Are you a career woman? Do you work in a male dominated workplace? In Melt The Glass Ceiling, your career coach, Lisa Liszcz, will share tips and strategies on developing the career of your dreams. New episodes drop each week.
Ever felt like your successes are just flukes, or that you'll be exposed as a fraud despite your qualifications? You're not alone. Melt the Glass Ceiling takes an empathetic yet empowering look at imposter syndrome—a psychological trap that ensnares approximately 70% of people at some point in their lives. We share heartening stories from clients like an educator in a hospital who doubted her place among seasoned veterans, and Sarah, who's paralyzed by the fear of failure despite her high achievements. This episode peels back the layers of persistent self-doubt and the crushing habit of constant comparison, demonstrating just how pervasive these feelings of inadequacy can be in both our professional and personal lives.
Listen as we reveal the classic symptoms of imposter syndrome, including an inability to accept praise and an irrational fear of failure, and discuss the subtle ways it undermines confidence and joy. Moreover, we don't just spotlight the problem, we offer strategies to help you reclaim your accomplishments and kick those fraudulent feelings to the curb. Whether you're a parent doubting your abilities or a professional second-guessing your skills, this episode is a guiding light through the fog of self-doubt, illuminating a path to self-acceptance and genuine confidence.
How does Imposter Syndrome effect you? Click here to download my article on "What Is Imposter Syndrome," and learn more.
Lisa previews the next episode's topic on conflict resolution in the workplace.
Speaker 1:
Hello and welcome to Melt the Glass Ceiling. Today we are talking about imposter syndrome, when you feel like a fraud. Oh my goodness, this is a powerful topic. I have so many clients who have dealt with this issue and it is serious. Imposter syndrome is the term that we use to describe the psychological phenomenon of severe feelings of self-doubt that causes people to feel fraudulent in their professional or personal lives. I have seen this be paralyzing for a number of my clients. I had one client who was an educator in a hospital setting. This was a new role for her and she had recently finished a certification that gave her the credentials for being an educator in her specialty. So she got a new job in this education department of a research hospital and she was working with people who had been there for years, decades, and she felt like she didn't belong and she felt fraudulent. She felt like someone was gonna find out that she didn't really deserve to be there. It undermined her confidence to such a degree that she just really felt like she didn't belong and was ready to quit her job.
Speaker 1:
It is estimated that roughly 70% of all US residents deal with this syndrome at some point in their lives. I talk about it a lot as it is related to our careers and our professional lives. But it can also show up in your personal life Not feeling good enough to be a parent or to be a wife or to own a home, feeling like we don't deserve these roles in our lives or that we're not good at it, that we don't have what it takes and we're not qualified to be successful in these roles. How do you know if you have imposter syndrome? I'm going to talk about some of the symptoms. In general, imposter syndrome is characterized by a persistent self-doubt, high anxiety levels, frustration and low self-esteem. In general. This is how it feels. My client I mentioned earlier was dealing with feelings that she wasn't intelligent enough or skilled enough to have this job and be able to be successful in it. One symptom of imposter syndrome is frequently comparing ourselves to others and having that need to look at others' accomplishments and compare our accomplishments to others' accomplishments. Looking at how smart others are or a skill set that they have or accomplishments that they've achieved is not only a symptom of imposter syndrome but it also kind of reinforces the imposter syndrome. I tell my clients all the time please get out of that comparison mode. It is a thief of joy. Another symptom of imposter syndrome is an irrational fear of failure of joy.
Speaker 1:
Another symptom of imposter syndrome is an irrational fear of failure. Are you afraid of failure? This is a sign. One of my clients, sarah. She, has an extraordinary fear of failing. She's afraid that a failure is going to expose her as a fraud. Sarah is a high achiever, she. It's really sad.
Speaker 1:
A lot of times I see clients who have achieved so much in their education and in their careers and in their personal lives and still they really get paralyzed about making decisions or moving forward on certain activities or projects because they're just terrified of failing. Remember that it is normal to have some failure in our lives. If we're trying new things, we're learning new things, we're growing and evolving, then failing is going to be part of that experience and part of that journey. And failing is not really failing if we've learned from it. We've learned what not to do, we've learned what's not going to work. If that's the case, then really we're closer to our ultimate goal than we were before. We quote-unquote failed right. So let's work on that irrational fear of failure. Everyone fails and that's the way that we learn and grow.
Speaker 1:
A third symptom of imposter syndrome is the inability to accept praise. I have actually seen in corporate environments people just unable to accept recognition, congratulations, praise about a project or an achievement there in the workplace. What's the underlying cause of this achievement there in the workplace? What's the underlying cause of this? Well, if I don't really feel that my efforts led to my success, then it's hard for me to really embrace and enjoy that praise. If I feel like I achieved success accidentally or because of something somebody else did or some turned around way, then it's really hard for me to embrace, you know, a compliment or praise around that achievement or that success.
Speaker 1:
A fourth symptom of imposter syndrome is avoidance, and this is really where I get into that kind of analysis. Paralysis, where people aren't moving forward on their goals, personal or professional, because they're so afraid of possible failure. So we just avoid activities or tasks that would lead to success and avoiding failure becomes a greater necessity than just trying the task at all. This really undermines success and achievement and just the ability to move forward and take action. Do you feel like you have any of these symptoms? I've got a list of tips for dealing with imposter syndrome, so the link is in the show notes. I encourage you to download that list and try some of those tips, and I'd love to hear your feedback when you're done. Next week, I'll be talking about conflict resolution. Are you dealing with any conflict at work or do you anticipate that you will be dealing with any conflict at work in the future? Let me give you some easy tips for quickly diffusing conflict. I'll be talking about that next week. In the meantime, go melt the glass ceiling.
