Imposter Syndrome: From Self-Doubt to Self-Trust

Kristen: Welcome to Love and Leadership, the podcast that helps you lead with both your head and your heart, plus a bit of humor. I'm Kristen Brun Sharkey, a leadership coach and facilitator.

Mike: And I'm Mike Sharkey, a senior living and hospitality executive. We're a couple of leadership nerds who also happen to be a couple.


Kristen: Join us each week as we share our unfiltered opinions, break down influential books, and interview inspiring guests.


Mike: Whether you're a seasoned executive or a rising star, we're here to help you level up your leadership game and amplify your impact.

Kristen: \ Hello, and welcome back to Love and Leadership. I'm Kristen, and as you can hear in my voice, Mike and I have both been taken out by sickness for the past week or so. So, rather than subject you to our sick voices for a full episode, we're doing something a little bit different this week. International Women's Day is coming up in a few weeks on March 8th.

And we're going to share a talk I actually did last year as part of IWD for Google's Women Techmakers. This is all about imposter syndrome and how improv can help you with it. If you've listened to our imposter syndrome episode, there will be a few familiar components, but it's a bit of a different lens and all about supporting women and their careers.

So I hope you enjoy it. We will be back next week with a regular episode. And until then, stay healthy, everyone. 

Hello, everyone. Um, I am Kristen Brun Sharkey and I'm so happy to be here celebrating International Women's Day with all of you.

A little bit about me before we kind of jump into the content. Um, I am a leadership coach and facilitator. I primarily work with leaders in the tech industry. And that's because prior to doing this full time, I spent 15 years leading various teams in advertising tech and marketing. And I worked everywhere from a 10 person startup where I was the only woman for a good chunk of the time I was there to fortune 100 corporations like Yahoo and Verizon.

So I'm going to talk So I relate a lot to the challenges that women in tech go through. And it also happens to be my favorite group of people to work with. Also, I'm based in the San Francisco Bay area and I'm an avid improviser, which means that I regularly perform in front of audiences without a script, making up everything based on the work of my fellow performers in a single word of suggestion that we get from the audience, which sounds insane.

I'm aware. for most people. But you'll be hearing more about improv throughout this talk. Now, let's talk about imposter syndrome. If you experience imposter syndrome, you've probably had thoughts that look something like this. Like, I don't know enough to speak up, I don't deserve this opportunity, why am I in this room, what if they find out that I'm not qualified, I have no idea what I'm doing, and etc, etc.

Imposter syndrome is fundamentally the experience of self doubt, inadequacy, and incompetence. despite contradictory evidence like promotions, job opportunities, and other clear successes. And if you experience, you are definitely not alone. And you are also certainly not destined for failure. In fact, a KPMG study showed that 75 percent of women executives reported that they've experienced imposter syndrome in their careers.

I think actually really there's only one group that I'm completely positive, does not get imposter syndrome, and it's cats. So, if you, if you need some inspiration throughout your, your journey, you can always look to your feline friends.

Now, there are five types of imposters that show up in imposter syndrome. This is all according to research done by Dr. Valerie Young, and you may experience one or even all of these. It might be very situational or context based, but, but these are the ways that it, it tends to show up. So the first is the perfectionist who sets incredibly high standards and really focuses on how the work is done and making sure it turns out perfect.

The expert is focused on always knowing the answers and really being the go to person for their field. So they feel like they need to know all the answers to every question that should be asked of them. The soloist wants to show that they can do everything themselves, and they feel like if they have to ask for help, it means that they're a fraud.

The natural genius is determined not only to complete everything perfectly, but also do so easily and quickly, like getting it on the first try. So it's not just being able to do the work, it's, it's how you do it and being able to flawlessly execute it. And then the superhuman is focused on successfully juggling all these multiple roles without dropping any balls.

And they will work more hours than anyone else to prove themselves. So, there's a very good chance that you identify with at least one of these. But you might ask, why does it matter? I mean, you might think that part of your recipe for success has been some of these thoughts, right? Well, it turns out that there are a lot of costs to unchecked imposter syndrome, from not speaking up in cases where your opinion really needs to be heard, to getting passed over for promotions, to sabotaging your own career success.

So it is something that's really important to be aware of and understand its impact on you, in order to progress in your career.

So what can we do about it? The, the key to handling imposter syndrome is not to try to bury it and pretend it doesn't exist. But to learn to anticipate the thoughts and feelings and ultimately reduce their power. You can start to do this by keeping a methodical list of your accomplishments, for example, sharing your fears with others and celebrating your wins.

Imposter syndrome is something that I used to struggle with a lot of my career, and it still rears its head sometimes, like when I change careers or like starting a business or when I do something that I have a lot less experience with. But at this point, I have a lot of tools to manage it and to keep it from letting me sabotage myself.

And a lot of those started seven years ago when I decided on a whim to take an improv class. I found myself taking another class and then another and before long I was completely hooked on it.

This picture is apparently very grainy because I, it's from 2017 and I guess cell phone cameras have improved this much in seven years. But, um, this is from March, 2017. This is when I was pulled on stage for my first improv performance, just a few months of after starting my classes and I had. No idea how much of an influence it was going to be on my life and my career.

