High Performance Mindset | Learn from World-Class Leaders, Consultants, Athletes & Coaches about Mindset - 575: How to Address The Imposter Syndrome with Dr. Jessamy Hibberd, Psychologist and Author

Episode Date: October 30, 2023

Dr. Jessamy Hibberd is a Chartered Clinical Psychologist, international bestselling author and speaker. With over 15 years clinical practice she works one-to-one with adults experiencing common mental health problems. She is the author of nine books, including The Imposter Cure, described by the Sunday Times as “the definitive guide to tackling and understanding the psychological mind trap of imposter syndrome.” Her new book How to Overcome Trauma and Find Yourself Again: 7 Steps to Grow from Pain, came out in May.   In this podcast, Jessamy and Cindra talk: What is Imposter Syndrome and how it appears The varying degrees of Imposter Syndrome The negative impact of Imposter Syndrome  How our upbringing impacts feelings of Imposter Syndrome  How to address our feelings of Imposter    HIGH PERFORMANCE MINDSET SHOWNOTES FOR THIS EPISODE: www.cindrakamphoff.com/575 FOLLOW CINDRA ON INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/cindrakamphoff/ FOLLOW CINDRA ON TWITTER: https://twitter.com/mentally_strong Love the show? Rate and review the show for Cindra to mention you on the next episode: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/high-performance-mindset-learn-from-world-class-leaders/id1034819901  

Welcome to the High Performance Mindset Podcast. This is your host, Dr. Sindra Kampoff, and thank you so much for joining me here today for episode 575 about how you can address your imposter syndrome. And I'm so excited that you're here today. It's an incredible interview that I did with Dr. Yesime Hilbert after reading her book called The Imposter Cure This Summer, and you're going to love it. Let me tell you a little bit about Dr. Yesame. She is a chartered clinical psychologist, international best-selling author, and speaker. With over 15 years clinical practice, she works one-on-one with adults experiencing common mental health problems.

She's the author of nine books, including The Imposter Cure, which is the one I read, described by the Sunday Times as the definitive guide to tackling and understanding the psychological mind trap of imposter syndrome. Her new book, How to Overcome Trauma and Find Yourself Again, Seven Steps to Grow from Pain, came out in May. And in this podcast, Yesami and I talk about what is imposter syndrome and how it appears, the varying degrees of imposter syndrome, the negative impact of imposter syndrome, how our upbringing impacts our feelings of imposter, and ultimately how we can address our feelings of imposter. If you'd like to see the full show notes and description,

you can head over to cindracampoff.com slash 575. And wherever you're listening, please leave us a reading and review. This helps us reach more and more people each and every week, and we would be so grateful. All right, without further ado, let's bring on Dr. Yesemi. Welcome to the High Performance Mindset Podcast. Yesemi Hibbert, I'm so excited to have you here today. I, this summer, spent time outside in the beautiful weather here in Minnesota reading The Imposter Cure, and I'm so excited to talk to you about it today. Welcome to the show. Thank you. I'm really looking forward to chatting to you about it too.

It's an incredible book and maybe just to get us started for those people who aren't familiar with your work, just tell us a little bit about what you're passionate about and what you're doing right now. So my day-to-day job is as a clinical psychologist and so I work with people one-to-one experiencing common mental health problems like anxiety depression relationship issues um imposter syndrome and I guess when I was training I came across all these new ideas which I thought were so interesting but also so useful and I'd never heard about them before and it made me think that you know it shouldn't just be because I was training with a clinical psychologist that I knew about them and it got me thinking that I should try and share them more widely and that's

what got me interested in writing books because I wanted to be able to make psychology more accessible and I started off writing a series of books on different topics like sleep and happiness and then I kind of had a bit of a break and I've tended to follow what I'm interested in and my next book after that was on imposter syndrome and then my most recent one has been slightly different again and I looked at how to overcome trauma. So my kind of clinical work has overspilled into just wanting to make psychology more accessible. And that's certainly one of my passions in my work. Love that. And that's why you're on this podcast.

