How do you know if you’re an imposter or not? After all imposters do exist. We regularly read in the media about con-men who defraud people, people who impersonate doctors, students who get accepted into prestigious colleges without any qualifications. Maybe you’re one of them. Maybe you’ve just been good at fooling people.
Well it’s pretty easy to work out really. To distinguish between real imposters and people who just feel like an imposter you only have to look at the evidence.
Real Imposter:
A real imposter is a person who pretends or claims to be able to do something or have specific abilities, despite not having the skills, background or experience.
Imposter feelings:
Occasional feelings that you are an imposter or fraud despite evidence that you are not. These usually pass and don’t have much impact on what you do.
Imposter syndrome:
A person with the imposter syndrome feels like an imposter a lot of the time in spite of clear evidence that they are not. The feelings can be powerful and the person may be convinced that they are a fraud. It will affect what they think, feel and do.
The crucial feature of imposter feelings and the imposter syndrome is that there is clear evidence that you are not an imposter but you still feel like one. So if you want to know whether you are an imposter or not – look at the evidence.
But even though you have the evidence you can still feel like an imposter. And that’s quite normal. In fact up to 70% of people experience imposter feelings. And between 30-50% of people will have consistent imposter feelings that will affect what they think, feel and do – the imposter syndrome.
So are you an imposter? If you have evidence that you have the skills, the knowledge and the qualifications that you claim then you are not an imposter.