21 Ways to Alleviate Imposter Syndrome

Imposter Syndrome.

Have you ever felt it: that deep rumbling of self-doubt?

Have you felt that fear of failure, of being “found out” and of everyone knowing that you aren’t really as amazing as your LinkedIn page might lead them to believe?

I’ve felt this way at different points over the years and I’ve known many others who admit to these feelings. Research once thought it was a phenomenon exclusive to women. Now, it seems many demographics share this particular kind of anxiety.

The gravest consequence of imposter syndrome isn’t the personal anxiety, it’s the paralysis that the anxiety engenders. The “logic” in your head goes something like this: “If I try and fail, everyone will know I’m a fraud, so let’s do nothing.”

How do we as fundraisers and professionals move past imposter syndrome and start giving ourselves the credit we deserve? How do we begin to own our expertise and use it in positive action?

I’ve been working on this blog post for years, though I didn’t know it.

I was doing research for this blog post when I had many breakdowns in college from running myself into the ground in the name of achievement, afraid to “let everybody down”.

I was figuring out strategies for this blog post when I was passed over for a promotion when I was 27 and I thought I had “failed my family” which at the time was just myself and my husband.

And I was testing solutions for imposter syndrome, as I clawed my way back to normalcy after battling postpartum depression. I felt that old familiar feeling, in the guise of being exposed as a “bad mother”.

For me, achievement and confidence have often come at the price of near-paralyzing self-doubt, anxiety and fear of failure. My job now is to try and keep the awesome and give up the unnecessary shitty feelings that have come with it in the past.

I conquered this fear when I applied for a job with the title Vice President for Advancement despite not having any six figure major gift experience yet. And then I got that job.

I conquer this fear whenever I take time to do some yoga and tend to my state of mind first, before tending to deadlines.

And I conquer this fear every time I post on this blog, since I am positioning myself as an expert in this field.

The older I get the less I care about what other people think. And amazingly I am also slowly losing that frantic worried feeling that comes with being an overachiever. I know I can and will get things done and carrying around the baggage of stressing about it is pointless. I have more confidence that I always come through for myself and my family when it matters. These are very good developments.

So, what strategies have I found useful as I battled imposter syndrome? The variety of specific tactics fall nicely into 3 broader categories: mindset, environment and action. The majority of my suggestions focus on mindset but it is also important to manage your environment and media. And most importantly, to truly defeat imposter syndrome you must take action. Let’s dive in.