Improv first got me hooked because it was just incredibly fun. And I love the community and I learned to love performing as well. But after a while I realized it was having this impact on how I show up at work as well. I was more confident. I was able to speak on the fly more clearly without getting flustered.

I had greater self awareness and empathy, and I just felt like I was more present in the moment on an everyday basis. And I felt more creative than I had been since I was a child. All of this really helped me tremendously with managing my imposter syndrome.

So, there are five lessons from improv I want to share with you that have helped me the most with my imposter syndrome. Now, if you've heard anything about improv, you've probably heard of the concept of yes and. Which means that you accept what your teammates have put forth, and then you also add your own contribution to it.

So if you miss something important as an improviser, like, for example, your scene partner has stated that you're in a school classroom and then you say that you're actually on the International Space Station, it's going to be a lot harder to create a coherent scene. So that means that to be a good improviser, it's essential to know how to be present in the moment, listening closely and not allowing your inner judge to take over.

This skill set also keeps you more present in the moment in general, and it makes you a lot less likely to dwell on your past mistakes or anticipate future failures. The key to this is that you don't need to do much to start growing these skills. It's great if you want to start a two hour a day meditation practice.

Great. I'm sure it will have a ton of benefits for you, but that is entirely unnecessary. You can really just start with moments of mindfulness once or twice a day while you're waiting for people to join your zoom call or while you're getting your coffee or whatnot. Just those, those few moments at a time can make a huge difference.

And I'll share an exercise at the end of this that you can use for this as well. If you don't already have a go to mindfulness exercise.

The next one is embracing your mistakes. And I, I caveat all of this, which I am a,

so I have had a lot of issues with failure. It's something that I really have struggled with in my life. It's fear of failure. But what's amazing is that in beginner improv classes, we actually celebrate anytime someone in the class makes a mistake, which is a little jarring at first as, A recovering perfectionist, but, but why is that?

Well, in improv, mistakes are considered to be gifts, if used appropriately. But also, making mistakes often enough trains your brain that it's okay to take risks. There's nothing quite as powerful as knowing deep down that whatever is thrown at you, on stage, at work, in life, You'll figure out a way to handle it.

That deep faith in yourself is the number one antidote to imposter syndrome. So how do you start building that up? Well, you do it by failing a lot, because just like so many things, learning how to deal with failure is a muscle. The more experience you have with it, the better prepared you'll be to face it in the future.

Of course, you don't want to just screw something up important just for the sake of learning how to fail, right? The, the key here is lowering the stakes and providing yourself with an environment where it's safe for you to take some risks. And by getting that practice in taking risks and failing and seeing the world not end and learning how to deal with it repeatedly, you'll actually help yourself learn how to succeed when it really matters.

Improv exercises are a great way to start practicing this and learn to accept your mistakes and failures in an environment where it doesn't have lasting consequences. But you can also do things like create a brainstorming group with a set of coworkers that you feel comfortable with and truly practice the idea that there are no bad ideas during that session.

The idea is to create a safe space where it's okay to be creative and take risks and Nothing bad will really happen as a result.

Now, one of my favorite quotes is from Ginny Rometty, who's the former president and CEO of IBM. She says, Growth and comfort never coexist. And I love this because it's so true. And an improv comfort is not found in the predictable. It's actually really found more into the unpredictability of it. Like every moment that you're on stage is just this uncharted territory.

And the beauty lies in embracing that uncertainty. So when we transfer this comfort with discomfort into our daily tasks, Imposter syndrome loses its power. Embracing discomfort means viewing each new challenge as an improv scene. So there's, there's no failure. There's just unexpected plot twists that you are fully capable of navigating.

It's about trusting in your abilities to adapt and create. Even when the path isn't clear, distrust is an antidote to imposter syndrome. It's acknowledging that feeling out of place doesn't mean you don't belong, and it simply means that you are growing. The key to repeatedly doing activities is, or the key to this is repeatedly doing activities that make you somewhat uncomfortable, but aren't so overwhelming that you don't feel safe.

I strongly recommend creating a list of these kinds of activities and situations and challenge yourself to slowly tackle each one of them on a recurring basis. With practice, you might find that the butterflies in your stomach never really go away, but you'll walk into each uncertain situation far more confident in your ability to handle it.

Next, in improv, we have a saying called follow your feet. So most of the time, not all improvisers in a group will actively be in a scene at once. And the people who aren't are usually on the sidelines, just waiting for an opportunity to get in. add support to it or to start something new. And often you can just see an improviser struggle where an idea pops into their head and they lean forward to jump into the scene.

But then just before they do it, their inner judge kicks in and questions whether their idea is good enough. They hesitate. The body pulls back. back and then the moment is lost. And this happens all the time in the workplace as well. Um, if you've ever been in a meeting where you've had a thought and went to speak up and then second guess yourself, thought maybe it wasn't smart enough or it was something you should have known already, then you have experienced the work equivalent of this.

