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Ways to Stop Feeling Like a Fraud

Feeling like a fraud is an issue that concerns many and is often addressed in therapy. By this,
people look and act as if they know what they’re doing when, in fact, they feel as if they’re
pulling the wool over everyone’s eyes, deceiving others about their capabilities, or even their
true identities.

Of course, the vast majority of people are not doing this on purpose. They just don’t feel good
enough about themselves. They manage to stay afloat, but seem to live in a constant state
of anxiety; their biggest fear: being found out, ridiculed, humiliated, and dismissed.

This phenomenon is known as the ‘Impostor Syndrome’ and is far more common than you might
think. We all experience feelings of inadequacy at some points in our life. But the sense of
inadequacy in these individuals occurs even when there is no evidence to support it, and often
when the exact opposite is true. You can be the most competent person, the brightest, most
talented, gifted, and successful and be riddled with self-doubt.

There may be one particular area of your life where feeling like a fraud applies, such as
academic achievement or your career. Or, this syndrome may describe an entire life, every
area of a person’s life is suspect. These people feel like they’re just fakes, like an actor playing a
role that bears no resemblance to the real personality. They try to blend in when, in fact, they
constantly worry that they will be discovered for who they really are. This can take a lot of
mental energy keeping up the façade of the artificial personality.

There are some individuals who just can’t take ownership and pride for the good and capable
things that they are and do. In their own minds their success and achievements somehow come
from outside of themselves. They would rather believe it was just luck, a mistake or an accident
that worked out in their favour, or maybe they were just in the right place at the right time.

What this kind of thinking does is to set the “impostor” up to doubt that they can be successful or
achieve the next time around since they haven’t owned it the first time. Any justified praise
heaped upon such a person is wasted as they see it is aimed at the mask they wear rather than
the real person behind the mask.

There are five things that you can do to help yourself out of the impostor trap:

1. Own up to your feelings. Tell someone about it; that way it’s no longer your own little
secret. You’ll find that when you do, you may be reassured by others that you are not the
odd-man-out after all. Chances are others will tell you that they have felt the same way at
some point in time and they probably won’t judge you for it.
2. Recognize truth from fiction or, at least, fantasy. Because you feel like a fake and a fraud.
stupid, incompetent, incapable, a failure - doesn’t mean you are in reality.
3. Understand early programming. (More about this in the ‘How Did I get Here lecture)
Parents may have contributed a great deal, knowingly or unknowingly, to a child’s beliefs,
attitudes, behaviours, and feelings. The messaging from some families to their children is
judgmental and critical. There may be unrealistic expectations placed upon a child that
they may carry with them, unquestioned and unchallenged into adult life. What you feel
may be just something you inherited that never should have belonged to you in the first
place.
4. Make a list of all of your accomplishments, achievements, and successes. Instead of
dismissing these as just “luck” really spend time remembering how you were able to do
what you’ve done in the past. You had a lot more to do with your achievements than you
thought.