Impostor Syndrome: Why Self-criticism and Perfectionism Prevent Us from Becoming Geniuses
How fear affects the mind
Think back to a moment when you felt paralyzed in the middle of an exam, or worse, on stage. You froze like a deer caught in the headlights, motionless, with a beating heart and sweating palms. You tried to remember what you should do, but your mind was silent. Your higher cognitive functions simply refused to work.
Severe stress causes the brain to declare a high-risk regimen. As a result, he turns off functions that seem superfluous to him at the moment. Unfortunately, this means that the body blocks out cognitive abilities at the very moment when we need them most. It's hard to remember this when anxiety attacks hit you, but know that this is a completely normal response to preserve your well-being.
Philip Goldin, director of the Stanford Laboratory of Clinical Affective Neurophysiology, says: "Responses to threats can shut off attention, forcing us to use primitive thought algorithms and habitual automatic decisions." David Rock, founder of the Neural Leadership Institute, explains: "Responding to threat disrupts analytical thinking, creativity, and problem-solving ability."
The types of fear we are talking about manifest as social inhibition in the form of the impostor and inner critic syndrome, as well as in the form of perfectionism and its close cousin maximalism.
Social inhibition is essentially a fear of "what others will think." This fear of being stupid or being judged by someone is the flip side of our social consciousness. Social inhibition is useful, it is part of what makes us civilized people, but it has its negative sides. Illumination can occur only with a decrease in the activity of the frontal lobes , and it is there that inhibition nests.
The problem is that inhibitory factors can suppress thoughts and ideas that could lead to a big breakthrough. In some cases, reduced social inhibition caused by degeneration of the prefrontal region of the cerebral cortex generates a fountain of creativity in a person - in painting and other forms of art. People who never felt creative in themselves suddenly become prolific creators.
Social inhibition is probably the most serious blocker on the path to achieving or implementing breakthroughs. Does this mean that you should voluntarily injure your frontal lobes? Of course not. You may have heard of Phineas Gage, who suffered damage to his frontal lobes in a railroad accident in 1848. After that, he became "prone to fits of rage, lost respect for everyone and constantly indulged in terrible foul language and blasphemy, which were not part of his habit before." He was "vile, rude, disagreeable and vulgar to such an extent that his company became unbearable." The frontal lobes are necessary for us to live in society.
But it is definitely true that looking for opportunities to "lull" this part of the brain is an old technique of people in the creative profession. The saying “Write drunk, edit sober” perfectly reflects this moment and embodies the whole process of revolutionary thinking.
"Write drunk": Alcohol inhibits the work of the frontal lobes, the part of the brain responsible for social inhibition, the reality tracking radar. You put your IP to sleep and release the SPRRM * into free flight to create a burst of revolutionary thinking.
Edit Sober: Then you call the IP back into action to assess, validate, and prioritize. This is the phase of convergent critical thinking.
Social inhibition occurs in the prefrontal cortex and manifests itself in our minds as impostor syndrome and inner critic.
Impostor Syndrome
Impostor Syndrome affects successful and competent people if they think they don't know everything they should and are in constant fear of being considered cheaters. Most of us have such a deep conviction from time to time that we are not that good.
Since the impostor syndrome was first identified and described by scientists, research has shown that over 70% of the population is sometimes affected.
Impostor Syndrome is also a hindrance to revolutionary thinking. If you think that you really don't know what you are doing, and the forces of your mind go to fear that others will notice it, then how can you believe that you will achieve something that no one else has done before you? You can imagine Thomas Edison thinking to himself, "I'm not an inventor," or Steve Jobs, who is tormented by thoughts like "Who am I to create computers?"
However, as strange as it sounds, Impostor Syndrome is most common among successful people. When we start talking about him at Harvard, Yale, Stanford and MIT, the room is so quiet that you can hear a pin drop. When students learn that this feeling has a scientific name and that it is not familiar to them alone, we see how they sigh with relief. […]
Impostor Syndrome can be an excellent motivating tool for getting us to work harder than others. But at what cost? Firstly, part of the brain will be constantly occupied by him - to argue with him, try to get rid of him, hide from him. Second, if the brain, guided by some arbitrary criteria of its own, decides that you have had "not enough" success in life, it activates the sympathetic nervous system and deactivates your creativity. And third, and worst of all, Impostor Syndrome will keep you from taking the risks it takes to create revolutionary innovation.
