In short, it’s a hot mess of harmfulness. It can also take various forms, depending on a person’s background, personality, and circumstances. If you’re familiar with the feeling of waiting for those around you to “find you out,” it might be helpful to consider what type of impostor you are, so you can problem-solve accordingly.

Expert on the subject, Valerie Young, has categorized it into subgroups:

1. The Perfectionist
2. The Superwoman/man
3. The Natural Genius
4. The Rugged Individualist
5. The Expert

In her book, The Secret Thoughts of Successful Women: Why Capable People Suffer From Imposter Syndrome and How to Thrive in Spite of It, Young builds on decades of research studying fraudulent feelings among high achievers.

Drawing on the work of psychologists Pauline Rose Clance, PhD and Suzanne Imes, PhD, Young uncovered several “competence types”–or internal rules that people who struggle with confidence generally follow. This categorization is often overlooked in the conversation, but her reading of it can be really helpful in identifying bad habits or patterns that may be holding you back from your full potential.

Below is a summary of the competence types Young identifies so you can see if you recognize yourself. I have also provided some examples you might relate to in your day-to-day life, as well as questions you can ask yourself.

1. The Perfectionist

Perfectionism and the impostor syndrome often go hand-in-hand. Think about it: Perfectionists set excessively high goals for themselves, and when they fail to reach a goal, they experience major self-doubt and worry about measuring up. Whether they realize it or not, this group can also be control freaks, feeling when they want something done right, they have to do it themselves.

Not sure if this applies to you? Ask yourself these questions:

• Have you ever been accused of being a micromanager?
• Do you have great difficulty delegating? Even when you’re able to do so, do you feel frustrated and disappointed in the results?
• When you miss the (insanely high) mark on something, do you accuse yourself of “not being cut out” for your job and ruminate on it for days?
• Do you feel like your work must be 100% perfect, 100% of the time?

For this type, success is rarely satisfying because they believe they could’ve done even better. But that’s neither productive nor healthy. Owning and celebrating achievements is essential if you want to avoid burnout, find contentment, and cultivate self-confidence.

Learn to take your mistakes in-stride, viewing them as a natural part of the process. In addition, push yourself to act before you’re ready. Force yourself to start the project you’ve been planning for months. Truth is, there will never be the “perfect time,” and your work will never be 100% flawless. The sooner you’re able to accept that, the better off you’ll be.

2. The Superwoman/man

Since people who experience this phenomenon are convinced they’re phonies among real-deal colleagues, they often push themselves to work harder and harder, to measure up. But this is just a false cover-up for their insecurities, and the work overload may harm not only their own mental health, but also their relationships with others.

Not sure if this applies to you?

• Do you stay at the office later than the rest of your team, even past the point of completing that day’s necessary work?
• Do you get stressed when you’re not working and find downtime completely wasteful?
• Have you let your hobbies and passions fall by the wayside, and sacrifice them to work?
• Do you feel like you haven’t truly earned your title (despite numerous degrees and achievements), so you feel pressed to work harder and longer than those around you to prove your worth?

Impostor workaholics are actually addicted to the validation that comes from working, not to the work itself. Start training yourself to veer away from external validation. No one should have more power to make you feel good about yourself than you–even your boss when they give your project the stamp of approval. On the flip side, learn to take constructive criticism seriously, not personally.

As you become more attuned to internal validation and able to nurture your inner confidence stating you to be competent and skilled, you’ll be able to ease off the gas as you gauge how much work is reasonable.

3. The Natural Genius

People who struggle with this, who are also natural “geniuses,” judge success based on their abilities, as opposed to their efforts. In other words, if they have to work hard at something, they assume they must be bad at it.

These types of impostors set their internal bar impossibly high, just like perfectionists. But natural genius types don’t just judge themselves based on ridiculous expectations, they also judge themselves based on getting things right at the first attempt. When they’re not able to do something quickly or fluently, their alarm sounds.

