Impostor syndrome is the persistent feeling that you don’t really deserve your success. People experiencing impostor syndrome typically feel like their success is a matter of luck or that they have somehow deceived others into believing they are smarter or more capable than they actually are. As a result, entrepreneurs are constantly afraid of being exposed as frauds. This syndrome is prevalent in female executives and minority populations.
Unfortunately, the stigma associated with addiction can make people feel that they will always be “addicts,” no matter how strong their recovery is. They may repair their relationships, get their careers back on track, and start living a healthy lifestyle, but feel like the whole thing is a fraud. When their loved ones say how proud they are of their recovery, they dismiss it because they feel like they are really just putting on an act and might be exposed at any moment. This is a stressful way to live! Perhaps even worse, it doesn’t acknowledge that your successful recovery is a result of your own decision to work hard and stick with it. We can recover from addiction.
“Discounting” is a common cognitive distortion that is part of Imposter Syndrome. As I described above, it is easy for you to discount your recovery, so hand in hand goes your impulse to discount the value of your products. You will be especially vulnerable to this potential business-killer when launching a new venture, but you bravely press on, against the headwinds of feeling you are an Imposter. Without a coach who knows the deep-rooted invisible effects of addiction and trauma, you may express your insecurity by pricing your product or service too low. It will seem like you picked a smart price, one reasonable enough to be accepted by customers who, after all, will be trying something new. Meanwhile, what you’re really doing is creating a black hole to pour all your hard work down and end up with nothing. The simple fact is this: if you don’t bring enough money in, the business won’t succeed.
A recovery-savvy coach will save you from yourself. Only such a coach will stand up to your insistence that the price you want to set is all the market will bear. Only such a coach is aware that beyond your impulse to undervalue yourself is also a secret expectation–even desire–to be punished for your audacity by failing.
The trauma survivor may subconsciously believe that everything that happened was their fault. They are not just an imposter but a semi-criminal who deviously escaped prosecution. So how dare you expect to succeed honestly or be audacious enough to launch a new venture. Put simply, I help you look at ways this can affect how you set your pricing. If you have a plaguing feeling that you aren’t good enough, this can lower your pricing, particularly in new ventures. You may find yourself setting your prices below your competitors and put yourself last unnecessarily. If you don’t think you’re good enough, you’re probably not charging enough. I invite you to reevaluate your value, look at the facts of your success, and have confidence in the service you provide and that your pricing should reflect that. Know your prize and set your price.
Fear that failure will reveal that you were never really good or qualified enough. You may have a sense that you have failed, will fail, or are fundamentally inadequate in comparison to your competitors. Fear of failure in business is particularly high because their entire livelihood depends on the success of the business. As someone who has lost everything and hit rock bottom on several occasions as a business owner and in addiction, the obsessive thoughts of losing it all again is triggering and retraumatizing.
These fears can trigger unhealthy coping mechanisms common with addiction, like self-sabotaging. I’ve heard countless stories of alcoholics who went drinking the night before an important meeting or went gambling before starting a project so that they weren’t able to come up with the money to do the work. In these moments we are somehow letting their addiction affect your performance, further solidifying the belief that you aren’t good enough.
Imposter syndrome can exacerbate addiction, creating a cycle as your beliefs stimulate your addictive behaviors, which sabotage your performance and lead to even stronger feelings of inadequacy. Special care must be placed on healthy behaviors and thought processes, both in active addiction and in recovery.
Overcoming impostor syndrome is mainly a matter of accepting the evidence of your ability. It’s true that sometimes you might get lucky, but no one is lucky all the time. And often what looks like luck is really the result of hard work and persistence. Coaching can help realign this tendency to discount our successes, both great and small.
Here are some tips to handle imposture syndrome as an entrepreneur:
- Understand what imposter syndrome is and that it may cause anxiety and depression
- Reframe negative self-talk
- Create an inventory of negative coping skills, particularly the triggers from imposter syndrome
- Look at your feelings versus reality behind your success, instead of thinking of yourself as simply being lucky
- Place positive reviews where you can see them
- Understand your value and raise your prices to match that
- Stop thinking of yourself as a junkie – you have an addiction but that doesn’t take away from the fact that you’re talented
- Recognize that your unique talent may come so easily to you that it may not feel special, but others value that ability
- Find someone to whom you are comfortable talking about your fears – someone whose opinion won’t change because of your vulnerability