Today we finally have effective tools to deal with the impostor syndrome. But even a simple knowledge of the widespread prevalence of such feelings will help us neutralize their impact and weaken their power. […]
The basis of the impostor syndrome is your impression that you are incompetent for a given job, a given activity, a given position; in our case, that you are unable to achieve a breakthrough.
This image, this impression of oneself is formally called
self-perception . Simply put, self-perception is what we think about ourselves, about our personality, abilities, and so on.
When a person develops an image of himself, then there is a strong tendency to maintain this image under the influence of our impressions, memory and, in general, under the influence of what we are ready to accept as the truth about ourselves. In other words, self-perception becomes self-preservation.
The most effective way to deal with impostor syndrome (and even get rid of it completely) is to change your self-image.
Before we go any further, here are two simple methods that you can try to change the playing field in such a way that the impostor syndrome is simply irrelevant.
Method # 1. Change the shortcut
Try to name the role you are applying for differently, and see if there is a term that is more consistent with your current self-image. For example, Olivia does not consider herself a creative person. Smart - yes. Resourceful - yes. With these definitions, she feels comfortable. But she is not very pleased to call herself a creative person, because this does not correspond to her self-perception. For her, the word "creative" refers to people who have a subtle sense of the creative intention - to artists, representatives of other types of art (for example, music and theater). For her, creativity is something intangible, elusive, something that she cannot clearly define for herself. But against the background of self-perception of herself as a "smart and resourceful" person, she retains the same creativity.
Method # 2. Flip the script
Ask yourself what elements of your experience (or lack thereof), personality, or past use your impostor syndrome to make you feel like a cheater. Consider them in turn and turn them upside down.
“I'm too young for this job” turns into “My youth is a huge advantage, because ...”. Perhaps you have a better understanding of new technologies? Are you better oriented in your customer base? Are you more willing to take risks, to something new?
Statement “I have never worked in this field before. I am not a specialist here ”is replaced by the statement:“ The fact that I am not an expert in this is a great advantage, because they already have a bunch of specialists and they don’t need any more. But I can make my own contribution - a new look and different experience - and use everything that I have learned outside of this sphere of activity to solve existing problems. "Etc ...
“At Microsoft,” says Kevin Sauer, “Imposter Syndrome has a life of its own. One of our famous technologists blogs about what it's like to be a fraud in someone else's place, and everyone has that in mind all the time. Being a deceiver has become almost cooler than not being one. "
There are three limiting factors in your brain that are helpful in changing the self-perception that is holding you back. Your brain does not perceive the following well:
Scale. Tackling several small tasks can be as difficult as tackling one large one. Our brains are naturally ill-equipped to prioritize, and in this case, you can turn that to your advantage. This is the science of small victories. Professor Teresa Amabile, director of research at Harvard Business School, to whom we owe many discoveries in the fields of individual and team creativity and productivity, organizational innovation and the psychology of everyday life at work, has found that even small victories can have a huge impact on the inner state of a person. “Many of the progressive developments that our study participants spoke about were only small steps forward. However, they often elicited disproportionately positive reactions."
Time. A striking event that happened 30 years ago, one can experience "as if it were yesterday." What matters here is the brightness and ease of remembering, and not how long ago it happened.
The difference between imaginary and real, as we have already mentioned. […]
The Science of Small Victories
Remember that scientific evidence suggests that small victories are powerful? As Charles Duhigg describes it, "an influence disproportionate to the achievement itself." Small victories fuel big change, convincing people that big gains are possible. For you, this means that you need to start with small steps, so small that it was not at all difficult to take them. This will help you build momentum for success.
