Table of Contents
- 🤠 Take control of your imposter syndrome with Alice ter Haar
- 🔮 Recognition is the first step to overcoming imposter syndrome
- 🧑🤝🧑 You are absolutely not alone
- 🧠 ‘You are the sum total of everything you’ve ever seen, heard, eaten, smelled, been told, forgot – it’s all there’ – Maya Angelou
- 🐍 Meet The Shitty Committee
Read time: 5 minutes
🤠 Take control of your imposter syndrome with Alice ter Haar
On Tuesday afternoon, Alice ter Haar took to the virtual stage for the first TMM webinar of 2023. What followed was an hour of pure energy and positivity that set the community chat on fire.
Alice runs Badass Unicorn – a professional training and development company that could help you to unlock the best version of yourself. She’s worked with some incredible brands and has run workshops on how to silence your inner critic for thousands of people.
As Joe rightly said at the start of the talk, it’s not necessarily a lack of competence that plagues the marketing industry, but more like a lack of confidence. Alice provided a whistle stop tour of imposter syndrome: what it is, why it exists, how it manifests, and how we can reframe it.
If you’ve ever struggled with feeling like a fraud, carve out an hour and get involved with Alice’s highly interactive session. 🦄 Expect singing, dancing, unicorns, emojis, tips, tricks and more! 🦄
If you’re short on time, read on for the key things you need to know about imposter syndrome and how to take control of it.
🔮 Recognition is the first step to overcoming imposter syndrome
The term ‘imposter syndrome’ was first defined by Clance and Imes in 1978 and they described it as ‘an experience of inadequacy that persists despite evident success’.
It’s not someone feeling unsure of themselves when they’re first starting out – that’s normal.
Imposter syndrome is when, despite us having trophies and accolades, we still don’t feel enough. It’s that one mistake we hang onto and it can look like chronic self-doubt, a sense of intellectual fraud, difficulty recognising praise, or fearing you won’t meet expectations.
Alice pointed out a flaw in the Clance and Imes definition, which is that sometimes, despite previous success, we can be unsuccessful at things. We can fail. And failure looks different for everyone. Whether it’s getting a demotion, being made redundant, or not getting as many likes as someone else on social media. We won’t succeed at everything, but that doesn’t mean we’re frauds. So, Alice tweaked Clance & Imes’ definition to include these times; ‘Imposter syndrome is an experience of inadequacy that unfairly warps your self-worth.’
🧑🤝🧑 You are absolutely not alone
So many people suffer from imposter syndrome. In fact, on the webinar, Alice asked the TMM community to share how often they experience feeling inadequate.
- 50% of the audience said weekly
- 30% said daily
- 19% said monthly
- 2% said rarely
- And of the 367 marketing folk on the call, a whopping 0% said never.
It’s important to remember that everyone can feel this way and you are not alone.
🧠 ‘You are the sum total of everything you’ve ever seen, heard, eaten, smelled, been told, forgot – it’s all there’ – Maya Angelou
Like your best personality trait, and your worst habits, your imposter syndrome is made up of all the things that make you, you! Sometimes it can help you and protect you, and other times it might hinder and distress you.
In order to take control, it can be helpful to understand some of the places it might have grown from. Basically, what causes imposter syndrome?
Alice outlined 4 key drivers below:
Appreciating the role of these four drivers can allow us to begin to understand where our feelings of inadequacy might be coming from. The next step is to then recognise how those feelings might be manifesting for you.
🤓 It’s time to get to know your imposter archetype
Many of us create audience archetypes and customer personas to help us to make sense of who we’re talking to across our marketing efforts. We can view taking control of our imposter syndrome in a similar way. Alice shared 4 imposter archetypes, and a little bit of an insight as to how they manifest. Which two of these resonate most with you?
Once you have identified our behaviours, next time we see them showing up, we can try to acknowledge that this could be our imposter coming to life.
🐍 Meet The Shitty Committee
So, we know who our imposter is and we can recognise how it manifests. Now it’s time to take action and reframe our thoughts and feelings. Alice introduced us to The Shitty Committee™. The Shitty Committee is what Alice likes to call her imposter syndrome, and she’s very happy for you to do the same.
Skip to 34:15 on the playback to get involved with Alice’s exercise to help you reframe your insecurities and take control of your imposter syndrome.
In a nutshell:
1. Write a list of situations where your imposter comes to life.
2. Write a list of the negative things you say to yourself during those situations.
3. Write a list of the things you can say back. Things like – ‘you’ve got so much to be proud of’.
Below are some of Alice’s examples.
Alice shared so many golden nuggets of information throughout her presentation. Here are her parting words on how you can take control of your imposter syndrome:
- Recognise it – feel the fear and do it anyway.
- Visualise it – draw it and give it a name. Make your imposter tangible.
- Celebrate it – create a habit of recognising your wins. You could make a list, or create a smile/achievements folder.
- Strengthen it – figure out your area of genius. Find what makes you happy at work and build more of that into your day.
And those are your takeaways! Find Alice on Linkedin here.