The, the key to this is to trust your body and to trust your instincts. Your first response is usually the best one because it's from your gut, it's authentic, and it's probably also the most relatable one for other people. You also don't need to worry if it seems like it's too obvious a response.

because often it's either not obvious to other people, or for the people who also thought the same thing, they also assume it's obvious. So then nobody said this thing that people would really benefit from hearing from. To help with this, you can focus on being more aware of what your initial responses are and how your inner judge might shut them down.

And the mindfulness practice will help a lot with this as well. Then you can ask yourself, um, Does your inner judge have a valid point here? So for example, if the response that pops into your head is potentially offensive to others, great. That is your inner judge doing its job. So you can not say it, but you can also ask, is it just shutting it down out of fear and the more awareness of this you have, the more you'll be able to express yourself authentically and have more confidence in yourself.

Finally, we come to play. In improv, play is the undercurrent of every scene. It's not just about eliciting laughs, even though a lot of people assume that's the case. It's really about exploring possibilities without the fear of judgment, and allowing ideas to bounce and grow in unexpected directions. As adults, so much of our sense of play is conditioned out of us.

But it still has an important role to play in our lives and our work. When we rekindle our sense of play to our work, we bring this lightness to problem solving. We encourage innovation by permitting ourselves to ask, what if, and why not? So for example, you can take a current project or a challenge that you're facing and dedicate some time to looking at it through a playful lens.

Ask yourself, what would a child do to approach this? What wild out of the box solutions might they come up with? Allow yourself to doodle, daydream, build ideas out of a silly or impractical notion. The key here is not to find an immediate solution, but to allow yourself the freedom to explore without the constraints of right and wrong.

And when you let play infuse your work, you'll find that the imposter syndrome script loosens. You're not just an adult doing a serious job. You're an innovator, a creator, somebody who brings their whole self with all of its creative potential to the table.

Now, I'm going to introduce you to a couple of exercises that you can do on your own to start building these skills. These are just going to be a brief overview, but actually at the end of this talk, I will give you a link to download these and 10 additional improv based exercises that you can do completely on your own.

So the first one is a simple mindfulness practice, and it's one of my favorites. So I'll, I'll tell you how this works, and then we can actually just do a couple breaths together. So you start in a quiet location, close your eyes if you're able to, and then you're going to basically breathe in deeply over a period of four seconds.

You can count in your head or you can use an app to keep time if you prefer. You'll hold your breath for seven seconds and then you'll exhale slowly, making it last for eight seconds. Try not to let your breath whoosh out at once, even though it can take some practice to do that. And then I usually recommend repeating this five or six times, but you can even just do it for a breath or two before a meeting.

So let's try this together just for a couple of breaths. So go ahead and breathe all the way out, and then breathe in 2, 3, 4, hold 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and then breathe out slowly 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and then let's do one more. So breathe in, 2, 3, 4, hold, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. Release, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. Hopefully you find that you're feeling a lot more centered after doing that, and it's really just a great way to bring yourself into the present moment.

This next exercise is an improv based one that helps you make mistakes and be imperfect in a safe way, as well as starting to trust your authentic reactions. So, for example, you can pick a random letter of the alphabet. and a topic that you feel okay speaking on. You really don't have to overthink this.

And then you start to discuss the topic and you begin the first word with the letter that you chose. Then try to start each subsequent sentence with the next letter of the alphabet until you've worked all the way back to the letter that you started with. So just to give you an example of So if I say that I want to talk about weather in San Francisco, I might start with the letter D and say that days like this are sunny.

Every other day has been cloudy recently. Fog is something that we face frequently. And so on and so forth until you get through the alphabet. And this can be really difficult and it's really easy to just get yourself stuck in your head and just stop and have a really long pause. The key to this is just to go as quickly as you can, like, eliminate that pause between.

Don't judge yourself. Don't hesitate. Like, don't, don't overthink your sentence. It doesn't have to make that much sense. And making mistakes is expected in this kind of exercise. Actually, really required. So then once you do this, you can just repeat it one more time. And if you do this regularly, It's going to help you so much with learning to make mistakes and think more quickly, and really trust your instinct.

Just remember that the key is to let yourself make the mistakes. You can also do this with a partner or a group of people by taking turns. So I do one sentence, my partner does the next sentence and so forth. So as we come up towards the end of our time together, I want to leave you with a few things to remember.

You are not alone if you experience imposter syndrome. Being present in the moment is the foundation of all of these things. Your authentic reaction is usually going to be the best one. The more you practice with trying new things and failing, the easier it gets. And finally, practice these skills, because they're important.

Any practice is better than none. Please also connect with me on LinkedIn and keep in touch with me in general. I would love to continue this discussion with you. All right. Thank you, everyone. The Love and Leadership Podcast is produced and co-hosted by me, Kristen Brun Sharkey and co-hosted by Mike Sharkey. Please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever else you get your podcasts. We can't stress enough just how much these reviews help. You can follow us on LinkedIn under Kristen Brun Sharkey and Michael Sharkey, and on Instagram as loveleaderpod.

You can also find more information on our website, loveandleadershippod.com. Thank you so much for listening, and we'll see you again next week.