How To Handle Imposter Syndrome

Written by Samantha Wall, LCSW
Edited by Joe DeNoon

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*Imposter syndrome can be amplified and affected by different aspects of our identity. Although I will not be discussing these differences within this blog, I wanted to make sure it was noted that differing identities can experience the emotions and feelings of imposter syndrome at differing degrees and its impact on our lives can vary.*

Imposter syndrome, “the persistent inability to believe that one’s success is deserved or has been legitimately achieved as a result of one’s own efforts or skills,” can be an all encompassing feeling and affect us in ways that are harmful to our physical and mental health. When we step into a career path like nursing, there are going to be so many things we have to learn on the job. No matter how amazing the school and preparation for the job we receive, there are aspects of the job we cannot prepare for. As a nurse, you all face situations and scenarios that are intense and difficult, and you need to make quick decisions. This alone can create feelings of inadequacy when we compare ourselves to others who seemingly handle it better than we do, when we are told information in retrospect for next time, or we remember a piece of information after the situation has completed that we feel could have helped us make different decisions in the moment. All of this can lead to negative self-talk and feelings like you don’t know how to do this job.

Ways to combat these types of feelings include focusing on the facts, sharing our feelings of imposter syndrome, celebrating successes, sharing our failures, letting go of perfectionism, increasing our self compassion, and even accepting that imposter syndrome is something we will feel.

1. Focusing on the Facts: Think of the facts that support you deserving the role you are in now. What training have you gone through? What makes you qualified to be here? Just focus on the facts!
2. Share Our Feelings: Talk with others! It can be so helpful to handle these isolating feelings because most people feel or have felt this way at some point in their career. We also want to keep in mind who we are sharing this with. Asking ourselves who we trust with these types of feelings can be key to feeling validated! I would recommend discussing these feelings with a supervisor or a mentor, if possible, so they can also support and guide you through feelings like this in the work setting.
3. Celebrate your Successes: Just like with gratitude, what we focus on and how we talk to ourselves is key to combating these feelings. When we celebrate our successes, we can not only feel positive in the moment, we create a memory and a feeling to return to when we are not feeling as positive!
4. Sharing our Failures: When we share our failures it can make them feel less taboo and overwhelming. Acknowledging our failures and sharing them will build our tolerance to having failures or making mistakes.
5. Let Go of Perfectionism: This is a hard one, especially when there is so much pressure you guys are under to take care of patients. When we address our feelings of perfectionism, we want to get to the root of these patterns. What has led us to being dysregulated when we are not perfect? How can we challenge these feelings in the moment and after?
6. Increasing our Self Compassion: When we are able to increase our self compassion, we can usually have more positive self talk. It all snowballs into having more compassion for ourselves.

These skills will not make these types of feelings go away forever. We want to continue to normalize these feelings and discuss how we can start to address these on a larger scale. The more we learn as a society, the more these feelings could come up! It is like the saying “the more we learn, the less we know”. What is one way you can support yourself when you are experiencing feelings of inadequacies at work?

Sources used:

https://www.apa.org/monitor/2021/06/cover-impostor-phenomenon

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7OpHU_B61M

https://www.britannica.com/science/Dunning-Kruger-effect

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