Back in 2010 I found myself in a hotel in Rendsburg, a small town in northern Germany. Despite being ostensibly summer, the weather was grim and grey. I was surrounded by some of the titans of the rowing world. Andrew Triggs Hodge, Pete Reed, Ric Egington, Alex Partridge among others – all Olympic Medalists, some Olympic Champions. But perhaps the most intimidating figure was a comparatively much smaller man; Jurgen Grobler. Jurgen was the chief coach of the GB Rowing team and architect behind a GB Olympic Gold medal at every Games since he joined GB back in 1992. He had put together a second GB M8+ to race at what was known at the time as the E.ON Hanse Cup. For those of you who haven’t heard of this event, it is a brutal side by side 12.7km race down the Kiel Canal. I was the GB U23 cox at the time so I had been drafted into the project. It was the night before the race. I had read many books and heard stories about Jurgen and his speeches the night before a big race. This was about to be one of those moments.
Jurgen had the floor. He told us how good the other GB boat was, and how good the German crew was. He told us that this event and the eight’s event more widely at that moment belonged to the Germans. ‘You have to go out there and prove that we are good enough to be alongside them. The man with the hammer will come for you. Maybe two, three times or more. He will tap you on the shoulder and say ‘no way – you cannot keep going.’ You have an answer for him. 10 hard strokes.’ At this moment two things became abundantly clear to me. One: I would be lucky to get a wink of sleep that night. Two: I didn’t belong in this situation with these titans. I felt like an imposter.
Imposter syndrome was first described in 1978 (Clance & Imes) and is increasingly talked about and researched in the modern day. A recent review defined Imposter Syndrome as ‘a psychological state, in which people express self-doubt on their accomplishments and skills, despite factual evidence or other people indicating otherwise (Bravata et al., 2020). They attribute their successes to external factors such as luck or receiving help from others and attribute setbacks as evidence of their professional inadequacy. They suffer from constant fear of being exposed as a fraud, because they often believe that they have fooled their peers into overrating their abilities and professional competence (Chrousos and Mentis, 2020). It is basically feeling like a fraud when you are in reality not a fraud at all.
Imposter syndrome afflicts 70% of people and is reported in both females and males. Some studies suggest a higher proportion of females experience imposter feelings than males, but there is debate in the literature on whether this is indeed the case. There also doesn’t seem to be any age effects associated with the experience. Imposter syndrome is associated with highly demanding professional environments and careers that require constant critiquing, with psychological traits such as perfectionism or insecurity, and social inequalities (Want and Kleitman, 2006; Dickerson, 2019; Mullangi and Jagsi, 2019; Chrousos and Mentis, 2020).
Imposter syndrome is often associated with negative connotations and outcomes particularly with reference to mental health. It has been linked with feelings of anxiety, depression, rumination, procrastination and there is robust literature on a harmful association with impaired professional performance, job satisfaction, and even burnout (Hutchins HM and Rainbolt H, 2017). Studies also show that employees who report feelings of imposter syndrome report less career planning and motivation to lead. Sufferers also sometimes see themselves as less ill (less depressed and or
anxious) when compared to others, citing a lack of obvious symptoms as an indicator that they have no real underlying issue, as such they are often less likely to seek help.
At this point I would like to pose the question: where does imposter syndrome come from? My academic background is in biology and psychology so I often find myself thinking about the thoughts in my mind and I wonder how much of them are born out of environmental experiences versus evolved innate forces. I imagine that the answer is often a combination of the two. As imposter syndrome is such a widely reported experience, I suspect that it may have its routes in humanity’s evolutionary history and have posed as a survival or reproductive advantage in the ancestral environment (Chroussos, 2009). We should remember that evolution is simply working to ensure survival and reproduction of us as biological machines and the genetic material therein. We are undeniably social animals that have evolved to live and work in groups and the very nature of imposter syndrome is to be compared to other individuals in your group or tribe. Perhaps feeling like an imposter is a way to encourage behaviours to prove the contrary to the group, that you belong and have value and should therefore be kept in the tribe. Perhaps in this way, feeling like an imposter conveys a survival advantage over individuals who don’t ever feel this way? Literature indicates a tendency of those with imposter syndrome to aggressively pursue achievement (Crawford et al., 2016) which would line up with this theory. If light of this, could imposter syndrome be labelled as a positive thing? If it is something that has evolved and granted advantages to our ancestors then, maybe so? Perhaps it did provide advantages at some point in our evolutionary history and doesn’t in the modern day? From my perspective, as with many things, a balance is important.