I think I have a similar interest. And, you know, first of all, in my work as a person who works in performance psychology, so I started my career working with athletes and now still do that, but also work with a lot of executives and leaders one-on-one. And one of the things, the trends I'm seeing is just this idea of feeling like an imposter or lacking confidence. And it just is surprising to me. Yes, to me, because it seems like even as people are, have more experience in their career, that they lack confidence. And, you know, something that I think it needs to be nurtured. And you might think that someone who's a CEO and has been a CEO for 20 years might never lack confidence but I just don't see that's

the case um so there we go that's exactly right yeah and and actually that's what got me interested in it because it's something that we think of and talk about and yet we don't kind of believe that people who've got this experience feel these things um and actually what first got me interested in imposter syndrome was in my work I'm well when I used to work I'd see people face to face I'm now online but I worked in Chelsea an area of London that is you know the people that I saw were some really amazing people outwardly they seemed incredibly successful just like you're describing of the people that I saw were some really amazing people outwardly they seemed incredibly successful just like you're describing of the people that you work with and yet they came to me and they'd say you know I just don't feel that good about myself and they'd you know talk about how once

this project was out the way or once they were promoted or once something else had fallen into place then they'd then they'd know they were doing well and yet I noticed as the project came and when or they got the promotion or they were doing really well and the feelings they had still didn't change and they had this underlying sense that they were just waiting to be found out and that other people saw things in them that they just didn't believe they had themselves. Yeah absolutely and so is that why you started studying imposter syndrome and why you wrote the book? Yeah, it got me really fascinated in understanding why it doesn't go away despite all this outward success. And as you, you know, identified, actually, imposter syndrome is most likely to affect highly competent, high achieving people. And it made me really want to kind of understand how to manage that and challenge it and work with

it and that's what got me interested in writing a book about imposter syndrome. So let's define it for those people who aren't sure or maybe have heard it but are not sure exactly what we're talking about and then tell us how does imposter syndrome typically appear in your work? Yeah, so it was first defined back in the 70s by two clinical psychologists, Dr. Clance and Dr. Emmes, and they defined it as a phenomenon in which people believe that they're not worthy of success and had a persistent belief in their lack of skills, ability or competence, despite all this evidence to the contrary. But the way that I came to think about it was as a faulty belief. You know, whenever you're doing something difficult or that pushes you outside of your comfort zone, it's really

natural to experience fear. And that discomfort is just really kind of responding to what's going on and questioning yourself, you know, can I do this? And caring about what's going on and questioning yourself you know can I do this and caring about your what you're doing and wanting to do well but just not being sure whether you're capable of it and I think the big thing for imposters is that they misinterpret that feeling of discomfort and they believe that if they were confident or ready for the challenge then they wouldn't be feeling like this, instead of recognizing that that's something we all experience, even confident people, and that that's really part of being human. I completely agree with that. And I think about the people that I was just referring to that lack confidence or think that they should have it all figured out. And it's usually the times where they're pushing towards a big goal or, you know, they're in a highly, a position where a lot of people

criticize them like a professional athlete or a leader of a company. And so completely what you're saying is that they misinterpret the feeling. It's a natural tendency to question yourself. Exactly. Yeah. And particularly at those times. Particularly at those times. I thought what was really interesting about your book is the varying degrees of imposter syndrome that you talked about. Tell us a little bit about that and how we might identify with one

of those ways. I think the funny thing about imposter syndrome is that it can appear at certain times in your life, or it can appear just in specific areas. So if I think about it for myself, you know, working as a clinical psychologist, I'm so used to doing that. And I love that work. And I've been so trained in it that that's not an area it would come up for me in the past whereas when I started to do talks I suddenly had this sense of they think I know what I'm talking about and a different you know that's where the discomfort would come up as I felt more scrutinized in those situations and so for me it was doing public speaking but I guess for some people it can be really pervasive and the research shows that you can experience at work in your relationships

you know in your confidence as a parent and so it can be this really pervasive feeling and actually what's striking about it is that it can be really crippling and it can really get in the way of doing things and I think it comes in many guises, not just feeling a fraud, but also, you know, insecurity and self-doubt or perfectionism, fear of failure. A real sense of shame and secrecy often surrounds it. And then these different habits play into it, like overworking or overpreparing or, you know, totally avoiding things and not going for the promotion so although it seems like this simple idea you know the definition the way it expresses itself and comes into your life um can be in lots of different guises and I think particularly in my work working with kind of professionals in more corporate types of jobs then what I was seeing was how they would just work really long

