The Great Pretender

“Man often becomes what he believes himself to be. If I keep on saying to myself that I cannot do a certain thing, it is possible that I may end by really becoming incapable of doing it. On the contrary, if I have the belief that I can do it, I shall surely acquire the capacity to do it even if I may not have it at the beginning.”
― Mahatma Gandhi

When I first thought about what my take on today’s Daily Prompt Challenge was going to include. I initially didn’t have a clue what the heck ‘Imposter Syndrome’ was let alone having suffered from it. After much research via the lovely World Wide Web in order to get a better understanding before I started to waffle on within my post. I have come to the conclusion that we all may have at some stage in our lives suffered from bouts of the imposter syndrome whether we’d like to admit it or not.

Imposter syndrome is generally when we’re unable to internalize our accomplishments.

Imagine you are a high-flyer working in the city.  You are currently making thousands each month having slogged it out at university and landing your first job working your way up the career ladder until you become one of the big cheese in the office. Now rather than bathe in your success and the fact that all your hard work and dedication had paid off. You instead feel like a fraud and attribute your success to luck than your own abilities being a factor. This is more or less one way for me to describe it though there are a number of different takes on what imposter syndrome is though most notably associated with one’s self, discounting their success.

I am a fiercely ambitious woman and no matter what obstacles stand in my way I always have this firm desire to achieve what ever it is I am seeking for example when I wasn’t working it was a job. When I was looking for a way into the Administration field it was completing a secretarial course childcare woes and all and obtaining a qualification. To even moving homes in order to reinvent myself and experience a different way of living to which I was use to. Having achieved all these things. Yes okay, not as big as winning the lottery but with reference to my first job within the NHS I felt myself questioning the reasons as to why I had been selected. I felt like a fake was I really even competent enough to do this job having had no previous experience. Plus it didn’t help to have people nit-picking and stating that I didn’t deserve to be in my role because I didn’t have a relevant degree… umm well okay.

But as time has gone on I have begun to learn to shut the little voice up and look more closely at the fear itself which often holds us back.

What I would recommend if you do ever find yourself sowing seeds of self-doubt whether about your current achievements, success or a situation is to take time out to create a list of all your accomplishments so that whenever self-doubt kicks in you can utilise this list as a reminder of all that you have achieved. Alternatively share how you feel and get help from those closest to you in order to identify a course of action to overcome the problem.

But most of all remember you were born to shine! So do so and wear your success like a medal of honour and be proud of all that you have accomplished to date . 🙂

 

Daily Prompt: The Great Pretender