The truth about imposter syndrome

Let’s look at what “imposter syndrome” really is, with a very common example.

A coaching client, I’ll call her Lilly, has entered a new line of work, and is feeling a metric ton of “imposter syndrome.”

She’s passed all the required exams and is licensed to do the work.

But she’s feeling wholly unqualified to actually *do* the work.

She’s getting fire hose after fire hose of information and feels out of her element.

She’s comparing herself with folks who’ve been in the field for 3+ years.

She feels overwhelmed because she also has her “day job” and isn’t sure how to do them both while taking care of her family.

A well-meaning colleague asked her a question that would put any of us on the defensive, “What are you doing to drum up business?” Queue a deer in the headlights look…

And she’s being told to do things to drum up business that aren’t her style and feel incredibly awkward.

My client has children and so I asked her how she felt when she brought her first child home.

She said it was the same kind of feeling with all the overwhelm, comparisons, and an ungodly amount of discomfort.

Bringing up this situation from her past gives her brain proof and evidence that she’s done other things that create this same feeling, and she survived. 

Her nervous system is in a protective response (aka freaking her out) and is trying to get her attention so she can tend to the “potential” threat. 

Nothing’s gone wrong. This is exactly how our primitive brains are wired. We just need to remember that nothing’s gone wrong and take the next easy kitten step.

She’s feeling loads of very natural discomfort that comes with doing something new. Her brain would prefer she didn’t do the new thing because she might need that energy if a saber-toothed tiger jumps out from behind a bush.

This is how our brains have been wired for hundreds of thousands of years and they are still using the same operating system! Our primitive brains don’t know it’s 2025. And when we don’t make any of this a problem to *fix,* and instead, work *with it,* we get where we want to go much faster!

Lilly also feels like an imposter because she’s expecting herself to feel like a seasoned veteran when she isn’t. So part of the imposter stuff makes perfect sense!

And she wants to feel like a seasoned veteran so she doesn’t feel the natural and normal discomfort that comes when we do something new. 

Her brain doesn’t want her to “waste” energy on the new thing so it’ll give her sly little messages like, “You don’t know what you’re doing, no one’s gonna hire you, this will never be successful, what have you done?!”

When we’re on to our brain’s well meaning but meany pants shenanigans, we can work through them, instead of believing the lies and trying to solve a non-problem.

You got this, Sunshine and I’ve always got your back!