MINDSET

• Get comfortable with discomfort. One thing a regular yoga and meditation practice has taught me is that there is value in learning to be comfortable in uncomfortable positions. Let yourself feel the negative feelings and let them move through you and then -- away. Basically, you do *your* work (on your own mindset) so that you can then do the work before you.
• Identify yourself as something. Don’t tell yourself that you are “working in fundraising” or “training to become a fundraiser”. Just call yourself a fundraiser. State it as a fact. Same goes for hobbies. I’m a yogi, a runner, and a dancer. I’m not learning how to do it. I’m doing it. Identify strongly with what you are doing and you’ll live up to the practice of it. Whereas you reinforce your unworthiness to yourself each time you saying you are “trying to be” something. Don't try. Do.
• Always remember "perfect is the enemy of the good". Don't let paralysis take over. It sounds cliché but those of us that are perfectionists can drown ourselves in avoidance because things won't be perfect. “Nothing ventured, nothing gained” is another good version of this sentiment.
• Don’t leave the field to those with no humility. While, as I mentioned, imposter syndrome isn’t limited to women, most of the time when I see someone expressing this feeling, it is a woman. Part of my getting over my imposter syndrome was the realization that men will apply for a job if they meet only three of the qualifications. Women will wait until they have all of them. This perpetuates men getting higher level positions because they are willing to take risks. I'm not leaving the field to men just because of my insecurity. Regardless of gender, if anyone who has enough humility to recognize where they can grow never puts their name in, only those with unrestrained bravado will get executive level positions.
• Take time for self-care. “Self-care” has become a buzzword in this day and age. It’s certainly means something different for every person. For me, self-care means taking decisive and daily steps to prevent burn-out. Burnout and job overwhelm, for me, is closely related to imposter syndrome. When I get to the point where I feel like the demands are too much and I might miss something important, the fraudulent feelings arise. Some folks might need to take a vacation or mental health days occasionally. For me, it’s about doing the smaller scale self-care steps every single day: eating healthy, yoga, meditation, running, and dance. Experiment and figure out how to care for you so you don’t get completely overwhelmed. Self-care is mindset management.
• Deeply internalize that your qualities matter more than your skills. I've also been on the hiring side of many interview processes and I can tell you ABSOLUTELY that attitude and resourcefulness is FAR more important than skills. You might doubt your skills. But, owning a positive attitude and your ability to be trainable should require a huge leap of faith for anyone. Just submit the application and see what happens. Let the employer decide if you are "qualified" or not. Push your self judgement off on the folks who should be doing the evaluation, the hiring manager. Don’t disqualify yourself.
• Remember who you might be influencing. It also helps me move when I'm stalled to think about what I want to teach my kids through my own behavior. Would I want my daughter to get hung up on feeling not worthy and therefore not take actions and risk? I preach to her to take risks all the time. When I'm confronted with my own desire to avoid risks, I tell myself it's an opportunity to teach through showing now. Even if you don’t have children, you are surely an inspiration to someone. Are you showing them positive possibilities?
• Acknowledging luck or grace doesn’t invalidate YOU! It’s true that sometimes you get a large anonymous gift or an unexpected bequest that helps you reach your goal, but those occurrences should never invalidate your contribution to the accomplishment. Recognizing the role of grace or luck shouldn’t erase your value. You have no way of knowing how far your efforts reach. Who’s to say that the large anonymous donation wasn’t motivated by someone having read your copy? Who knows whether your work will initiate a gift that will unexpectedly bless the organization 20 years from now? Give yourself some grace. 
• Realize that NO ONE has it all figured out. A friend of mine wrote me this about her experience with imposter syndrome, “What helped me the most, was actually seeing how others around me in leadership roles also didn't have the answers. I finally realized that we are all making it up as we go. At first that was scary, because I wanted to have someone to go to, but then it gave me confidence. There isn't some "secret" that I don't know, or these people aren't better or smarter than me.” So true.

ENVIRONMENT

• Keep a bullet journal. Here’s an introduction to what bullet journaling is. I was skeptical at first but all of the smartest people I know were obsessed with bullet journaling. I starting using a bullet journal a little more than a year ago and now I don’t understand how I lived so long without it. I wrote about it on my blog because I was so impressed with the process after only a month. The bullet journal allows me to put all my eggs in one basket. I have my work schedule, to-dos, my kid’s activities, my monthly budget, extended family obligations, and my daily goals and habits all in one book. I also fill in blank pages with doodles, drawings and inspirational quotes. I can look back at past journals to see how far I’ve progressed and remind myself of what I’m working toward. It’s a therapeutic practice, a productivity hack and it helps remind me to get in my self-care (healthy diet, exercise, yoga, and meditation).
• Post your mantras. I’ve written about my favorite fundraising mantra elsewhere. Another sign I have had in my office for a long time is a quote from a Prince song, Baby I’m a Star: “They say, baby, nothing comes too easy. But, when you got it, baby, nothing comes too hard.” At first, it just got me jazzed up to accomplish my goal, but over time it became a reminder of all of the other goals that had come before. Clearly, it wasn’t a coincidence that I was involved in all of those stories. 
• Keep your “happy” file. I have friend who calls his file the “Killin’ it!” file. Whatever you call it, this is where you store all of the heartfelt thank you notes from co-workers and donors. It’s where you go when you feel like you aren’t up to the task and that you haven’t accomplished much. You might find a note from a person you mentored thanking you because they got their first job. Keep a folder in your email software for this purpose and a hard copy file too. Reference it often for a pick-me-up.
• Consume self-help books. I’ve been addicted to self-help books since I was little girl. My mom taught me that just about any problem could be solved (or at least alleviated) through a book. Today, I listen to many of them on audiobook through a free library app. I like the really cheesy, hippy-dippy ones with lots of information about affirmations and visualization. I try to keep my critical, academic mind out of it when I read/listen to these books. These books help me to counter the voices in my head. If I want a dish to be sweeter, I add sugar. If I want my headspace to be more positive, I fill it with lots of positivity!
• Take a social media vacation: Remove the apps from your phone. Don’t log-on except for work purposes. Don’t get distracted when using it for work purposes. I’ve done this before for a week and it was revelatory. I had so much time to be productive in other ways and I felt more “at-home” in myself and my world. This is a way to help beat imposter syndrome because while you are on your vacay, you won’t see that acquaintance from college that recently cured cancer and won the Pulitzer the same week. Take a break from watching other people’s highlight reels and you’ll feel better about your own life. The YOLO (you only live once) and FOMO (fear of missing out) feelings are related to imposter syndrome because they (wrongly) make us feel like our lives are not as real or exciting as others.
• Limit your overall media exposure: Tim Ferriss calls it a “low information diet” or “selective ignorance”.  I don’t have cable in my house, only Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime. For a long-time, I didn’t have any magazines in my house. I still don’t have any fashion magazines in my house. I only get my news from carefully selected sources that I follow on Facebook. Control how news and media gets to you. This keeps your mindset more positive (let’s face it, the news today is almost never good). When you limit your media, you also limit the amount of advertising you are exposed to, which means you will stop those engineered feelings of lack from closing in on you. I can personally attest that you’ll be more satisfied with your life and what you have right now.