hours and start to kind of screen out all the other areas of their life to focus on work and continuing to keep up and I think what's tricky about those environments is often there is a lack of transparency and that companies quite like that because then you know that the other people working with you are really good at their job and have been selected because they're you know high achieving like you and so you work twice as hard to try and be as good as them but you don't really have a gauge of what they're doing or what's going on for them um and this kind of constant sense of keeping up and trying to kind of keep on board with this idea of how other people were seeing you that didn't always fit with your own ideas about yourself. Yeah, so good. And I think about a couple of things. In the book, you talk about how we define success and how that might impact our feelings of imposter.

Tell us a bit about how our definition of success might impact our likelihood that we might feel this way and how these feelings might be pervasive yeah so what's interesting about imposter syndrome is that it's triggered when you feel like you're not meeting your own standards so even though your boss might be really pleased with you or you know like with the people you work with they might be performing really well in all their races or whatever sport they're doing in inwardly how you're doing isn't measuring up to how you think you should be doing so actually even though if you're saying well done you don't take on board that praise or that doesn't kind of shift your view of yourself and that in the book I describe it as failure related shame and when you experience that failure related shame that's when imposter syndrome is triggered

because you're not keeping up to the standards that you set for yourself and just as you identify you know that depends how you define success so if success is doing really well with ease or if success is you know understanding things straight away and being able to do them. If you're not managing to do that, then all the time you're questioning yourself and doubting yourself. And that's what really feeds into the insecurity and self-doubt that is like the perfect breeding ground for imposter syndrome. So as people are listening, I know that they're relating to what we're talking about today. And what I'm curious about is, you know, I think awareness is the first step is awareness of how these thoughts or feelings might be holding you back. What would you tell people who are listening that they should do first as we think about imposter syndrome and working through it and decreasing it is what should we do first just

to become aware of it? Yeah, I think that you're exactly right. The biggest step is starting to recognize it in yourself. And that's one of the things that can be so difficult with imposter syndrome, because you don't think you've got imposter syndrome. You think you really are an imposter. And so that means that you keep it a secret and you don't tend to talk to other people about it and then you keep in place all these different behaviors to keep that pretense up or what you believe is the pretense and so when you start to kind of think okay you know maybe I'm not very good at accepting achievements that would be one sign you know compliments or feedback another sign might be kind of feeling like other people are more competent than you and that they have it you know kind of feeling like other people are more competent than you and

they have it you know kind of cope more easily and can do things more easily than you can another would be that you kind of don't believe you deserve your success or that um it's really hard to take on board any positive feedback if you're starting to kind of nod your head to those things it's saying okay what else might be going on here you know and once you start to recognize that it you know it's imposter syndrome then it's starting to challenge those ideas and in the book I call it the mind trap of imposter syndrome because it's so convincing and it's only by starting to let go of some of those behaviors and starting to think differently that you have a chance to overcome it. And that first step is one of the hardest step because it feels like a real leap of faith to say, OK, this might actually be imposter syndrome.

Absolutely. When I was reading your book, I was just like, yes, yes, yes. I was reading it. And so I so much enjoyed it. And one of the things that you said somewhere in the book, I think maybe towards the end, I don't remember, but just how imposter syndrome that, you know, underneath it is really all about fear. And I'd love for you to talk a little bit about that. And let's go ahead and then just start talking about how can people really reduce the feeling of an imposter syndrome yeah so I guess it when I was writing the book it made me think back to you know why is it all so kind of um I

guess going back to what we started with that discomfort why the fear of that you know how that then plays into everything why does that take hold so strongly so it made me go right back and think about how we evolved and the first thing is thinking about how you know when you think of survival of the fittest we evolved and we had a threat focus because that was how we stayed alive and it was better to be safe and sorry and whilst we were cavemen that might have been a tiger that we were kind of running from now that can be an imagined thought or fear and so our brains are still wired for you know surviving in the past not for the modern day and so when it comes to these things like a fear of failure or a fear of being found out or a fear of not measuring up or you know a fear of kind of other people not thinking that you're what