Not sure if this applies to you?

Are you used to excelling without much effort?

• Do you have a track record of getting “straight A’s” or “gold stars” in everything you do?
• Were you frequently told as a child that you were the “smart one” in your family or peer group?
• Do you dislike the idea of having a mentor, because you can handle things on your own?
• When you’re faced with a setback, does your confidence tumble because not performing well invokes a feeling of shame?
• Do you often avoid challenges because it’s so uncomfortable to try something you’re not great at?

To move past this, try seeing yourself as a work-in-progress. Accomplishing great things involves lifelong learning and skill building–for everyone, even the most confident people. Rather than beating yourself up when you don’t reach your impossibly high standards, identify specific, changeable behaviors that you can improve over time.

For example, if you want to have more impact at the office, it’s much more productive to focus on honing your presentation skills than swearing off speaking up in meetings as something you’re “just not good at.”

4. The Rugged Individualist

Sufferers who feel as though asking for help reveals their phoniness are what Young calls rugged individualists. It’s okay to be independent, but not to the extent that you refuse assistance so that you can prove your worth.

Not sure if this applies to you? Ask yourself these questions:

• Do you firmly feel that you need to accomplish things on your own?
• “I don’t need anyone’s help.” Does that sound like you?
• Do you frame requests in terms of the requirements of the project, rather than your needs as a person?

5. The Expert

People who fall into this competence type may feel like they somehow tricked their employer into hiring them. They deeply fear being exposed as inexperienced or unknowledgeable.

• Do you shy away from applying to job postings unless you meet every single educational requirement?
• Are you constantly seeking out training or certification because you think you need to improve your skills in order to succeed?
• Even if you’ve been in your role for some time, can you relate to the feeling that you still don’t know “enough”?

Do you shudder when someone says you’re an expert?

It’s true that there’s always more to learn. Striving to bulk up your skill set can certainly help you take strides professionally and keep you competitive in the job market. But taken too far, the tendency to endlessly seek out more information can actually be a form of procrastination. Start practicing just-in-time learning. This means acquiring a skill when you need it–for example, if your responsibilities change–rather than hoarding knowledge for (false) comfort.

Realize there’s no shame in asking for help when you need it. If you don’t know how to do something, ask a coworker. If you can’t figure out how to solve a problem, seek advice from a supportive supervisor, or even a career coach. Mentoring junior colleagues or volunteering can be a great way of discovering your inner expert. When you share what you know, it not only benefits others, but also helps you heal your fraudulent feelings.

No matter the specific profile, if you struggle with confidence, you’re far from alone. To take one example, studies suggest that 70% of people experience impostor syndrome at some point in their careers.

If you’ve experienced it at any point in your career, then you’ve, at one point or another, chalked up your accomplishments to chance, charm, connections, or another external factor. How unfair and unkind is that? Take today as your opportunity to start accepting and embracing your capabilities.

03.08.16

By Paula Davis-Laack

www.fastcompany.com

Resilience hinges, among other things, on how you perceive a given stressor. As Maria Konnikova explained in the New Yorker last month, it isn’t just adversity itself that threatens our performance. It’s how we experience adversity. Researchers are struggling to explain what makes some people’s responses to stressors more effective than others’. In other words, what’s the nature of resilience itself?

But while scientists pick apart that question, there’s one problematic thinking style in particular that silently threatens how resilient many of us are at work: the Imposter Syndrome.

For many people who experience it, imposter syndrome (or “IP” for short) is a form of intellectual phoniness. It’s a voice in your head that sounds something like this: “Man, I got lucky this time. Pretty soon I’ll be found out and people will realize I don’t have a clue what I’m doing.” Despite proof to the contrary–like degrees, promotions, or an impressive career–people who experience IP are unable to internalize and accept their success.

