(Another guest contribution from an author who is always mastering the next-level of skills for meeting new challenges. She has “mastered the process of mastery” for many skills in her past. And, she consciously and intentionally has always been on the living edge of her “learning zone” v cruising along on a plateau in her “comfort zone”. How do I know? She’s my more talented daughter. And you can subscribe to her substack, “Level Up”, for free at the bottom.)
#34. Riding Shotgun With Imposter Syndrome
Most of us are feeling it. Almost none of us are talking about it.
By Jane Merrifield | Substack
A few weeks ago, I started working with a new mentee. She is exactly the kind of person I love to work with: driven, high-performing, and deeply self-aware. She spent several years in her last role, built real credibility, and by every measure, crushed it. A few weeks into her new role, she sat across from me and said something I have heard dozens of times in my career, including from myself: “I have impostor syndrome.”
She said it quietly. Almost like a confession.
I smiled. Because to me, that feeling is not a red flag. It’s a green one.
You Are Not Alone
Before we go further, let’s put one thing on the table: approximately 70% of people experience impostor syndrome at some point in their careers. That means in any given room full of confident, accomplished professionals, the majority of them are quietly wondering if today is the day someone figures out they do not actually belong there.
The concept was first named in 1978 by psychologists Pauline Rose Clance and Suzanne Imes, who called it the “Impostor Phenomenon.” Importantly, they were careful not to call it a syndrome or a disorder. They described it as an internal experience pattern common among high-achieving individuals who struggle to internalize their own success and attribute their accomplishments to luck, timing, or simply fooling the right people.
Read that again: it disproportionately affects high achievers.
This is not a feeling that belongs to people who are in over their heads. It belongs to people who are brave enough to keep raising the ceiling.
What the Research Actually Says
I especially loved this when I read it: researchers at MIT found that employees who experience impostor thoughts actually perform better on measures of interpersonal effectiveness at work, and that effectiveness is directly correlated with stronger overall job performance.
The feeling that you think is holding you back may actually be pushing you forward.
That tracks with everything I have experienced in my own career. Impostor syndrome does not make you freeze. It makes you prepare harder, listen more carefully, ask better questions, and stay hungry in a way that comfort simply cannot replicate.
My Eleven Years of Evidence
I have spent eleven years at my company. In that time, I have lived in four different cities and worked across four different segments of the business. Every single transition came with the same uninvited passenger: that quiet voice asking whether I was really ready for this.
And every single time, I chose to get in the car anyway.
Here is what I know now that I wish I had known at the beginning: impostor syndrome is not a sign that you made the wrong move. It is a sign that you made a meaningful one. The absence of it often means you have stopped stretching.
I do not dread it anymore. At this point in my career, when I start something new and that familiar unease settles in, I think of it as an old friend getting into the passenger seat. I know the feeling. I know it passes. And I know that when I get to the other side of it, I will have grown into someone so much stronger than when I started.
The People Who Make Peace With It Will Leave You Behind
The professionals who are most dangerous to compete with are not the ones who have it all figured out. They are the ones who have learned to move forward without having it all figured out.
Waiting until you feel fully ready is a strategy for standing still. The new role, the stretch opportunity, the uncomfortable yes: those do not go to the people who feel certain. They go to the people who feel the doubt, take a calculated risk, and raise their hand anyway, because they know they will rise to the occasion.
My mentee did not end up with impostor syndrome because something went wrong. She ended up with it because she had the courage to leave four years of hard-earned comfort behind and bet on her own growth. That is something to be proud of, not something to whisper about.
What I Want You to Take Away
If you are feeling impostor syndrome right now or fear the feeling of it in the future, I want you to reframe what that feeling is telling you. It is not telling you that you do not belong or that you can’t do it. It is telling you that you care deeply about doing this well. It is telling you that you had the courage to challenge yourself. And as long as you rise to meet it, it will be one of the most powerful motivators you have ever had.
Get comfortable being uncomfortable. Learn to ride alongside the feeling and let it fuel your growth. Learn to crave that feeling.
Because the people who have made peace with that passenger? They are already down the road.
How can you reframe impostor syndrome in your own life right now?
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