Duhigg adds: “As a Cornell professor wrote in 1984,“ Small victories are a steady accumulation of small advantages. When you achieve one small victory, forces are launched that move you to a new small victory. "Small wins drive big change, with small gains forming a pattern that convinces people that bigger gains are real, too." […]
Apparently, our brains are not very good at distinguishing between large and small successes. So your accomplishments don't have to be big, like cleaning an entire house. Even if you just wipe the bathroom sink, [...] it will help you create an impulse for success, if - and this is the main thing! - you will feel that you have achieved something. […]
Here's how small wins can help build a new self-image. If you have lost touch with your inner creative genius, start with any small creative act, for example, come up with nicknames for your indoor plants or objects around: for example, Philip Xerox. Then start making up stories about them. Philip is from Minnesota, loves football ("Blues, go!") And so on. Accumulating a large number of small wins can, over time, lead to a big victory and a new sense of self. […]
Inner critic
The inner critic is that nasty voice in your head that tells you that you did this and that wrong, or that your life is a complete failure, or any of the endless variations on this topic that he can think of. It is especially dangerous because it is best suited to trigger the sympathetic nervous system and thus hinder our attempts to do anything.
A good way to know if such a critic is at work within you is to pay attention to how often the word "should" sounds in your head. "I should have left earlier," or perhaps, "I should have been practicing every day." The inner critic forces you, as they say, "to be due to yourself all around."
Because internal attacks are perceived by our brains in much the same way as real, physical attacks, they can generate an automatic physical response — a fight-or-flight response.
Professional basketball and soccer players often taunt opponents to make them doubt their abilities. Michael Jordan was famous for it. Unfortunately, many of them make fun of themselves. We criticize ourselves, question our abilities, and trigger a response to a threat. This can negatively affect our ability to act.
As Dr. Philip Goldin says, “When people don't go to work due to illness, their lack of productivity is obvious. But a more insidious hindrance to productivity arises when people are consumed by negative thoughts throughout the day. Internal self-criticism can severely limit innovation and creativity. " People can be physically present in the workplace, but they literally get stuck in a duel with their inner critic, losing the ability to move forward. And since such a mental absence is outwardly imperceptible, no one does anything with it.
Self-criticism is one of the most common obstacles to being successful in any field. We regard self-criticism and self-doubt as the silent killers of business. Many top managers suffer from this, but few dare to talk about it.
Over the years, we have heard from all sorts of people - from junior aides to senior executives - admitting that they spend most of their working day battling negativity, an army of internal critics who insist on disappointment, predict failure, beat the drums of despair. In some cases, they (and we) are extremely surprised that we can achieve anything at all. One senior executive said that 80% of his work time is spent fighting an internal critic. […]
"The fear of being in a stupid position or becoming the object of someone else's judgments is the flip side of our social consciousness."
People know that self-doubt and self-criticism do not help them, but there is nothing they can do about it. The vicious circle can be broken by realizing the meaning of these reactions (“My body is reacting because it is trying to protect me”) or empathy for myself (“Of course, I react this way, it’s scary”).
In this way, the inner critic prevents breakthroughs. Imagine thinking about how to conduct meetings in a new way.
Your brain, with its built-in negative biases, begins to imagine possible failures. You immediately imagine the reaction of others to your failure. Feelings of shame and fear grow. You want to shut up, run away, hide and certainly not do this experiment in real life.
But what is really going on? What you are experiencing is your inner discomfort, generated by the verdict of the inner critic about the opinions of others. But there is also a positive point - everything just described happens exclusively in your head. And we can change this inner experience.
To unleash your potential for breakthroughs, you need to know how to curb your inner critic. Unfortunately, our first reflex action when it is activated is to try to argue with it. And this is where a technique like cognitive behavioral therapy, in which you should distance yourself from your thoughts, which allows you to gain an objective point of view, can let us down.
Trying to suppress thoughts can only make things worse. But you can learn to dance with your shadow; learn to curb your inner critic. By practicing the techniques described here, you can get away from your inner negativity and, possibly, reach heights where the voice of your inner critic will only make you grin. We promise.
What are your alls?
Dr. Martha Beck says she has developed a very close relationship with her inner critic through her three Harvard degrees (including a PhD in Sociology), and explains that “each of us is 'all' made up of a small number of important people to him or her. ... Our social nature forces us to strive to fit into a large group, but it is difficult to keep in mind the tastes and opinions of more than five or six people. However, the resourceful individual creates a kind of simplified method: he chooses the opinion of several people, firmly fixes them in his consciousness and extrapolates this image further until it covers the entire known universe. A not very precise sample of persons whom we define as “all”, psychologists call “generalized other”.