But what’s less often remarked is how that chronic self-doubt can become a self-fulfilling prophecy, cognitively speaking: If you think you’re a fraud and everyone else is legit, chances are you’ll find ways to confirm that belief, even if it means discounting contrary evidence or attributing wins to luck.

Say you’re prepping a presentation and all the while thinking you don’t belong on your team. The worry and self-recrimination you subject yourself to ahead of time increases the likelihood that you’ll choke during the presentation itself. Any stumbles you do make just reinforce your original thinking: “I knew I’m not good enough to be here.”

Nor is this just a mind-set that some unfortunate few happen to struggle with internally. Research shows that strong IP tendencies have real workplace consequences. Imposter syndrome leads to job dissatisfaction and reduced “organizational citizenship” behaviors. It also causes people to stick to a job, only because leaving for a new one seems too socially and psychologically daunting–hardly a good foundation for an engaged, productive employee.

Breaking free of the imposter syndrome starts by breaking down its elements. According to psychologists, the equation goes something like this:

IP = low self-efficacy + maladaptive perfectionism + neuroticism

Here are three steps (in layman’s terms) designed to tackle different parts of that equation.

Social support at work can help hold the imposter syndrome in check. Not surprisingly, researchers find that “high-quality” relationships are the most effective. Those that researchers have found include:

• Trust
• A sense of play
• Respectful engagement
• Empowerment

What does that mean in practice? Simply this: Make friends at work, not just water-cooler acquaintances. A few high-quality friendships around the office can help reduce the sense of isolation that the imposter syndrome creates–the feeling that you’re the only one who’s secretly incompetent.

Self-efficacy simply refers to the extent to which you believe you can produce results. Psychologists have found that people who are highly self-efficacious do these five things well:

• Set high goals for themselves
• Welcome and thrive on challenges
• Remain self-motivated
• Put sufficient effort into accomplishing their goals
• Persevere through obstacles

Again, pretty intuitive stuff. In order to build your self-efficacy while you’re fighting imposter syndrome, here are a few things you can do:

Record your successes. Chances are you’re already having success somewhere in your life, but you aren’t noticing it. Start a journal to note each time you do something well–but make sure to record the relative roles that luck, timing, and your own contributions have played. It takes practice to build up a genuine belief that your own skills and expertise, not just luck, lead to results.

Learn from others. You can brush up on your own self-efficacy vicariously. Identify a person or a few people you admire and watch how they handle and achieve success. When they mess up, find out why. Ask what strategies they used to get back on their feet.

Grab some cheerleaders. Hearing others urge you on can help. Having a small team of colleagues to root for you is a great way to give that worried voice in your head some much-needed competition. Sometimes others will see why you succeeded at something that you yourself overlooked.

Shutting down your inner critic isn’t about silencing self-doubt altogether. It’s about using that internal criticism more productively. These four steps can help you do that:

1. Label the feelings and anxieties you have when they happen.
2. Talk about them. This part isn’t easy, but it’s just another reason why having those great social connections at work is so important. Put simply, we all need someone who can listen considerately when we’re having a hard time.
3. Figure out the root causes. Now that you know how you feel, it’s time to figure out why: what situations, people, or challenges bring your inner critic out of the woodwork? What’s the underlying pattern here?
4. Have some self-compassion. Lots of people think they aren’t cut out for their roles at some point or another in their careers. You aren’t alone. Being too self-assured can actually be a liability of a totally different sort. So go easy on yourself and remember that with a little practice and self-awareness, you can get past this, too.

People tend not to talk about their struggle with imposter syndrome because this thinking style tricks you into imagining you’re the only one who experiences it. In reality, nothing could be further from the truth. Just about anyone who’s ever confronted big challenges has felt that way. And as Dr. Amy Cuddy writes her in new book Presence, “The more we communicate about [our fears and anxieties], and the smarter we are about how they operate, the easier they’ll be to shrug off the next time they pop up. It’s a game of whack-a-mole we can win.”