How Imposter Syndrome Can Hold You Back at Work (and What Helps)
Imposter syndrome (experiences) can start to affect how you present yourself at work in ways that aren’t always obvious. You may hesitate to speak up, second-guess your decisions, or feel a constant pressure to prove yourself. Eventually this can limit your willingness to take on new challenges or fully step into opportunities that align with your abilities and interests.
Many of us assume that these thoughts and feelings will go away with more experience, more success, or more confidence. Instead, they often persist because of the patterns your mind has developed around how you relate to your thoughts and your work.
What It Looks Like When Imposter Experiences Show Up at Work
Imposter experiences often show up in patterns that can seem productive or even helpful on the surface.
You may find yourself overpreparing for meetings or projects by spending extra time making sure everything is just right before sharing your work. You might hold back from contributing to a discussion unless you feel completely certain that what you’re about to say is true or will be well received. You could even end up avoiding opportunities that would put you in a more visible position.
Some of us hope for positive external feedback to feel a sense of reassurance, only to end up not believing the feedback or thinking the person was just being “nice” by saying what they did.
These thought patterns can shape how you experience your work. They can make your environment feel more demanding, your decisions feel heavier, and your accomplishments feel less important.
These imposter thought patterns can shape how you experience your work.
Why Trying to “Fix” the Thought Patterns Doesn’t Work
A common technique to combat imposter experiences is to try to challenge or eliminate the thoughts that come with them.
You might try reminding yourself of your qualifications, reviewing your accomplishments, or replacing self-doubt with more positive thinking (think positive affirmations). While these strategies can sometimes offer temporary relief, they often don’t create lasting change.
The reason these strategies don’t work for long is that they keep you focused on trying to change your thoughts, rather than changing how you relate to them.
As long as it feels like your thoughts need to be resolved or replaced before you can move forward, it can keep you stuck—especially because those thoughts tend to come back.
A Different Approach: Changing Your Relationship with These Thoughts
Instead of trying to get rid of imposter thoughts, I work to help clients begin to notice them as they show up and recognize them for what they are: thought patterns their mind has learned over time. These thoughts usually come up automatically for us; we’re not choosing to think this way. They become habits your mind practices, often with the intention of keeping you prepared or protected. Your mind might think “If I keep her from trying new things, she won’t be disappointed if she fails.”
Then, because these thoughts are self-limiting, they can make it difficult for success to feel real or lasting, reinforcing your self-doubt.
When you begin to relate to these thoughts differently, they tend to have less influence over how you respond.
Your imposter thoughts may still be present, but they don’t have to determine your actions.
Once you start to notice these thoughts more clearly, we can begin to look at whether they’re helpful or not (this is where Acceptance and Commitment Therapy splits from traditional therapies that often look at whether the thought is true or not).
An example of a helpful, yet distressing thought would be “If I hope to get promoted I need to create stretch goals for myself and work towards them every day.” This thought may very well cause you stress because you might feel that you don’t have the skills or knowledge to achieve those stretch goals, but it’s a helpful thought because it can lead you to create reachable subgoals or even seek out a mentor to help.
An unhelpful thought would be “I’m never getting a promotion because everyone around me knows more than I do.” This is the type of thought that we’re not trying to fight or replace, we work to create a little space from it so we’re able to take a moment to ground ourselves in the present moment. This allows us to take committed action to work towards our goals and what we value.
(More to come on these techniques in a future blog post).
What It Can Look Like to Move Forward Differently
Moving forward does not require you to eliminate self-doubt.
It often involves making small shifts in how you respond to it in the moment.
This might look like contributing an idea even when you are not completely certain how it will be received or perhaps allowing your work to be seen without continuing to revise it beyond what is needed.
It can also involve noticing when you are relying on external feedback to feel confident and gently shifting your focus back to what matters to you in your work (your work goals and values).
These shifts can begin to change your experience. Work may start to feel less driven by pressure and more connected to your values, your interests, and the kind of professional you want to be.
If you are noticing how these patterns connect to broader experiences in your work, you may find it helpful to explore how they relate to work stress and burnoutor to questions about your career advancement.
Moving Forward
Shifting how you respond to imposter experiences is not something that happens all at once. It is a process of becoming more aware of these thought patterns and gradually changing how much influence they have over your decisions and your work.
With time, it becomes possible to show up with more consistency and less pressure to prove yourself, even when your self-doubt is still present.
If you are wondering whether these thought patterns can change, you can read more about that in Rethinking Imposter Syndrome: Can Therapy Actually Help?
If You’re Recognizing These Patterns in Yourself
You know what you’ve accomplished in your career, you know your skill set, you know that you’re knowledgeable about many things, but you’re still finding yourself questioning whether you truly belong or whether you know enough to move forward.
This can shape how you show up at work, what you take on, and how much of yourself you allow others to see.
If you’ve been noticing these thought patterns in yourself, you’re not alone, and you don’t have to keep making sense of them on your own. If you’re curious about whether therapy can help shift these thought patterns, you can explore that here: therapy for imposter syndrome.
Reaching out can feel like a big step. You’re welcome to start with a consultation, which offers a space to talk through what’s been coming up and see whether working together feels like a good fit.
No pressure, just a conversation.
Related Support
If similar patterns are showing up in your work or your day-to-day life, it may be helpful to explore how they connect to broader experiences like stress, burnout, or uncertainty about your career direction:
—> Work stress and burnout therapy for professionals
—> Career counseling for professionals navigating transitions