they thought they were we react to it in the same way so our body goes into that fight or flight and the trouble with that fear is it colors everything that we do so it's not just an emotion we feared it also changes how we think and when you think about for example the secrecy and shame that can surround imposter syndrome then that physical response that you get alongside it makes it really difficult to open up about what's going on and as you say I think the first step is an awareness of that and starting to identify it and the second step is a real wish to change it and a recognition that our thoughts and feelings aren't facts you know just because we

fear that we're an imposter it doesn't mean that we are one and just because we think that we're not kind of meeting the grade that doesn't mean that's the truth and so part of working with this is just starting to unpick all of those ideas and see how it operates in your life but also start to be able to step back from that initial kind of feeling of fear and start to look at the evidence and question what else might be going on and I guess the biggest thing about imposter syndrome that keeps it in place is that we do something and even if it goes well we tend not to take it on board and so imposters have different rules for when things go well compared to when things go badly and it's almost like

that's a way to protect ourselves from that fear but actually it means that you know if it goes well then they put it down to the team or other people or they got lucky or you know that it was just thanks to being you know in the right place at the right time whereas anything that goes badly is seen as a personal failing and so it means that you can't update that belief and so the fear stays in place too and no matter what you're doing you're not actually taking any of it on board it's all dismissed and so that keeps the imposter syndrome going and it was when I kind of was working on that bit that you really start to see it doesn't matter how many things

you do, how many times you win, how many times you get promoted, how many times people tell you you're doing a good job. If you're not taking any of it on board, then you're still the same person you were before you did any of those things. And your views of yourself haven't caught up yet. Yeah, absolutely. So two ideas I want to follow up on and what you just said. First, the importance of just acknowledging your successes, maybe even keep a success journal or something that, hey, here's some evidence on why I should be confident in myself and believe in my worth and my ability. And then you said about that your thoughts and your feelings are not facts and working to get unhooked from those. I think that's a really powerful just idea for people to take away that just because

I'm feeling this way doesn't mean that it's true or just because I had this thought doesn't mean that it's true and that most of our thoughts are, are not necessarily empowering or true. So I'm curious about what advice you might have for people who, you know, cause I know in the book you talked about kind of getting unhooked from these emotions and, and, and tell us a bit about how we might do that. So when we're feeling like an imposter or feeling lack of confidence, we can get unhooked from that feeling. Yeah. So I love the two that you've described.

The first one being that you start to connect to your success. And so when you really see your success and whether that's kind of writing down what I do in my clinic is get people to write down the whole long list of all of their achievements you know both in work but also outside of work and including things like you know difficulties they've overcome as well and that when they do that we start it off together in the session then I get them to do it over the course of a week and they're not allowed to not include anything that comes to their mind because it's so easy to think oh that oh no that didn't count because you know in the old kind of practices of dismissing come into play and when they start it in the session and carrying on through the week it's almost like this door

starts to open um and then they have more access to all these memories and reminders of the different things that they've done and when you start to write it down and you have it there in black and white it's far harder to argue with and what I like people to do is to look at that list and imagine you know if I saw somebody else who'd done all those things or I heard about this person who could had managed to do this list of things in front of me what would I think of them because like you say when you take it away from being you it's easier to see things differently and my favorite for that is to think you know imagine if my 16 year old self saw this list, what would they think of how I'm doing? Because so often when we're working or, you know, kind of striving at something, the goalposts move and we meet the first goal. But actually we're like, well, actually, I want to do that next thing. And suddenly it's the next thing.

