Calling All Imposters: Fake It Till You Make It

Although I aspire to publish a new blog post every Friday, I let myself off the hook yesterday because we took the kids to Alcatraz (don’t worry, it was a round trip journey). It was a cold day with occasional rain, but we made the best of it and the kids had a good time.

Do you ever grapple with imposter syndrome? Are you working on an area of personal or professional development that is taking you outside of your comfort zone? This may require you to do things you have never done before, applying skills that you are still developing. Maybe you are trying to accomplish something no one has done before, where there is no well-lit path.

A surprising number of high achievers I know have a tendency to attribute their success to luck and fear that they will be exposed as a fraud. Self doubt, inner critic, call it what you want, it’s something that I’m very familiar with personally as well. With my impressive resume of doubts, insecurities, self-judgment, and fears, I could be the president of the Imposters Club. But I’ve also found the antidote - Fake it Till You Make it (FITYMI).

Wikipedia attributes the earliest use of this phrase to a Simon & Garfunkel song called “Fakin’ It”. While the song lyrics say, “And I know I'm fakin' it / I'm not really makin' it”, the idea behind FITYMI is that if you persist, you will eventually make it. To be clear, I’m not talking about deception, lying, or false bravado - I’m saying “fake it” here with a good dose of irony. FITYMI is not really about faking, but about choosing to believe in yourself even when it doesn’t come naturally, and deciding to take action. By acting as if you are already competent and confident in what you’re doing, you can make those things a reality. That is, show up and start practicing. It’s okay if you are a novice and don’t have all the answers. You may start out by going with your gut or instincts. By having the experiences, going through the motions, you start to embody the qualities you wish you had. And you prove to yourself that you are not an imposter after all. Our brains have the capability to adapt and learn through changes in behavior and thinking. By having new experiences and learning, we allow our brains to rewire, creating new neural connections. We are not hard-wired.

FITYMI is is a form of risk-taking, which means it takes courage. Start small (remember Start Where You Are?), and practice, practice, practice. At the beginning, take risks where the consequences of failure are minor, and embrace the failure as a learning opportunity. Take time to reflect on what went well, and what could improve. It’s also important to recognize when you’ve made it and acknowledge your progress. For example, as you notice that others seem to believe you’ve got what it takes, you start to believe it yourself and feel more confident. And there you have it - growth mindset!

I’ll share how this approach has worked for me. Once upon a time, I was terrified of presenting and being the center of attention. I felt that I just wasn’t good at it and could not speak with the confidence and ease that everyone else seemed to have. Just the idea of it made me physically nervous - my heart would beat wildly and my body would tense up. However, I also recognized that it was a useful and important skill to have if I wanted to be successful at work, so I decided to work on it.

I created as many opportunities as possible at work to speak in front of a group. I raised my hand to present about what my team was working on in front of execs. At the beginning, it took a lot of time and was terrifying. I wrote out every single word I was going to say like a script, practiced out loud by myself, and kept editing my script until it sounded the way I wanted it to. Then I practiced it in front of another person, usually my husband, for a second opinion, since I still lacked confidence. When it was time to present, I kept my speaker notes open as a crutch.

It was around this time that I got certified as a yoga teacher and started teaching regular weekly yoga classes. Every week, I wrote out my entire sequence and practiced it the night before from start to finish, keeping my notes close by as I taught. Before each class, I usually felt anxious for a full hour leading up to the class. I was in the uncomfortable position of having to be “on” for an hour in front of a group of people.

Then I got an email announcing a new career development program at Google called Stretch with a call for facilitators. I applied and went through a train-the-trainer session. I was a Stretch facilitator for several years, and it was a great experience learning to present pre-existing materials and facilitate discussions with a group of learners I had just met.

The next year, I signed up to do a short “lightning talk” at a national conference for program managers. I spent lots of time researching and compiling content, and again I wrote out everything I wanted to say. That same year, someone approached me about conducting a leadership workshop at the summit. At the time I was practicing saying “yes” to scary things, so I agreed to do it. This entailed developing all the materials as well as leading the workshop. This was my first time doing something like this and I had no idea what I was doing, but I drew inspiration from what I had learned in the Stretch program and others, did lots of research, and cobbled together an agenda. In the end, I led a 90-minute workshop with about 200 participants. It was terrifying, chaotic, and exhilarating.

All of this happened over the course of a few years. It was not a quick and easy process, but at some point I stopped being nervous about teaching yoga classes and no longer needed to do extensive preparation. I gained confidence as a speaker and facilitator, relying less on a well-rehearsed script, until one day I realized that I wasn’t terrified anymore and I might even enjoy myself in the process. Most importantly, I am able to say with confidence that I’m pretty good at it now!

This experience has given me the confidence to stretch myself in multiple other situations. I’m practically a professional faker. A few years ago, I took on a new role where I was tasked with building an insider risk program from the ground up. When I first learned about the job, I had no idea what insider risk was, or what the difference was between security & privacy. But I knew I could apply my past experience and was willing to do the work to learn. I took chances and put myself out there, sharing my ideas even when I had no idea if people would tell me they were terrible. It was stressful and scary, but I just kept taking steps forward. I shared what my new team was doing whenever I had the chance - success stories, best practices, and challenges - and we soon earned a positive reputation for the progress we were able to make.

FITYMI probably won’t make you completely immune to imposter syndrome, but it’s a muscle you can build so that you will default less and less to inaction when you feel the fear. I still grapple with it from time to time when facing a new challenge, but I now have the experience to know that my FITYMI strategy can work in a number of situations.

Related: Amy Cuddy Ted Talk “Fake it Till you Make It” - changing the shape of your body through power poses to boost your confidence and how others perceive you.