TAKE ACTION

• Teach others what you know. There’s nothing more nerve-wracking than teaching what you know. There’s also nothing more satisfying than teaching what you know. Before I started training others, I wasn’t fully aware of exactly how much I knew about fundraising. Teaching is a great opportunity to move through your fear and thereby to demonstrate to yourself your expertise. Furthermore, you get to help others. Getting a thank you note from someone is the very best thing about teaching. (Add it to your “happy file”.) Teaching also puts you in a mindset of service, which gets you out of your own head and outside of your doubts.
• Take a course or get certified. Another friend, who is a professional photographer, had this to say, “I am a naturally very confident person and I still felt it quite a bit at the beginning of running my own business. I addressed it through completing a course on basic small business principles and management, becoming a Certified Professional Photographer (since my degrees were not specialized in photography) and doing continuing education every year to get better and better.” I’ve written about applying for my Certified Fundraising Executive credential (CFRE) and about the challenges I encountered taking the CFRE exam. But overall, it was worth it. I learned a ton and I’m part of an elite group of professionals, which reminds me that I’m the real deal. 
• Work on your body language.  Amy Cuddy has a phenomenal TED talk about this topic. Working on your body language can completely change your mindset, confidence and feelings of mastery. Take 20 minutes to watch her talk and implement her suggestions.
• Enter a competition. Here’s another great idea from my photographer friend, “I also enter image competitions yearly. It's a great learning experience to hear judges hash it out over your image. Overcoming imposter syndrome is all about identifying your weaknesses and facing fear.” Why not enter a CASE competition so that your work can be evaluated and hopefully validated? You shouldn’t live for this sort of external validation but if you can look at competing a platform to specifically identify your weaknesses so that you can grow, do it!
• Outrun your mind. Take action so quickly and so much of it that you don't have time to listen to the doubting voice in your head. By the time you catch up, you will have likely disproven that voice. I’ve done this many times. When the idea hits you, do it now. Don’t give the worry and doubt a foot in the door. Apply for a job that you don’t “feel” qualified for. Write an email to a potential mentor and press send before you talk yourself out of it. Start a blog and post about it on your Facebook page. Whatever you fear doing, is probably the area where you could have the greatest impact.
• Read this from Neil Gaiman: If you’ve implemented all of the ideas above and you still feel like a fraud about to be exposed, read what Neil Gaiman has to say about the subject.

This is a journey of self-validation. Change your mindset. Manage your environment. Then, take meaningful action. Do not give in to intellectual or professional paralysis. You have something important to give the world.

Fight through the feelings and do what only you can uniquely do.

It’s worth it.

YOU are worth it.

Have you tried any of these suggestions? Are there other strategies to counter imposter syndrome that I missed?

Comments and questions are, as always, welcomed and encouraged!

Cheers,

Jessica Cloud

PS – If you liked this post, you might also like these:

• Why I love being a fundraiser: Resiliency
• Sowing and Reaping
• Hey you, you are amazing
• Fundraising is an amazing career choice
• Breaking through your direct mail writer’s block

PPS - If you found this article helpful, please comment and let me know. Also subscribe to Real Deal Fundraising so you don't miss a post! You'll get my guide to Call Center Games for Free!​​ And don't forget to visit my store for transformative training and consulting products!

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