And you haven't seen how far you've gone. And, you know, if I think back to my 16 year old self, I think that she would have been quite shocked. She wasn't even thinking about any of this stuff, you know, podcast, book writing, nope, not even. No, and I think that's what's so nice about it because you'll get used to it and you forget that it's something really special and something that you'd been so proud of when you first started or that you'd kind of you know if you'd known that you were going to do all these things simply you'd be like wow you know I can't even imagine that I can do all those things and yet the goalposts change when we're in it and like you said with the thoughts and feelings aren't facts I think another nice way to challenge it is to update our anxious predictions so going back to me doing

talks you know when I first started I'd be really excited when I was invited to a talk or even a podcast and I'd kind of at the time feel really flattered that I'd been asked and then about a week before I'd start to get this sinking feeling and start to think to myself you know oh I just don't know why I've done this I'm not sure it's going to go well and I'd have all these stories in my head about you know why had I said yes this was not what I was kind of meant to be doing I should just stick to clinical psychology and seeing people in my practice that's what I liked and there'd be this voice that kind of was quite overpowering at times particularly when I first started and so what I started to do was I'd write

down my predictions and then after the talks I'd update what actually happened and I think we spend so long on all these what-ifs and all the things that can go wrong or all of our worries and fears and yet very rarely do we come back and say actually you know and again for me in that situation I was always so pleased I'd done it and it introduced me to different people and different settings and it was getting myself out of my comfort zone and doing something that you know was challenging but also I just found it so interesting and enjoyable when I actually did it and so then I could use those updated predictions to come back to because the next time even though

I knew all of that I'd be back to wishing I wasn't doing it but each time I was able to say to myself well I felt like that last time but I was so glad I did and the time that I dreaded it became less and less and of course now I still get nervous about some of those things and I'm still not a complete natural or completely in my comfort zone but it's so different to when I first started by using that idea of updating predictions. I love how you call that updating your anxious predictions, because I think about how anxiety is in the future. And, you know, typically, we're thinking about these what if scenarios, and most of those things don't even come true. So I love the idea of like writing it down and then you could sort of disbelieve it, right? Or prove it wrong. That's maybe what I'm saying is you proved it wrong after you did the podcast or the talk. And you're like, wow, it actually was really energizing. And that's what I find for myself

too, is when I'm really pushing myself. I did this event a couple of years ago in my hometown where I had, um, maybe you've seen on TV, like the dancing with the stars. Have you ever seen that show? So my town did it. And, uh, it was so out of my comfort zone because I, I danced dubstep, which I didn't even know what dubstep was before I did it. And I was so scared, but I was so scared. Uh, I just had to keep on working through my fears like every day because I didn't believe I was a dancer. And then, um, what was cool was the day of when we did it, it just was this natural high that I just felt. Um, I was like, wow, that was one of the coolest things I've ever done. So it was when that overcame that fear is when I got this just, you know, kind of what you

were saying is just this, you loved it in the end, right? Like you realized it was actually moving towards that fear, discomfort was the thing that could make you feel most alive yeah and I think that's the thing isn't it that so often we kind of expect that we should enjoy it all you know instead of recognizing that actually growth isn't generally comfortable you know putting yourself out of your comfort zone out of autopilot out of your normal routine it's not comfortable but like you say that is when you feel more alive. And that kind of learning something new or kind of trying something different that you care about, it's so rewarding, but it is really scary. And I think we forget that fear comes with that. Yeah, absolutely. Beautiful. Hi, this is Cyndra Campoff. And thanks for listening to the High Performance Mindset.

Did you know that the ideas we share in the show are things we actually specialize in implementing? If you want to become mentally stronger, lead your team more effectively, and get to your goals quicker, visit freementalbreakthroughcall.com to sign up for your free mental breakthrough call with one of our certified coaches. Again, that's freementalbreakthroughcall.com to sign up for your free call. Talk to you soon. So I was, one of the sections of the book when I was reading it, you were talking about how our

family upbringing can impact our feelings of imposter. And I have two boys and I was like, oh crap. So as I was reading, I was thinking about my boys and I was thinking about myself and my upbringing. Right. And I just say, oh, crap, because as a parent, you're trying to do the best that you possibly can. And then you're like, oh, you know, my, am I impacting my, my boys' belief about imposter feeling like an imposter. Tell us what you've learned in your clinical practice about that and how we might think about how our upbringing has impacted our feeling of imposter. Yeah, so whilst we can kind of develop those feelings just as an adult, actually what I saw is it often stems back to childhood and this feeling of not feeling good enough.

