There are other, less empirical conjectures pertaining to the causes of fraud syndrome. For instance, there is the popular refrain of, “Fake it till you make it!” Many of us internalize this, mimicking who we think we are “supposed” to be on job interviews, at industry events, when networking with people in our field. We may persist in putting on this show of professionalism for so long that we have made it — reached our career goals — yet can’t shake the feeling that we’re still faking it.
Incidentally, it would appear that there are perhaps some advantages to feeling like a fraud. It is possible that a healthy amount of self-doubt can protect us from making mistakes. It can motivate us to work harder — though this sometimes means we may be overpreparing and overcompensating — in order to squelch our fears of failure.
The key here is remembering that there is an ambiguous boundary between a healthy amount of self-doubt, versus a debilitating and all-consuming preoccupation with feeling like a fraud. When we are wholly invested in keeping up appearances — while inside we feel disingenuous — we sacrifice the possibility of others getting to know us for who we really are. I interviewed a small-business owner in Southern California, Cyndi, who is successful by all objective measures. When asked if she thought there was a disparity between how she views herself and how other people view her, she responded, “Yeah. I think they just don’t know me. I think people look at me and they think, ‘Oh wow she has a wonderful husband and this wonderful little family, and she’s got this great business, and she lives in this nice house.’” At a fundamental level, her fear of others figuring out that maybe she is not as capable as people think — maybe her life isn’t as good as it seems on the outside — creates a divide between Cyndi and the people around her.
The natural instinct is to ask, “How do I get rid of self-doubt?” When I asked Cyndi what she thought her life would be like if she didn’t have self-doubt, she replied, “I think every aspect [of my] life would change. I think I would be much happier. I wouldn’t have the panic and the fear and the sadness.” Interestingly, Sally Adee was able to experience something similar to this, albeit only for 20 minutes. She describes being hooked up to a device used to conduct “transcranial direct current stimulation” (tDCS) in the article “How Electrical Brain Stimulation Can Change the Way We Think.”
Adee says, “I felt clear-headed and like myself, just sharper. Calmer. Without fear and without doubt. My brain without self-doubt was a revelation. There was suddenly this incredible silence in my head. I had certainly never experienced instant Zen in the frustrating middle of something I was terrible at.” A possible mechanism is that the electrodes somehow reduce activity in the prefrontal cortex — the area of the brain used in critical thought. This can silence self-critical thoughts which would in turn produce that effortless feeling of flow. Perhaps the most poignant question Adee asks is: “Do we make more ethical decisions when we listen to our inner voices of self-doubt or when we’re freed from them?”
While feeling like an impostor can sometimes motivate us to overcompensate by working incredibly hard, it can also lead to self-sabotage. In her book “Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself,” Dr. Kristin Neff explains: “Not only does self-criticism create anxiety, it can also lead to psychological tricks designed to prevent self-blame in the case of failure, which in turn makes failure more likely.” The foremost consequence of fraud syndrome exists in potentialities that never come to fruition — not only might we never embrace all of the myriad opportunities our skills and successes afford us, we will never really feel the pleasure and satisfaction that comes from acknowledging our own competency.
Sadly, most of us don’t have access to a tDCS cap. So, when you are plagued by an overwhelming amount of self-doubt, I would consider three important components of self-compassion. The first is to be mindful of the present moment — to observe what is happening right here, right now, without judgment. Instead of fighting with and running from your insecurities, mindfulness allows you to sit with your discomfort and let it exist. To experience this discomfort, from time to time is normal — it is human. Indeed, the second part of being self-compassionate is to remember that you are a human being. Human existence entails pain alongside happiness; moreover, to be human means that you will inevitably make mistakes. This brings us to the final facet of self-compassion: being kind to yourself. Making mistakes is hard, and life is not always pleasant. Give yourself comfort; be a friend to yourself, instead of a critic.
Maybe you should consider listening, even for a moment, to that co-worker who didn’t notice your typo, who was able to see an excellent presentation for what it was.
This article was first published in Brain World Magazine’s Fall 2014 issue.
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