The tool Beck recommends to use to get rid of these limiting "everyone" in your mind is the most effective we know of. Here's how it works: Find all the statements
about creativity, innovation, and breakthrough that you would like to apply to yourself and that can be objectively true.
For example:
I have a very capable brain. We guarantee you that this is true. Your brain processes millions of bits of information every second, and you don't even think about it.
I am a creative person by nature. Look around at the lists and pictures you've posted on the walls. Think back to the adventures you have invented for the objects around you.
Etc. […]
Create new "everyone"
Because of our innate respect for authority, these reassuring positive “alls” are most meaningful when they are composed of individuals you admire. You can choose people who, after a string of failures, have had great success, like Lincoln, or those who enjoy success, despite the fact that two times out of three they are unlucky, like Babe Ruta. You can, for example, hang a photograph of Babe Ruth on the wall with the caption:
He smeared 6 times out of 10. Greatest player of all time.
Is it stupid? Perhaps. Is it effective? Absolutely.
Celebrity athletes are a great source of examples of imperfection: Michael Jordan had 50% of his free throws unsuccessful, while Pele and Maradona, two of the greatest footballers of all time, only hit 5% of their shots in World Cup games. Yes, yes, 95% of the shots they hit on goal did not end with goals.
If you prefer non-sports examples, Tom Hanks himself said about his more than a hundred films that "seven or eight were successful, another dozen were more or less worthy, and the rest were just a nightmare." And this is one of the most famous Hollywood actors!
If you want people who are respected in business, for example, what legendary inventor James Dyson says about failure as an engine of success: “Before I got a vacuum cleaner, I created 5127 prototypes. 5126 of them were unsuccessful. But I learned something from every failure. And finally I found a solution. " Dyson spent 15 years of his life creating 5126 unsuccessful models before creating one that worked as it should. The result is a multi-billion dollar company and a personal fortune of $ 1.6 billion. […]
Perfectionist
Perfectionism can manifest itself as an underlying feeling that you never do enough, that you are falling behind in everything, or that you are not making the progress that you "should." The perfectionist forces you to focus on what you haven't done, whatever you can't do, rather than what you're good at.
You think of all the books you “should” read, the exercises you “should” do, and so on. It is an endless series of "must, must, must" ... Like the inner critic, the perfectionist forces you to "be all around the must." However, unlike the internal critic, the perfectionist pays attention primarily to those goals and activities that, in his opinion, you are not successful, and not to your value as a person. It focuses on what you are doing, not who you are.
Perfectionism may or may not be related to social inhibition. Some people strive for excellence not because of what others have to say, but because of themselves. Some artists are perfectionists solely for the sake of art.
There are elements of control and pride in perfectionism: no one can ever read all the books. No one can ever know everything. And even if someone knew everything, it is still impossible to know what it all means and how everything is connected with each other. Whether you like it or not, our options are limited. In her book Gifts of Imperfection, shame researcher Brené Brown explains that perfectionism is addictive because when we are overwhelmed by shame or are faced with judgments from others, which inevitably happens from time to time for different reasons, we believe that we are to blame. ourselves and our imperfection. And instead of questioning the false logic of perfectionism, we try harder. In fact, feelings of shame and guilt keep us going to be perfect.
Perfectionist thinking assumes that there is some ideal goal to be achieved. Perfectionism marches towards its intended goal with the only acceptable measure of the outcome. On this march, there is no time for rest, which is necessary for the passive network of our brain, and a place for mental openness, which would allow us to see something new on the periphery and thereby make a breakthrough.
Revolutionary thinking recognizes that we are on a journey, involved in a process. The result can be a creative act or a collision with an unexpected obstacle. You need to constantly remind yourself that this path is not a straight line, that it very often leads to the wrong place where you originally intended, and that this does not mean failure.
"Maximalism can easily get out of hand, and you suddenly find yourself picking up words for an hour, polishing an email or post on social networks, or choosing laundry detergent in the store."