I’m a coxswain on the GB National Team and for the last five years I’ve coxed the GB Men’s Eight, before that I coxed the GB Men’s Coxed Pair for three years. Most recently we raced in the delayed Tokyo Olympic Games and brought home a bronze medal. When I think about imposter syndrome, I like to imagine what the opposite of imposter syndrome might look like. Perhaps it is an overestimation of one’s worth and value of contribution to the wider group? For me, this seems like a pretty dangerous state of mind when you’re pursuing a high performance objective, especially one that requires a team to achieve said objective. As such, sometimes I like to feel like a bit of an imposter. It keeps me sharp and encourages me to prepare meticulously for our training or our next encounter with the opposition. In line with this, I have some little rituals to maintain this perception. In the early part of the rowing season, if possible, I will try and put myself in situations or races where the odds are stacked against us. Racing the Fours Head in London was a prime candidate for this role. I have to race the coxed events and these are usually the target events for the Oxford and Cambridge crews, who are usually running pretty hot by that time of year, owing to The Boat Race taking place so early in the season. It’s not a hugely important race for us, but a great race nonetheless, and normally a good one to get a good hiding from Oxbridge. I like the state of mind that this experience puts me into as we move forward into the rest of the season. It makes me feel like a loser and an imposter, and as Jurgen Grobler used to say: ‘Loser trains harder.’ I also try not to make a huge fuss about mid-season successes, always looking to the next goal or target. Furthermore when I do have a medal winning success at an important race such as the European or World Championships, that medal doesn’t go on display but rather into a draw, out of sight and out of mind – onto the next thing. My Olympic medal is currently at the bottom of my sock draw.
However as I alluded to before, a balance is required. The negative associations linked with imposter syndrome such as anxiety, depression, impaired professional performance and burnout are real and shouldn’t be allowed to persist unchecked. Feeling like an imposter is undoubtedly a stress and the problem with stress is that it is often cumulative. This last season was probably the most challenging and stressful of my career to date, what with managing the pandemic, losing our lead coach twice in Jurgen Grobler and then Christian Felkel, and then wondering whether the Games would take place at all. This all piled on and probably at times pushed my sense of being an imposter into an unhealthy realm and that’s when you’ve got to do something about it to try and attenuate those feelings towards something that is more useful.
When I feel like perhaps I’ve let my imposter syndrome get a little too much I follow a simple process to bring things back to a useful level or ‘sweet spot’. Firstly I identify the problem. The challenge with dealing with imposter syndrome is that those afflicted feel like an imposter, rather than feel like they have imposter syndrome. There are telltale signs which can help you recognise it, for example, pushing back on praise for an achievement, attributing external factors to success, procrastination, avoiding particular roles/ leadership roles, not speaking out, and perfectionist tendencies. The second stage is to break the problem down into more manageable chunks. Let’s say for the sake of argument that I felt like I couldn’t cox a crew – I would then break that down into some smaller questions: Can I steer straight? Yes. Can I run a productive training session? Yes. Can I run a race warmup? Yes. Can I call a race? Yes. Can I win races? Yes. The third and final stage of my process is to ask what the evidence says. Individuals experiencing imposter syndrome are often bad detectives and quite selective in the evidence they use to judge the value of their contributions, prioritising evidence which undermines their value. It is important to really try to be a good detective. Use all the evidence and try and go in without bias to see what the evidence points to. This brings me back to a good internal balance which works for me and what I’m doing.
To conclude, I believe that for the majority of people imposter syndrome is part of the human experience. I think that to ask whether imposter syndrome is good or bad is not the most relevant way to look at it, whereas a more useful question could be: is imposter syndrome useful or not useful? I believe it has a function and it can be used to drive positive behaviours, but if left unchecked, unbalanced and unmanaged it can lead to very negative outcomes which should be avoided. For me personally, I try and use imposter syndrome to help drive me forwards each day in the pursuit of my goals and dreams in my sport.
Disclaimer: We are not mental health professionals. If you or someone you know is suffering with any symptoms of mental health problems please go and seek professional help or advice.
References
• Chrousos, G. P. (2009). Stress and disorders of the stress system. Nat. Rev. Endocrinol. 5, 374– 381. doi: 10.1038/nrendo.2009.106
• Chrousos GP, Mentis AA and Dardiotis E (2020) Focusing on the Neuro-Psycho-Biological and Evolutionary Underpinnings of the Imposter Syndrome. Front. Psychol. 11:1553. doi: 10.3389/ fpsyg.2020.01553
• Clance PR, Imes SA. The imposter phenomenon in high achieving women: Dynamics and therapeutic intervention. Psychother Theory Res Pract 1978;15(3):241-7.
• Crawford WS, Shanine KK, Whitman MV, Kacmar KM. Examining the impostor phenomenon and work-family conflict. J Manag Psychol 2016;31(2):375-90.
• Dickerson, D. (2019). How I overcame impostor syndrome after leaving academia. Nature 574, 588–588. doi: 10.1038/d41586-019-03036-y
• Hutchins HM, Rainbolt H. What triggers imposter phenomenon among academic faculty? A critical incident study exploring antecedents, coping, and development opportunities. Hum Resour Dev Int 2017;20(3):194-214.
• Mullangi, S., and Jagsi, R. (2019). Imposter syndrome: treat the cause, not the symptom. Jama 322, 403–404. doi: 10.1001/jama.2019.9788 • Want, J., and Kleitman, S. (2006). Imposter phenomenon and self-handicapping: links with parenting styles and self-confidence. Person. Indiv. Diff. 40, 961–971. doi: 10.1016/ j.paid.2005.10.005
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