Me and the Imposter Syndrome
Welcome to my first blog which has been a long time in coming; I have been staring at this white screen for ages. First off a little about me and how I got here and how I understand first hand stress, anxiety and self-esteem issues. For about 20 years I worked as stockbroker in investment banking. I was part of a successful team; we were ranked number 1 in our specialty; which is like winning the Oscars in the City World. Trouble was I never thought that I deserved to be there. I thought I had been lucky. Some 10% of the job freaked me out. The fear of not being able to cope. The fear of failure. The fear that one day they would find me out. The fear that they would discover I was an imposter!
So, what were my symptoms?
- I was experiencing a significant mount of stress and anxiety, which showed up as me being moody and impatient with colleagues (emotion)
- I would avoid certain situations where I felt I was going to be judged (behaviour)
- I would over prepare for meetings (behaviour)
- I would work long hours at home and at work (behaviour)
- I thought that I could not cope
- I believed that if I did not perform as well as I thought I should then everyone would think me useless and a failure (thoughts)
So, what became of me?
The more I avoided situations that caused stress and anxiety the more stressed I became. I fueled the anxiety myself as every time I ducked something which added a bit of guilt. I did not look at situations as random. I looked at as if I was getting away with things, and the more I got away with it, then it increased the chance of me getting caught. So, I could not have been more irrational.
I was worrying about 10% of the job and giving myself no credit for the fact I was good at 90%. In the end after, I quit a very well paid job. At the top of my game. I left a job I loved as my coping mechanisms failed me.
With what I know now what could I have done differently?
First off it might have helped if I had accepted that I had a problem. If you acknowledge that conditions exist, you can then look for solutions; something like “this is a problem for me I would rather it wasn’t but it is”. Thinking this way gives you choices rather than saying to yourself ‘I can’t do this. Perhaps if I had done this, then others would probably have helped me. They could have arranged for me to be trained in the skills I lacked? Look at what I was saying to myself – that “I should be able to cope” “I must be able to cope” If I had worked on my personal belief system I might not have been so judgmental and harsh on myself.
How unkind was I being to myself, I was beating myself up because I could not do something well that I thought I should be able to do? Changing how I talked to myself, to be less critical would have been a brilliant place to start.
The reason I am writing about my own stress issues is to highlight the fact that no one is immune to stress. It’s different for everyone, but the first place to start is realizing that you are not alone and that struggling with stress is not a weakness. At the heart of CBT is the idea of sharing experiences and learning from one another
I will continue to post about how to recognize and tackle stress and anxiety and I hope they will prove helpful to you. Feel free to drop me a line and ask me questions.
Thank you for visiting my blog!
Fiona