Here are some tools to help you curb your inner perfectionist. Most likely, if you use any of them separately, then you will not cope with it, but they will allow you to breathe more freely, and all together will be very effective.
- Remember - what is rare is valuable. Philatelists love “defective” stamps. Most of the most expensive brands in the world are defective. An 1855 Swedish "Triskilling Yellow" (which was supposed to be bluish green) recently sold for $ 2.3 million. The Mauritius Island stamp "Post Océ" 1847 ("post o ce" was printed on the stamp instead of the accepted "post paid") went for $ 3.8 million. It was the defects that made these brands unique and therefore especially valuable - several million dollars! When perfectionism begins to lift its ugly head, try to remind yourself that whatever you do, whatever you make, any “mistakes” you make are absolutely and always unique. The same sequence of events will never happen again. This will give you a different perspective on imperfections, as your brain automatically thinks
- Hang pictures of people you admire on your wall and sign them with quotes that encourage imperfection you can think of. Yes, when you first write and read this, the thought may seem ridiculous to you, but within about a week you will get used to it and begin to consider it natural. Let the person you respect advise you to “achieve only 70% perfection. Not more ".
- If you know from whom you received the mandate for excellence, write yourself a letter on their behalf, in which you outline the negative aspects of perfectionism. The letter should, among other things, contain his apology for urging you to be perfect, and the words that from now on you should be imperfect. Attach a photo to the letter, surrounded by relevant invented quotes. […]
Maximalism
Maximalism is closely related to perfectionism; it creates in you a desire, an aspiration, and even an irresistible attraction for the "best" solution. In this case, it is not so much about an ideal solution in the absolute, Platonic sense, but about the best possible solution in a relative sense in comparison with others. Maximalism is the desire to squeeze everything that is possible out of the situation.
In a sense, the perfectionist is more idealistic, because he compares everything to an internal standard of excellence, and maximalism to an external standard: “Can someone make a better choice than me? Is there a better choice? Could an even more wonderful choice emerge over time? "
Maximalism is rarely associated with social inhibition, more often with our inner desire to use the situation in the best possible way. In this sense, it is more akin to greed.
Maximalism is not as destructive to the individual as the inner critic or impostor syndrome, but it can still pose significant obstacles to the ability to breakthrough. Yes, focusing on the maximum you can can really help you make better decisions. And to a certain extent, this is a good tool for success. But maximalism can easily get out of hand, and you suddenly find yourself picking up words for an hour, polishing an email or social media post, or shopping for laundry detergent.
Moreover, the leading expert in this field, Barry Schwartz, over the years of research has come to the conclusion that maximalism also leads to the fact that you: experience less satisfaction when making decisions; you get less joy from these decisions and their consequences; become less happy in life in general.
How to curb the tendency towards maximalism? Schwartz has a number of suggestions: for example, to define in advance the maximization boundaries that you are willing to afford, - to limit the amount of research that you spend on choosing a product, or the time it takes to calculate the optimal route, and so on.
Unfortunately, the setting limits does not work very well for people with strong maximalism. The setting of boundaries seems to them to be something wrong from the point of view of morality, almost sacrilege. If this reminds you, then instead of constraints, you can try to delegate or replace the tendency to maximize.
For example, you can make an agreement with yourself that if you find an overview of a product you want to buy online, you will follow its recommendations. The organizations that provide such reviews specialize in the comparison and evaluation necessary to make the best possible choices (which is the essence of maximalism). The tests they put on their products are extensive, detailed and reliable, and the desire to read other reviews (especially from ordinary consumers) in this case is simply irrational. Agree with yourself that you will accept the amount of research and comparisons conducted by special sites as sufficient.
One of our clients decided to orientate herself with health products and any new information about it to the choice of a few friends whom she considers "health crazy". That is, she decided to delegate her choice, since “they are willing to spend hours digging through scientific articles and cross-referencing research and tracking all the latest information so enthusiastically and thoroughly that I can never compare with them. Therefore, I am quite happy to turn to them for advice and recommendations and follow them! "
Source: Olivia Fox Cabain and Judah Pollack Network and Butterfly. How to catch a brilliant idea. Practical guide "
