Imposter Syndrome: When Self-Doubt Hides Your Strengths
Have you ever found yourself wondering, What am I doing here?
Maybe everyone else seems more qualified. More experienced. More confident.
Maybe you've accomplished something you're genuinely proud of, but a little voice whispers that you were lucky. Or that sooner or later, someone is going to discover you don't know nearly as much as they think you do.
We often call those feelings imposter syndrome. And I suspect most of us have experienced some version of it.
I certainly have.
Years ago, when Gary and I first began the work that would eventually become Perceptual Style Theory™, I found myself questioning whether I really belonged in the conversation.
Gary had a PhD, academic training, and clinical experience. I didn't have those credentials.
What I did have was years of experience in business and organizational life, a lifelong fascination with human behavior, and a deep curiosity about why people could experience exactly the same situation and walk away with completely different interpretations.
Gary and I were arriving at many of the same questions and insights from very different directions.
But in those early days, it was easy for me to look at his credentials and wonder whether my observations carried the same weight.
Gary helped me see that they did.
His encouragement, combined with my excitement about the work we were doing, helped me find my equilibrium. As I continued using my natural ability to observe patterns, make connections, and explore possibilities, my confidence grew.
So did the talent itself.
That's the thing about natural talent. It may be innate, but it grows richer and stronger the more we use it. And our confidence in it grows as we begin to see what it allows us to do.
Ironically, the very fact that something comes naturally can make it harder to recognize as a talent at all.
When Easy Makes Us Doubt Our Value
I think this may be one path into imposter thinking that we don't talk about very often.
We discount what comes naturally.
We readily recognize something another person does as impressive, difficult, or highly specialized. But when we do something naturally, without enormous effort, we shrug it off.
That's nothing. I just do that.
Exactly.
Our natural strengths are so much a part of how we experience the world that they can become almost invisible to us.
And when we don't recognize their value, it's easy to look at someone else's strengths, credentials, or accomplishments and conclude that they have something we don't.
When Hard Makes Us Doubt Our Ability
My corporate career taught me about another path into imposter thinking.
Strategy came naturally to me. I could see where we needed to go, recognize possibilities, anticipate obstacles, and figure out how the pieces might fit together.
Detailed planning was another story.
I could do it. Eventually, I became quite good at it. But I had to work at it.
Learning to create the detailed plans necessary to support my strategies made the strategies themselves better and richer. It was an important skill, and I'm glad I developed it.
It also exhausted me.
Because of my work with Perceptual Style Theory, I understood what was happening. Detailed planning was an acquired skill for me rather than a natural talent.
Knowing that changed the way I saw the experience.
Instead of thinking, Why is this so much harder for me than it seems to be for someone else?, I could appreciate what I'd learned to do.
I could also recognize the wisdom of working with people who were naturally talented at the very things that required more effort from me.
That's another place where imposter thoughts can sneak in.
You may have worked hard to become accomplished at something. Then you encounter someone who seems to do the same thing effortlessly.
Suddenly you question yourself.
Maybe I'm not really that good at this.
You know how much concentration it takes you. You remember your mistakes. You know where you're uncertain.
But you're comparing your internal experience—all the effort, uncertainty, and struggle—with someone else's outward performance.
You don't see what happens inside them.
And even if what you're observing does come more naturally to them, that doesn't diminish what you've accomplished.
There's a strange contradiction here.
Sometimes we discount our natural talents because they're easy.
Then we discount our acquired skills because they're hard.
That doesn't leave us much room to win, does it?
Maybe We Don't Need to Silence the Voice
Years ago, I read a description of negative thinking that has stayed with me: the bad roommate in your head.
You know the one.
You're not ready.
Everybody else knows more than you do.
Who do you think you are?
Our instinct may be to argue with that voice or try to replace the negative thought with a positive one.
But I'm increasingly interested in another response.
Curiosity.
Instead of accepting the thought — or fighting with it—what if you simply asked:
Why did that thought show up right now?
That creates just enough space between the thought and the conclusion to get curious about what's really happening.
Am I discounting something I do naturally because it feels ordinary to me?
Am I comparing the effort required for one of my acquired skills with someone else's apparent ease?
Am I confusing credentials with capability?
Am I comparing everything I know about my own uncertainty and mistakes with someone else's outward performance?
Or is my discomfort pointing to something I genuinely don't know yet?
Because sometimes the answer really is, I need to learn more.
That's not being an imposter.
That's being human.
Self-Doubt Isn't Always the Problem
I'm not sure our goal should be to eliminate self-doubt.
A little uncertainty can keep us curious. It can motivate us to learn, prepare, ask questions, and seek out people whose strengths complement our own.
The trouble comes when we turn uncertainty into a verdict about ourselves.
I'm uncertain about this becomes I'm not good enough.
This is difficult for me becomes I don't belong here.
She does this more easily than I do becomes She's better than I am.
Maybe that's the moment to get curious rather than judgmental.
What am I comparing?
What am I overlooking?
What comes so naturally to me that I've stopped recognizing it as a strength?
What have I worked hard to learn that I should give myself some credit for?
And is there something here that I genuinely want — or need — to get better at?
Before you accept self-doubt as evidence that you don't belong, get curious about what's behind it.
You may be discounting what comes naturally.
Or failing to give yourself credit for what didn't.
Both are worth recognizing.
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