Why Can't We Get Over Impostor Syndrome?

Or, what happened when I tried my hand at stand-up comedy

At the Funny Women “Stand Up to Stand Out” event

A few weeks ago I spent a brilliant day with the lovely team from Funny Women (disclaimer, I’m on the board so I have to say they’re lovely but they also really are) learning all about stand-up comedy. I had signed up less because I had dreams of creating my own one-woman Netflix special and more because a friend had mentioned she was going and it seemed like a fun way to start the year. Little did I know, it was going to trigger a bout of an illness I thought I had become immune to.

When you write about women and work, you spend a lot of time writing about Impostor Syndrome. People are obsessed with it! Companies want me to lead workshops to help their staff (and for staff read “women”) overcome it. Nearly every woman I coach will tell me she suffers from it. It comes up as a question every time I’m on a panel. We love to blame impostor syndrome for all our fears and failings but after years of talking to women about it, I’ve come to a conclusion; we have given it far too much power. We’ve taken the confidence equivalent of a cold and turned it into a full blown plague.

The term impostor syndrome was coined by two female psychologists (Pauline Rose Clance and Suzanne Imes) in the late 1970s as part of a research project they had done into high-achieving women. This is the first thing to note, it’s not that they were researching impostor syndrome and having interviewed a group of men AND women found it only existed in women, the research only interviewed women. Inevitably, when they published their conclusions the world read this not as “perhaps we should ask some men whether they suffer from this too” but instead as “this is something that only happens to women.” We made it a women problem.

Recently I’ve started to coach more and more men, and I would suggest that the same percentage of them suffer from impostor syndrome. However, none of them call it that. Instead they will name the symptoms of impostor syndrome. They will say things like, “it’s not really my skillset” or “I don’t think I’m the right man for the job” or “well the role cropped up at just the right time”. Yes, they might also counter this with a few, “I’ve worked really hard to get here” and an occasional, “I know I’m good at what I do” but the fear that sits below these is the same for women - what if I’m not good enough?

The second thing to note is that this research was done in the late ‘70s. In the research, Imes and Clance define impostor syndrome as a series of “intellectual phonies”, or fallacies that the women they interviewed tell themselves despite all the evidence being against them. For example, a woman who achieved outstanding grades throughout school, went to a prestigious university and left with an top 1% degree, might still refute any suggestion of her being clever. Instead she would claim that she “got lucky” or just “worked really hard and had good teachers.” They put all the emphasis on their achievement outside of themselves. And to that I say, of course they did!

This was 1978 when being a woman who spoke up for herself could legitimately end with you being punched in the face and everyone thinking that was probably justified. These women had been brought up with a lifetime of “don’t be too much”, “the way to get ahead is to smile and look pretty”, “men won’t like you if you intimidate them” - and they were in a world where without men’s patronage they simply wouldn’t be able to move forward. Impostor Syndrome wasn’t a lack of confidence, it was a logical response to the world around them. The problem wasn’t that women didn’t believe in themselves, the problem was that society made it unsafe for them to do so. Sadly, the same is true for women today. Life is still easier when we smile and placate than when we stand up for ourselves. But now we’re told we shouldn’t think like that, that we should be emulating Boudiccea at all times and never backing down from a fight. With such mixed messaging is it any wonder that we often feel like we’re getting it wrong?

The final point that I think is relevant here is that a way most of us try to manage impostor syndrome is through hard work. We feel concerned that we might not be up to the job in front of us so we start working all hours to make sure we never drop a ball. The problem with this, of course is that we just reinforce our own belief that we only got to where we are because we worked so hard, so we keep doing it, leading to more promotions, greater fear, harder work and eventually burnout. And this is where I come back to my experience at the Funny Women course.

Throughout the day we’d played around with improv and stand-up techniques (and I’ll do another post on these soon because some have genuinely changed how I see the world), and then towards the end of the day we started writing just two minutes of stand-up to be performed in front of the group. I do a lot of public speaking so although this was still terrifying, I managed to get up there, do it and have a good time. There were a couple of professional comedians watching these performances and giving feedback, and when I was home that evening I messaged one thanking her for her comments. She instantly messaged me back asking me what I was going to do next.

Well, I replied, I’m going to go and watch a few open mic nights, get a feel for how those work. Then I’m going on a comedy writing course so I can learn how to properly write this sort of thing. I thought I should also try and find an improv course too to help with stage work. And then I might sign up for an open mic night and once I’ve done four or five of them, then I might try and pitch myself to some of the smaller gigs and see where that gets me.

Her response came back instantly.

“Just pitch yourself to gigs now. You’ll realise once you’re there that you’re already better than most of the people on the line-up, just do it.”

For the first time in ages I felt myself spiral into impostor syndrome. I couldn’t do that. I didn’t know what I was doing. I needed to go and learn all the things first and then maybe, MAYBE, I could start. She was only saying this to be kind. She didn’t realise that actually I was just having a good day when she saw me. Those are actually the only two jokes that I’ve got and they’re really not that good. I am definitely not capable of doing an actual gig.

The funny thing is that I’ve helped enough people to overcome impostor syndrome so I was able to hear this voice in my head, recognise it for what it was and yet… part of me still believed it. Of course, I tried to challenge the voice. I looked at a few gigs that she’d suggested pitching for, I hummed and haaahed about what I would say in my approach to them. But the more I looked, the more of an impostor I felt because, and here’s the thing, every one of those gigs was filled by white men in their 30s. Each night would have one, maybe two, women on the bill but that would be it. Even rarer was to see a person of colour. The truth of the matter is that it’s not just me who thinks I don’t belong there, it’s the curators of those spaces too.

And… we’re both wrong.

Just like the common cold, impostor syndrome exists and it is exacerbated by the world around us. We catch it from each other. And just like the common cold, the more often we just accept it (“oh here we go again, another cold / case of impostor syndrome”) and then just get on with our lives, the more we build up immunity to it. The aim, for me, is not to do a stand-up gig and feel like I belong there, the aim is to do so many stand-up gigs while feeling like an impostor (and possibly being seen as an impostor) that I become immune to my own bullshit. And maybe in doing that I can build some immunity for the rest of the world too.

Earlier this week I asked my Instagram following to tell me where they felt impostor syndrome. For a few people it showed up in their role as a mother or a carer but for the overwhelming majority, it showed up at work. The women who replied didn’t think they had the right to be there. Unsurprising given that we still don’t have full workplace equality and you’re still far more likely to see a man in a position of power than you are a woman.

When clients talk to me about impostor syndrome, they tell me they want to get rid of it and the bad news that I have to give them is that it’s almost impossible. You can definitely quieten it (there is an amazing Japanese technique for booting it out of your mind when it’s too loud - would it be useful to do a workshop on this? Tell me in the comments if you want to know the secret) but it will probably come back because the reality for many high-achieving women is that society still sees them as impostors and they’re intuitive enough to be able to pick up on that vibe. The trick is not to want to get rid of impostor syndrome, it’s to hear it and choose to not believe it.

After all, how many times have you walked into a room doubtful of your right to be there and realised, oh, nobody else is that good either?

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