And I suppose when you think about growing up, then you kind of come into the world and you have to build this framework of beliefs about yourself, about other people, about how the world operates. And we learn that from the people around us. so if our parents perhaps were very conditional in what they expected of us you know that you were praised and loved when you did well at school then that can definitely be a risk factor you know other risk factors might be what I put in the book and describe as labeling so um if your brother's the clever one what does that make you but even if you're labeled the clever one that can also add this layer of um kind of feeling like well actually I'm meant to be really good at things if I'm finding this hard what does that say about me so I think the thing is that I outline it more for people to start to think

back to their own childhoods and think about what the messages they were given about themselves growing up and how they came to view themselves but I guess I also recognize that most of us as parents are doing the best we can and that those things can happen inadvertently and that we're human too, we're not always going to get it right. And I guess the thing about imposter syndrome is once you build that belief or once it's formed, it's not just this view we've got of ourselves actually our brain is kind of invested in proving our beliefs right so it becomes this lens through which we see the world and it can bias us and that takes us back into that idea that what we pay attention to then is to collect information that fits this belief that we're not good enough or that we're not up to the standard or we're not

kind of understanding things quick enough um and so although we'd like to think it's just an idea we have about ourself it's much more than that and that's where kind of confirmation bias can come in and I guess the other thing to add just based on what you were saying earlier is also that idea of success so if you're perhaps the first person in your family to go to university then that can leave you feeling like an imposter. If you don't feel that same sense of belonging, because people like you aren't around you, again, that can feed into imposter syndrome. So it's in all these different ways. But as you say, part of it is understanding how it operates in you, because then you've got a chance to start to challenge that and kind of explore it and think about it in a new way.

And what advice would you have for parents who are listening? And, you know, I like what you said about thinking about your upbringing and how your upbringing has impacted your feelings of imposter. But I'm just curious about, do you have one or two tips for parents who, you know, just to be, you know, positively impact our kids and hopefully our kids will less likely feel like an imposter or have at least the imposter syndrome um I think I I also have children I've got three children and I guess something that I try and do with them and you know I definitely I'm not an expert when it comes to children and I certainly don't get it right all the time in my own home

but one of the things I do try to do is that to remind them that even you know though I love all the things they do and I'm admiring of what they do and what they do well actually I love them just for them and it doesn't matter what they do I'll always love them um and the other thing that sounds slightly strange but I think is really helpful is to let them learn to tolerate frustration because I think so often with imposter syndrome when things don't come easily to you or when you're struggling at something that's when those feelings of kind of insecurity and self-doubt can come in whereas when you're having lots of experience as a child at learning to do things and it being hard and struggling with it and understanding that's normal but you get there in the end I think that's really helpful and alongside that having plenty of

chance to fail and get things wrong and learn that actually it's not the end of the world that you can learn something from it or actually because you failed last time I don't know say my son forgot his Spanish book two days running and got a negative point for it at his school but he hasn't forgotten his book since and going through that forgetting and seeing what that was like has picked him up to then kind of renew his organizational skills and and all those small things really add up to just having an experience of discomfort and having those experiences of you know things going wrong but coping and seeing that it was all right. And knowing that things don't always come easily, but you can get there in the end. So those are a few ideas.

Okay, I love those. I think those were awesome off the top of your head. I think all of we all can relate to them, love them for who they are, help them tolerate frustration. I think helping them grow their grit is, you know, like getting themselves back up when they fail. And then, you know, just maybe even celebrating failure and making sure that we're, you know, I think about when they spill milk or when they forget their Spanish book or when they, my boys play a lot of sports and it's like, well, when they make a mistake, you know, that we're not the one punishing them. And we're maybe even helping them think about what did they learn? Maybe it's organizational skills or, you know, things like that.

