Success is always a very good and pleasant thing for every person. Someone take it gratefully, and some people may have problems with it. But since we are all human, even success can be accompanied by some experiences, such as impostor syndrome, for example. This is quite an interesting phenomenon that occurs quite often not only among very successful people, but also among those who are simply doing well. This syndrome is expressed in relation to the self of a person who has received some kind of success in life, whether it is a good mark in school, a successful career in a good company, or business success – everyone can suffer from this syndrome.
Causes
Every disease has its own prerequisites, because of which the disease arises. Although impostor syndrome cannot be called a disease, its appearance is also preceded by some events in a person’s life, most often they cannot influence it.
- Excessive perfectionism. If the syndrome occurs in an ultra perfectionist person, this is not even surprising. Such people like everything to be perfect, they constantly compare themselves with other people and their achievements. And since there are enough people in the world who have achieved great success, perfectionists with impostor syndrome are doomed to suffer, even if they achieve very much, more than the average person.
- Trauma from childhood. Unfortunately, there are parents who do not consider the success of the child to be something significant and important, but on the contrary, they pay all attention to the shortcomings. And such a child will grow up as a person who does not understand the importance of his successes in life, perceiving them as something ordinary. And worst of all, such people absolutely do not know how to accept their failures, and one big failure can deprive a person of the meaning of life. Whereas such a person considers success to be something ordinary.
- Fear of the responsibility that comes with success. In addition to the fact that this success must be kept, and continue to work on it, there will always be people who will envy and try to destroy everything acquired by hard work. It is very frighteningly unpleasant to find such people among their loved ones, so people try to either hide success, or in the worst case, even avoid it.
Symptoms of this syndrome in humans
This phenomenon occurs quite often and in all people. Quite often, the problem really stretches from childhood, as the generation of our parents grew up with completely different views on life and in a different society. And they pass on all their injuries and shortcomings of upbringing to their children, and they should already deal with this.
- Such people try to avoid talking about their achievements and successes, even if this is a well-known fact;
- A person feels that everything he has got to them too simply and undeservedly, so they constantly try to justify their success, which looks strange to others;
- The person devalues all the good things they get;
- When they are praised, such individuals usually say that they are just lucky and there is no merit here;
The problem is that any human success is justified. Even great people always have a lot of work on themselves, sleepless nights, mental breakdowns, etc. And this behavior is not normal, and you need to work on it, since such an attitude towards yourself negatively affects self-esteem, as well as success, in fact. If a person constantly devalues himself and his success, in the end he will bring himself to the state that he is trying to show to people around him. Therefore, this condition should be dealt with as soon as possible.
There are of course those who are really impostors and actually deceive people, showing themselves so that they seem much more successful and gifted than the rest, but such people do not try to somehow cover up their success, but rather put it on display. Also, these people are easy to identify by the fact that they do much less and worse than how they present themselves, while people with impostor syndrome, roughly speaking, underestimate their abilities and achievements. But both are actually bad for the people themselves and for the people around them.
What to do with this syndrome, how to get rid of it?
The best solution would be to contact a specialist who can be qualified to help you solve this problem. But this is for those who have the opportunity. And for those who cannot or do not want to contact those who can understand and help, try to help yourself:
- Allow yourself to show weakness. Failure is an integral part of everyone’s life, and they are normal for everyone. Not always everything can be perfect and good, everyone has problems and you need to deal with them.
- Rejoice in your success, praise yourself for it and be proud of it. Appreciate your opportunity to be successful. Don’t be afraid of it, and don’t hide it from people. You deserve everything you have.
- Ask you to objectively evaluate a person whose opinion is important to you and whom you trust. Such a person will be able to adequately assess your successes and failures, and perhaps even give some advice for improvement.
- Don’t compare yourself to other people. Each person is individual, everyone has their own characteristics, and what one person succeeds without problems will be difficult for another. No one can be perfect in everything at once, even if you think so.
- Work on your confidence. Confidence is a good characteristic for every employee, and the development of this quality helps to overcome various fears and discomforts. And if you already consider yourself a confident person, you can visit site named Layboard, in order to find for yourself that vacancy where you can usefully reveal your full potential.
- Work on yourself. Perhaps working on improving any of your weak points will help you feel more confident and give you the strength to acknowledge your success to others.
Respect and love yourself. Working on these qualities will help you not only overcome the impostor syndrome, but also solve many other possible problems related to problems with yourself.