Dealing with imposter syndrome at work? Here's how you can manage it

When we make mistakes at work, it can lead to a cycle of negative thinking.

The damaging thoughts swirl: “I’m an impostor.” “I’m not smart enough.” “I’m failing at my job.”

Feeling like an impostor — doubting one’s own abilities despite a track record of success — is common, especially among women and members of marginalised groups. Even on days when everything’s going right, it can be hard to shift out of a cycle of self-doubt.

But there are ways to interrupt that downward spiral.

Many people have found cognitive behavioural therapy, a form of talk therapy, helpful to examine internal monologues such as “I’m going to say the wrong thing” or “I’m not good enough” — and replace them with neutral or positive mantras.

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“What we do in cognitive behaviour therapy is help people identify these negative thoughts, and then we teach them to evaluate those thoughts and see how accurate they are,” said Judith Beck, president of the Beck Institute for Cognitive Behaviour Therapy, based in Pennsylvania.

“If they’re not accurate, we discuss what’s a more realistic perspective on this,” she said.

To reach students with social, emotional and behavioural challenges, Randolph Public Schools, a district outside of Boston, held a recent seminar about helping children reframe their negative feelings using cognitive behavioural therapy, or CBT.

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“We want our students… to really have the mindset that they can do things confidently,” said Alpha Sanford, chief of development and student services, who started the initiative.

During the training, Christin Brink, an assistant principal for special education, thought to herself, “Wow, I need this just as much as the kids do.”

“Being a younger administrator in this role, it’s something new to me,” Brink added. “A lot of times I’ll have impostor syndrome, and I’ll make a choice that I later regret.”

If you find yourself having negative thoughts frequently, you’re not alone. There are evolutionary reasons for it.

“When we were cavemen, it was very important for us to be alert for danger,” Beck said. Preparing for the worst possible outcome helped people stay alive. Some worries — such as “I don’t have enough time to complete this project” — can motivate people to get things done, she said.

But lingering on what’s going wrong can be unhealthy. We sometimes filter out positive reinforcement, downplaying recognition we’ve received and overemphasising mistakes, said Kristene Doyle, director of the Albert Ellis Institute, a psychotherapy training organisation based in New York.

Practising your positive beliefs by saying them to yourself with force, vigour, and frequency can help you build a healthier thinking muscle, she said.

One of the first steps to reframing unhelpful thoughts is to identify those that are recurring in your mind. Examine whether they have any validity. What evidence is there to support them?

“Telling myself ‘I’m not good enough to be here’ is only going to lead me down a path of a self-fulfilling prophecy, and you make that worst-case scenario happen,” Doyle said. “What makes somebody good enough to be in the room? What makes somebody good enough to have a job?”

When someone is thinking they’re an impostor, “look for reasons why they’re not an impostor. What are their strengths? Why were they hired?” Doyle asked.

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For example, when high school teacher Catherine Mason of New York was asked to reexamine a section of her lesson plan, she had some damaging self-doubt.

“I just heard, ‘You’re a terrible teacher. You’re so bad at this. Why can’t you just get it?’ And that was all internal,” Mason said. Acting out of fear, she rewrote the entire lesson plan, when she only needed to make minor changes.

Now, instead of jumping to the worst conclusion, she pauses to examine the thought. “What did they actually say to you?” she asks herself. “Did they say the actual words, ‘You’re terrible?’ Did they actually say, ‘You have to throw out the whole lesson?’”

People who are thinking “I’m not good enough” can challenge that thought by asking, “What does ‘good enough’ actually mean?” Doyle suggested.

Some therapists get creative when working with clients to identify negative feelings or beliefs. Avigail Lev, a psychologist with the Bay Area CBT Centre in San Francisco, has clients write down the phrases, such as “They don’t value the work that I’m doing” or “I haven’t done enough to get a raise.”

After that, she leads clients through exercises to diffuse the strength of those thoughts, such as reading the sentences backward, counting the words in the statement, or writing the phrases on a cloud.

It can take time and practice to successfully reframe negative thoughts that have been replaying in our mind for years. When Renee Baker was studying architecture in college, professors and instructors frequently tore into her work. The critiques were designed to thicken her skin. But they had a lasting impact.

“There’s the self-doubt that comes with being told, literally, ‘You’re not good enough. Your ideas aren’t good enough. Your work isn’t good enough,’” said Baker, who’s now director of project management at Inform Studio, a design firm. “At the heart of a lot of my self-doubt is feeling like my voice, and what I think, what I believe, what I am passionate about, isn’t as important as the next person’s.”

So Baker worked with a therapist to challenge her damaging core beliefs, exchanging them for more neutral thoughts. At work, she practised speaking up even when her throat felt tight with anxiety. Over time, she became less anxious and more comfortable sharing her ideas.

You can get specific when you’re searching for alternative, healthier mantras.

“When we look at this sentence, ‘They don’t value the work that I’m doing,’ do you have any examples of when you felt your work was valued? Do you have examples of when people appreciated your work?” Lev asked.

You can also reframe your thoughts about other people who are part of your workday.

Eleanor Forbes, a social worker in Randolph Public Schools, helps teachers and administrators learn to apply CBT techniques. When staff members complain that a young person is being manipulative, she helps them reframe the thought. “How about we just say that this young person is just using survival skills?” she said.

Brink, the assistant principal, learned to reframe her own negative thoughts, saying to herself: “I made a lot of great choices today,” or “This was what went well,” and “Tomorrow we can try again with x, y and z.”

Having scripted phrases ready to go helps when negative thoughts resurface, she said.

“I’ve got this,” she tells herself. “One step at a time.”

With input from AP