Yeah. Yeah, I completely agree. So I'm curious about, we've talked about several strategies to reduce our feelings of imposter what advice would you give to people guess me who really want to overcome this and what would you tell them on how to really address their imposter syndrome I think that the big thing is wanting to change I know it sounds strange but for so long for many people, they've had this way of operating and thinking about life, it can takes kind of attending to you know things going well like we said doing that list for example but then continuing to do that talking to people about how you're doing you know writing down the good things that happen each day making sure when somebody gives you a compliment instead of dismissing it you actually take it on board and I think the other

big thing is starting to externalize that imposter voice, because it comes along and it kind of really tells you that you need to do all these things. It's going to keep you safe. If you don't do it, you're going to be found out. But it's starting to recognize that that voice is not got your best interests in mind. It's a bully. And actually, it's the voice of your fears. And when you start to hear that voice it gives space remembering that thoughts and feelings aren't facts and when you hear that voice it also leaves space to start to think about you know what it means to be human that actually we all have these doubts sometimes and I think another big thing that people find helpful that fits alongside that is starting to

recognize that they're not the only ones that feel out feel like this and they're definitely not alone and so often we look at other people and we imagine that they've got it all together and you know we see what they decide to show us but we forget that we hear what's going on inside our head and we've got no idea what's going on inside their head and just like you know a swan going along the water they might look like they're gliding but probably they're furiously kicking underneath and that they have all the same fears and insecurities of you and that nobody feels good every day and nobody's kind of ready for every challenge and when you start to break apart that and accept what it means to be human I think

that also can be really helpful yeah wonderful, wonderful. That's such great advice. And I love what you said about, we all have these doubts and that our doubts, you know, maybe our inner critic or this, this voice inside of our head is really the voice of our fears. Really powerful. I'm curious about, at the end of the book, you talk about self-compassion, which I really appreciated and how that can be a way to address our imposter syndrome. Maybe just talk a little bit about that, because I think that could be in addition to some of the things you just said. Yeah, I completely agree. And I think that so often we think that self-criticism is the way to get results. And often even before that, you know, like we have kind of touched on already.

We have all these thoughts and feelings going through our head that are going unchecked it's almost like this commentary that comes alongside us so when you first start to externalize that and hear it and see if what it is it's step one but step two is bringing in the compassion and what all the research shows is that self-criticism doesn't get the best results what gets the best results is compassion and that self-criticism actually leaves you feeling more paralyzed and I always think of it as a fitness coach and I think that's how I describe it in the book if you're training for something you don't want someone shouting at you every day and telling you how bad you are at it you know if that was my coach I would probably not turn up to many of the

sessions or it certainly wouldn't feel confident afterwards what I'd look for is a compassionate approach and that isn't just saying how great you are you know that's still wanting to work hard and aim high but using what you kind of know about yourself you know so that you can encourage yourself and tackle any difficulties and use your strength in other areas to really kind of work on those things that are difficult as well as really seeing where you're doing well so you can build confidence and build on those areas and I think that compassion really is the antidote to imposter syndrome and self-critical thinking yeah absolutely when I think about being self-compassionate I think about like quieting that inner voice, quieting,

but also softening it that, right. Like what you said about being really highly critical of yourself is, is not going to help you reduce those feelings of imposter. I'm curious, you know, what would you say is when, when does it become imposter syndrome for us versus just these um these thoughts that everyone has and I'm kind of curious on um when it becomes like a syndrome for us I guess what's different between say low confidence and imposter syndrome is that if you think about kind of confidence and insecurity they're like a circle you know you start feeling insecure but then you work at something and you build confidence you don't just stay there sadly you end up swinging back rounds and it's kind of this continuous cycle

of building and knowing yourself better but the more you do it your confidence improves whereas as we've talked about with imposter syndrome the more you do it you can get higher and higher in your career. But actually, it doesn't go away. It feels like there's more eyes on you or there's further to fall. And that there's more people to find out that you're not doing a good job. And so I think the push into imposter syndrome is when you carry these beliefs in spite of all this contrary information and that it doesn't really go away and that actually it stops you from doing some of the things you want to or it gets in the way of you being able to enjoy your success you know lots of imposters talk to me about it's just a relief when they manage to get through whatever it was it's not that they're sitting there being like oh great I'm actually doing really well

they just feel a sense of relief and then it's straight back into the next problem or the next worry or the next kind of landmark that's ahead um and so that's how I'd kind of differentiate um the two I love it really really helpful and so when it really gets in the way of our success they feel like relief that they've finished it and uh they aren't necessarily taking credit for their success. That's really helpful in terms of just a differentiation of just when we all have these thoughts versus when it's an imposter. One last question I have, and then we'll wrap up for today. In the book, you talk about how our emotions can impact our beliefs about imposter syndrome. And today you've talked a little bit about just examining those thoughts and emotions. They aren't facts. Is there anything you want to say about our emotions and how they might impact our beliefs and underlying imposter

