This Is How To Overcome Impostor Syndrome: 4 Secrets From Research - Barking Up The Wrong Tree

And much of the advice we get isn't helpful either. Merely "telling yourself you're good enough" has all the scientific rigor of a Hallmark Card. Self-affirmations are as likely to cure this as they'd cure baldness. We need real answers, not platitudes.

Funny thing is there's a whole pile of scientific research that addresses this issue. It's called "self-efficacy." The concept was coined by Albert Bandura. He's widely considered the most influential living psychologist and one of the most cited of all time. If there was a Mount Rushmore for psychology, his face would be up there. Bandura's book is Self-Efficacy: The Exercise of Control .

Now I hate when people use phrases like "learning your own value" because while it sounds really nice, nobody explains how to actually do it .

Time to roll up your sleeves, bubba. We're gonna fix that.

Let's get to it...

It's " perceived ability to succeed at a given task ." It's a belief, not an objective measure of ability. But it's a thermonuclear powered belief and has an eye-popping effect on your life, whether you know what it is or not.

Perceived self-efficacy refers to beliefs in one's capabilities to organize and execute the courses of action required to produce given attainments... People's beliefs in their efficacy affect almost everything they do: how they think, motivate themselves, feel, and behave.

It can even be more important than skill. No doubt, actual skills are critical. If you have self-efficacy but no real driving ability, I'm not getting in your Uber. But that said, if you don't believe you can accomplish something, you probably won't try. And even if you do try, when you meet resistance, you'll give up.

If you're nodding your head, you're not alone. 70% of people have felt it at one time or another - with some experiencing it chronically. And some very big names have been afflicted with it:

Albert Einstein:

...the exaggerated esteem in which my lifework is held makes me very ill at ease. I feel compelled to think of myself as an involuntary swindler.

Maya Angelou:

And the effects of self-efficacy beliefs have been found in a staggering number of diverse arenas: academic grades, weight management, social behavior, health habits, occupational performance, etc.

Where performance determines outcome, efficacy beliefs account for most of the variance in expected outcomes. When differences in efficacy beliefs are controlled, the outcomes expected for given performances make little or no independent contribution to prediction of behavior.

Self-efficacy is your belief about your ability to accomplish a specific goal while self-esteem is a judgment of personal worth. My self-efficacy about my ability to eat ice cream might be high, but I don't think that makes me a good person. And confidence is more generalized, while self-efficacy is task-specific. You can be a very confident person and still not have self-efficacy when it comes to performing an appendectomy.

So how does this relate to impostor syndrome? Well, impostor syndrome is fundamentally a belief issue. You could be saying, "I don't have impostor syndrome, I actually suck at this and my results confirm that." Instead, you're saying, "I'm aware my performance is solid but I don't believe it's due to talent."

Impostor syndrome is about your lack of belief in your skill at something. Having self-efficacy is a healthy amount of belief in your skill at something. If we increase the latter, we get rid of the former. We need to get you to believe that your ability - not luck or mere hard work - is the primary active ingredient in your success.

Let's start with the one that is, in general, most powerful...

When most people perform well they attribute it to skill on their part. (Maybe they are too inclined to attribute it to personal skill, but that's a topic for a different, much more cynical post.)

But if you're dealing with impostor syndrome, this natural tendency to assume you're a virtuoso is on the fritz. You do a great job and the default attribution bucket isn't skill - it's luck, overwork or invisible elves that accomplished everything while you were napping.

Many interpret enactive mastery experience as "keep working hard and you'll see it's your natural ability that's causing the results." If that was true, impostor syndrome wouldn't exist. In fact, if you don't actively change your default attributions, merely seeing yourself succeed isn't going to fix impostor syndrome - it's going to make it worse.

...the impact of performance attainments on efficacy beliefs depends on what is made of those performances. The same level of performance success may raise, leave unaffected, or lower perceived self-efficacy depending on how various personal and situational contributors are interpreted and weighted (Bandura 1982a).

So what do we have to do? You need to notice the system you use. Your process. Yes, you have one. No, I have not been spying on you.

You probably take it for granted. Or it's a blur as you anxiously drive yourself crazy due to deadlines or trying to meet insanely high standards. It's probably habitual at this point and therefore often subconscious, like driving a car, but there are things you do each and every time that are producing these consistently good results. (And if you're not consistently getting good results then you don't have impostor syndrome, and I'm not getting in your Uber.) Everyone does not do these things you do in your process and that's one of the reasons not everyone gets the results you do.