Imposter Syndrome is a Conspiracy Theory About Yourself

In this post, I’ll take a break from my philosophical warbling about civility and talk about Imposter Syndrome.1

Imposter Syndrome is, roughly, the persistent fear that you are a ‘fraud’ and that others will eventually discover you do not belong. In particular, I want to explain why I think it’s so hard to deal with it and what strategies actually worked for me. This is because most strategies that people suggest either do nothing or risk backfiring and making things worse.

My core idea is this: Imposter Syndrome is sort of like believing a conspiracy theory about yourself. For example, if you say you succeeded because of hard work, the conspiracy-theorist mind replies: ‘Ah, that’s what they want you to think’. And if you’ve not been under a rock, you’ll know that debunking a conspiracy theory is extremely difficult. Once we understand this, we’ll make a lot more progress dealing with Imposter Syndrome. Like a conspiracy theory, Imposter Syndrome is infinitely flexible when it comes to accommodating criticism or counterevidence.

Before we get into some strategies, I want to explain what my experience with Imposter Syndrome has been like (and resist the temptation to make the joke that I’m not good enough to be an Imposter – whoops).

For context, I went to grad school in Oxford, which is probably the easiest place to feel like the dumbest person alive. In almost every social interaction I had, I felt like everyone was effortlessly intelligent, a font of witty remarks, and capable of spotting problems with my arguments way before I could even explain myself. To be sure, in my discipline (philosophy), there’s a cult of genius which I think is pretty damaging to people’s confidence. I don’t know who needs to hear it, but just because you don’t say something impressive every five seconds doesn’t mean you’re dumb.

Unfortunately, unless you have a good social support system and a great mentor, you might spend your time comparing yourself to people who externally present very well (though they might have Imposter Syndrome too). You’ll need to find a way to get through the psychological minefield of self-doubt because, once that sets in, it behaves exactly like a conspiracy theory – except in this case, the theory is about you.

So, without further ado, let’s look at some strategies.

When you say you’re feeling like an Imposter, people will often remind you about your various achievements. If this helps you, great. My experience is that this does not work for people who suffer from Imposter Syndrome. They typically downplay any of their successes as ‘flukes’ while thinking they are completely responsible for their failures. This might be totally irrational. You might point this out to them. But like a conspiracy theorist, an ‘Imposter’ will say:

‘But isn’t it possible that I just got lucky a bunch of times? You can’t rule out this possibility!’

Your use of this strategy will probably be met with this kind of response. So, let’s try something else.

This would likely get the same response as before coupled with the suspicion that it is almost certainly false. I’m not denying it can be helpful to know that others experience it, but conspiracizing thoughts will rear their head once more:

‘Maybe they think they’re Imposters, but I know that they aren’t.’

Side-note: Isn’t it weird that they’re oddly confident about others’ abilities but not their own?

To be fair, challenging the negative way you speak about yourself is a good idea. But a person with Imposter Syndrome will carve out an exception for themselves. They’ll say something like:

‘But maybe I’m just not good enough. Maybe I deserve to be snuffed out for the Imposter I am.’

If only it were so easy…

Ok, so reasoning and reassurance haven’t worked. So, what about reframing Imposter Syndrome as a good thing? I actually really like this strategy. I first read about it on Marcus Arvan’s blog The Philosopher’s Cocoon.

Here’s how it goes. When you’ve just started a difficult academic degree or career, it is just true that you are an Imposter. You’re a novice and that’s not a bad thing! The whole point of pursuing these degrees or careers is to learn how to do them. So, just because you don’t feel like you belong yet doesn’t mean you never will. In fact, if you instantly felt like you belonged, you’re either wasting your time or being a bit arrogant.

This strategy works if you have enough self-confidence to believe you’ll hone your abilities and prove yourself eventually. But it might not shake the nagging thought that maybe you’re the outlier – the one who never makes the grade. Maybe this smidgeon of self-doubt is intellectually useful, but if it snowballs even slightly, thinking of yourself as an Imposter for now might leave you wondering when you’ll ever stop being one.

I learned this one from the philosopher Rebecca Roache.2 It is deceptively simple but very powerful. Imagine your best friend came to you and said “I only got this job because I fooled everyone.” Would you say, “Yeah, probably”? Of course not. You’d say something like, “Don’t be ridiculous. You worked hard for this and you deserve to be here.”

And yet, when the roles are reversed, you don’t extend yourself the same kindness. Why? What makes you the special case? Why is it unacceptable to say things like this to your friend but acceptable to say it to yourself? (Hint: it doesn’t make sense)

Or does it? To be clear, I’m not saying that it is acceptable to torture yourself into thinking you’re a fraud. I’m saying it is understandable that we would do this. After all, we spend all our time in our own minds.

We know all of our half-baked ideas and silly dead-ends. We know all the mistakes we made along the way to a finished paper or project. We think, “Sure, I got that essay done, but I wasted so much time on dumb ideas. I’m sure someone else would have gotten there faster.” It’s probably wrong to think this, but you can’t help it.

Still though, I think this strategy is a big step in the right direction. It points out a moral inconsistency, rather than a rational one. That’s key.

Maybe five strategies was too many. In any case, here’s the one that finally helped me. When I call myself an imposter, I’m not just doubting myself – I’m also implying that everyone who believed in me is wrong. My supervisors, colleagues, friends, and family: all of them have made an error in judgment.

But that’s not humility. That’s arrogance wearing the mask of humility. To believe I alone can see the truth about my incompetence is, in a very real way, to disrespect everyone else’s ability to recognize competence.

So now, when I feel that familiar voice that tells me I don’t belong, I try to think about it as a question of trust. Do I trust the people who chose to work with me? Do I trust the institutions that accepted me? Yes, they’re not infallible, but they’re also not idiots. To treat their collective judgment as worthless is, frankly, an insult to them.

I owe it to others to believe what they say about me. That’s an act of respect.

Realizing this didn’t magically make Imposter Syndrome disappear. Sadly, I don’t think it can. But by reframing this as a moral point rather than something to ‘fix’ with affirmations, I see it now as a relationship to others which I can choose to cultivate differently.

Now, you might be wondering whether this moral reframing could help to deal with conspiracy theories more generally. Whether it’s doubting election results or doubting your own worth, I think the underlying pattern is the same: it’s a refusal to grant that others might actually know what they’re doing.

When it comes to the conspiracy about you, think about what your belief says about others. You might find you want to do right by them even if Imposter Syndrome isn’t letting you do right by yourself.3