syndrome? Yeah, I think that when we have a feeling, what we sometimes forget is that that feeling isn't just an isolation you know it colors what we're thinking and so for example when I was training they gave us this really nice example that I think demonstrates that um you're walking along and you step in some dog poop you know your first reaction could be that you're really cross who's let that dog stay there you know and who's let that happen so anger changes how you're thinking about it the second could be worry or anxiety and oh no it's germs is this going to cause me some kind of problem um what's it going to mean is it going to contaminate me in some way and then the third could be sadness you know why does this always happen to me these things always go wrong um and the last might be

which probably may be unlikely but it's like thank goodness I'm wearing shoes today but it's just such a nice demonstration of how what we're feeling in that moment infiltrates to how we view what's going on and that it changes how we interpret things um and I think the big thing about um imposter syndrome as well is that when you're in that phase of kind of totally believing that you are a fraud it also those emotions make it really difficult to take on board your success as we've described but often people then come up with all these different excuses you know which I touched on already like it was lucky or you know as the team or because the feelings that you've got get in the way of being able to really own your success and really take credit for it and so you instead think about those external

circumstances because it feels too risky to say actually I think I did a good job here and I slightly gone on a tangent but I think that's another great way to start to take on board your successes to be aware of the excuses that you make and how your feelings can get in the way of it so that you can really start to see the part you played in making things happen and how you contributed to the outcome yes I mean this interview was so powerful I know that you helped so many people today by providing just really tangible ways that people can move past their feelings of imposter. What I'd love to know is where can people get your book, The Imposter Cure and the other books

that you've written and tell us a bit about how we could follow along with your work. Yeah, so you probably know better than me for the states but I know it's on Amazon and here it's in all the kind of major bookshops we have like waterstones and I'm sure you've got the equivalents um and then my website is drjessamy.com and I'm also on Instagram but not terribly reliably so that's um Dr. Jessamy as well wonderful well I'm also on Instagram, but not terribly reliably. So that's Dr. Jessamy as well. Wonderful. Well, I'm going to do my best at summarizing today. Today, we talked about how imposter syndrome can happen by the way we define our outward success. And we can misinterpret this feeling, you know, that we all have these feelings of imposter, but it's really this faulty belief.

And it's the fear. Our fear is allowing us to feel like an imposter. You talked about our imposter syndrome can be triggered when we haven't met our own standards and we haven't recognized our successes within ourselves. So the first step is to be aware of it and work to change that, those feelings and those thoughts that lead to us feeling like a fraud. And you talked about how we can update our anxious predictions. I love that. And you talked about how our thoughts and feelings are not facts. So sort of a good summary. There's so much more

to be talked about. So thank you so much for joining us today. I'm just so grateful that you are here and that you really provided us a really tangible ways that we can move past our feelings of imposter. So do you have any final advice or thoughts for people who are listening? I guess just the big one is to remember that you're not alone you know we're talking about it and when I go and speak at different companies the overwhelming responses that people put their hand up when I ask if they've ever experienced imposter syndrome um and I think knowing you're not alone makes a big difference but um yeah I'd just like to say a huge thank you to you C, because it's been such a delight chatting to you

and I've loved your questions and your insights and sharing your work and the things that you do. So thanks so much for having me on the show. Absolutely. So again, Yesami's book is The Imposter Cure. You are not a fraud, you deserve success and you can believe in yourself. How to stop feeling like a fraud

and escape the mind trap of imposter syndrome. Thank you so much for gracing us with your presence and your wisdom today. We appreciate you so much. Thank you. Way to go for finishing another episode of the High Performance Mindset. I'm giving you a virtual fist pump. Holy cow, did that go by way too fast for anyone else? If you want more, remember to subscribe

and you can head over to Dr. Sindhra for show notes and to join my exclusive community for high performers where you get access to videos about mindset each week. So again, you can head over to Dr. Sindhra. That's D-R-C-I-N-D-R-A.com. See you next week.