Let me describe a feeling you might know well.
You have achieved something.
You have been given an opportunity,
You have been recognized for your work or your expertise,
And instead of feeling proud or pleased,
You feel some kind of dread.
A nagging sense that you don't quite deserve to be here.
That the people who believed in you are operating on incomplete information about you.
And if they really knew,
If they could see the uncertainty,
The gaps,
The moments of confusion that you hide so carefully,
They would realize their mistake.
And that,
My friends,
Is imposter syndrome.
And it's one of the most widespread and least talked about experiences among high achieving people especially.
When we look at research,
We see that a significant majority of people across all professions,
All levels of success.
Experience it at some point at least.
Artists,
Executives,
Academics.
Entrepreneurs,
Therapists.
T-shirts people with extraordinary track records who still feel deep down.
Like they are about to be called out.
And here is what makes imposter syndrome so very persistent.
It has a clever defense against evidence.
Most feelings respond to evidence,
Right?
You feel afraid and then something reassuring happens and you don't feel as afraid or you don't feel afraid at all.
But imposter syndrome dismisses evidence doesn't look at it you receive praise and it tells you the person is just being polite you succeed and it tells you you just got lucky it was a fluke You reach a level of achievement and the bar simply moves.
The goal post shifts.
And you are back to feeling like home.
You don't quite belong.
It's not a logic problem.
You cannot think your way out of it.
It lives deeper than logic.
Imposter syndrome also tends to be loudest in the moments right before growth.
Right before the new level.
Or the bigger stage.
The bigger risk.
The bigger expression.
Of who you actually are.
Which means,
And I find this both frustrating and oddly reassuring,
Its presence is often a signal that something real is happening.
The fear of being found out tends to visit the people who are genuinely showing up.
Who are genuinely trying,
Who are putting something real into the world.
Who are not trying at all.
Rarely feel like imposters.
As always,
I have a practice for it and I call it the evidence jar.
So I would like you to close your eyes and take one deep breath.
And now think of three things,
Three undeniable specific things.
That you know to be true about your capability,
Your capacity,
Your contribution.
Not what people have said about you.
What you know from your own experience to be real.
Maybe it's a problem you solved that nobody else could see a way through.
A moment.
You showed up for someone when it mattered.
A skill that took genuine effort and time to develop.
Or a thing you created that did not exist before you made it.
So find three of those.
And place them one by one into an imaginary jar in your mind.
I will stay quiet,
But if the time is not enough for you to listen,
Please pause the video and come back when you're ready.
Now,
In your imagination,
Hold the jar in your hands and feel its weight.
These things are real.
They are evidence.
And they belong to you,
Not to luck,
Not to the goodwill of others who were somehow fooled.
And now gently open your eyes.
The next time imposter syndrome arrives,
And it will,
Open the jar.
Remember what's in it.
You didn't end up here by accident.
You arrived by being.
In some real and specific way exactly what this moment required.
And you?
Belong here.
Thank you for listening.
