I can remember, I have had a healthy ego (I have a Leo moon, after all) and since the teenage hormones kicked in, it was a healthy ego paired with the crippling anxiety of “am I good enough?” to provide eternal mental dissonance.

Imposter syndrome though an old friend it may be, what a horrible companion it has been! It wasn’t until college, and the rise of TikTok to be entirely frank, where I began to hear more about this phenomenon and apply its teachings about reversing its impact to myself.

I hope it goes without saying, but please take advice from the internet at your own risk, a lot of what you see isn’t real and always needs further investigation on your part.

The official definition of imposter syndrome is as follows: “the persistent inability to believe that one’s success is deserved or has been legitimately achieved as a result of one’s own efforts or skills” (Oxford Dictionary).

Does that sound like you?

You might be having the same thought as me.

How can this be the case, when I look at everything I’ve ever done in my life and see the effort and passion I have put into it? Even when I hated it…or maybe especially when I hated it.

When I look around me and there is an abundance of evidence to my success, and yet I still doubt what is right in front of me. Success might I add, that I achieved without a single thought towards artificial intelligence…but that’s a topic for another day.

What causes these types of pressures and why do we put such expectations on ourselves?

Psychology suggests that our personalities might play into this phenomenon, signaling that those with perfectionism (guilty!), neuroticism, and those that struggle with self-efficacy tend to exhibit more experiences of imposter syndrome.

Who’s to honestly say where this all comes from and why it exists at all. High achievers all over the world regardless of culture, or nature, or nurture, are fighting the good fight against themselves. Myself included, trust me…

When I graduated high school, it was at the start of the first Trump administration. We weren’t old enough to vote and knew that as we entered into adulthood, as if it wasn’t without enough uncertainty, we would be navigating a very different world than we originally thought we would.

Over the next 4 years, I earned 3 college degrees. A viciously grueling pace that I do not regret in the slightest, but in order to achieve that I had to sacrifice many common experiences of my early 20’s to do so. Not to mention the 3 jobs I had during that time. In between my bachelors and my masters, the COVID-19 pandemic happened and turned our world upside down. Careers were put on hold, loved ones were lost, connection was only something we thought about in terms of wi-fi strength, and we had no idea when the end of it would come.

It’s been 8 years since I graduated high school, since I walked that stage I vowed to build a life I would be proud of.

It’s been 4 years since I graduated college, and the world has done nothing but change over and over and over to the point that I have often had a hard time keeping up with it, lest of all understanding it. Now surely in adulthood and yet so young, I am still learning who I am while I unlearn who everyone else wanted me to be.

When I was finally done, I was often asked how I did it, how it felt to be over, all the usual things they assume we know at 22. My answer was usually, “I have no idea!” and at the time that was the truth.

I had no idea how I was absentmindedly belittling myself, privately or publicly doubting the success I had clear and undeniable claim over. It took many more years for me to figure out how often I did this.  

Whether it gets in the way of your daily tasks or not, you can usually sense the cold feeling wash over you when it hits, and you think for just a fraction of a second that you don’t deserve what you have.

I’m here to tell you that you are very likely wrong. Though I don’t know you personally so let’s hope that you have enough sense to evaluate yourself realistically.

Whether I’m right or not, it doesn’t matter. The feeling is the same, and if you’ve experienced this at all, I’m sure you’d like to know exactly how to stop experiencing this thing.

I wish I had a clearer answer for you, but like most things in life, it simply depends.

I like to think of imposter syndrome like any other thought that comes through my mind. Neither good nor bad, but just a moment. Like thoughts, the only way to redirect your mind and train it to think differently is to stop the thought entirely.

I might say “no” out loud, a proven way to impact obsessive thoughts related to anxiety, OCD, and other conditions of that nature. A neat little trick given to me by my therapist.

It takes a lot of willpower and a lot more patience with yourself to get used to it. When imposter syndrome tries to take a seat at the table, I make it explain to me why it’s there in the first place and then I remind it of all the reasons why it isn’t welcome.

I show myself my success, which is a huge reason why I whole heartedly believe that we should document our lives, even if it’s for our eyes only.

When I started the A Series of Observations, I had 1 subscriber (my mother). Now I have almost 40. I could torture myself over how low of a number that is, or I could tell myself that’s 40x more people I reach weekly than when I first started. The same with the Instagram account. I get 3 or 4 likes per post, but the tradeoff is that I have so much fun making the things that I post that I don’t care.

Beating imposter syndrome requires a mental retreat, reset, and recovery, which I like to think is the essence of Zoom Out.

A constant, loving reminder to Zoom Out and reframe your thinking.

The point is, show yourself how wrong that imposter inside you is.

You are not the imposter, your conditioning is.