Anyone who has ever started a small business knows how painfully slow success can be.
It’s easy to get discouraged.
That’s why, in the mid-90s, I started to document small wins.
Year 1
- Interviewed by my local newspaper
- Applied to teach at adult learning center
- Ran one public workshop
Year 2
- Interviewed by The Boston Globe
- Profiled in UMass alum magazine
- Sent press releases to 12 newspapers
- Taught two adult learning center classes
- Took HTML class
- Bought website domain
The process reminded me that although I was yet to be profitable (understatement), I was progressing.
So, I don’t hate achievement lists per se.
I object to how they’re pitched as a solution to impostor syndrome.
Listing past accomplishments will do little to counter the belief that “If I can do it, anyone can.
Or what if you landed your position because you did know someone on the inside or were a so-called legacy admission into an elite university?
The solution isn’t writing down your achievements.
The solution is for organizations, more broadly, and therapists and coaches specifically, to instill an individual and collective awareness that rather than be an excuse for our success, things like luck, timing, connections, and personality play a legitimate role in success.
What you do with your great fortune, timing, connections, or personality is what counts.
Second, the problem is less that people with impostor feelings don’t recognize their wins.
It’s the lop-sided preoccupation with their actual and perceived “failures.”
For example, it’s unlikely that reflecting on past accomplishments would help the doctoral student who took the fact that he’d failed his qualifying exam at a previous institution as proof he was a fraud.
Nor would it help the NASA engineer who, in her words, was “depressed for weeks” following a performance review in which her manager cited five areas where she’d excelled along with one remarkably minor recommendation for improvement, which she experienced as “criticism.”
In other words, attempts to counter impostor syndrome by emphasizing strengths alone will not help when confronted with inevitable and equally valid evidence of failure and deficits.
Unfortunately, many managers and coaches rely on the “pep talk” approach to impostor syndrome.
Taking stock of your accomplishments can be helpful.
However, don’t expect it to resolve your – or your employee’s or clients’ – impostor syndrome.
