what if they find out…

Something that comes up a lot in my coaching work with people who think for a living is a persistent feeling that they do not know enough. I believe the very things that lead to successful professional careers including intense study, disciplined thinking, and hours of practice are the very things that lead us to believe we don’t know enough. And therefore, any day now, someone is going to find this out and call us out.

Being highly capable, smart, competent, skilled, and successful creates its own vortex of doubt, questioning, acknowledging there is so much more to learn. And this vortex leads to what is known as imposter syndrome.

Imposter Syndrome is a chronic, persistent belief that you are a fraud. And any day now the fraud police will find you and strip you of your credentials. And if you are like many of us who suffer from this, you will “awfulize” your way into 1) I will lose my job; 2) be disgraced; 3) lose my status, my credentials, my licensure; 4) lose respect from all the people I love and admire; 5) lose my home and find myself living down by the river in a tent with the dog. We can go from thought “oh no” to total ruin in under sixty seconds. At least in our heads.