What Is Imposter Syndrome, Really?
Imposter Syndrome — also called impostorism or fraud syndrome — is the persistent internal experience of feeling like a fraud and downplaying your achievements, despite external evidence of competence, success, or value. it’s more nuanced than simply a lack of confidence.
Ironically, it’s often the most hard-working and high-achieving people who experience this. In fact, it’s often what drives them. They deny their full worth, or attribute their achievements to luck, timing, or others being “fooled” — and live with the fear of eventually being “found out.” They also often struggle to accept compliments.
What most people don’t realise is that behind this label lies a rich emotional and psychological landscape, shaped by EQ dynamics.
Do You Have Imposter Syndrome?
Feeling inadequate or undeserving in your role? Striving but not feeling fulfilled? Constantly plagued with self-doubt or feelings of unworthiness? Overly self-critical?
These are common signs of imposter syndrome. You may also notice compensatory behaviours — like being overly assertive or pushing harder than necessary — because you’re not getting the internal emotional reward of fulfilment. Perhaps you don’t fully trust that your value, skills, or presence will carry you forward on their own, so you push, just in case.
Why Do You Have It?
Imposter Syndrome is surprisingly common. It’s just one example of a stark mismatch between what we believe and what we feel. In short, we’ve lost touch with reality about ourselves.
Our minds filter reality in complex ways. Life experiences shape how we interpret situations — not always in helpful ways.
We constantly try to spot patterns. When we learn something well, we apply it automatically — such as when driving — with minimal conscious effort. But we can also learn unhelpful things this way. These often go unnoticed and unchallenged because they’ve become unconscious.
As children, we often misinterpret the world around us. We absorb distorted messages, assume incorrect patterns and internalise the wrong meanings. This faulty emotional programming gives rise to a wide array of behavioural issues through such distortions as:
If someone dismissed us, we assumed we were at fault.
If we were ignored, we believed we weren’t worthy.
If our enthusiasm or ideas were rejected, we learned our ideas had no value — or worse, that thinking we have value is itself wrong.
How Our Emotional Programming Works
These experiences lay down emotional programming that feeds negative thoughts such as: “Don’t try too hard. Don’t speak up. You’ll get it wrong. You’ll be rejected. You’ll feel shame.” This creates a negative feedback loop — stopping you from acting on good impulses such as:
“I want to share something or I’m excited about this or I have an opinion…”
However, instead of acting naturally on these impulses, our faulty programming interrupts with thoughts like:
“Don’t bother. It’ll be emotionally painful. You’ll fail. You’ll look bad. You’ll feel shame.”
Over time, this shuts us down. It makes expression feel risky. It makes vulnerability feel like a trap.
And shame is a powerful all-encompassing emotion that doesn’t just say to us, “You made a mistake.” It says, “You are a mistake.” It interferes with growth, feeling a connection, and joy. This mechanism is the emotional system driving imposter syndrome. The good news? You can rewrite it.
How EQ Lifts the Lid on Imposter Syndrome
There are several emotional intelligence components at the heart of this issue. Understanding them gives you a roadmap for change.
Self-Regard is one of the most important components of emotional intelligence (EQ).
Imposter Syndrome arises when key EQ components are out of balance. It’s not just about lacking confidence (which comes about through higher self-regard) — it’s about a whole array of emotional elements being skewed or disconnected. These EQ elements help us see which parts of that system are overactive, underdeveloped, or in tension with each other.
EQ Components You’ll Need to Strengthen
• Emotional Self-Awareness (ES)
The number one skill to learn is knowing what you’re feeling and why. It connects your cognitive mind with your emotional system. Without this, joy, pride, connection, and growth get missed. The language of emotion enables us to know ourselves, so we don’t miss the rewards of achievement.
• Self-Regard (SR)
This is your capacity to accept yourself as a whole — both the good and the bad, the strong and the vulnerable. It means trusting your worth, not just knowing it intellectually. It’s not about being perfect — it’s about being able to sit with your full self and still feel good and deserving.
• Reality Testing (RT)
Reality Testing is your ability to understand what’s going on around you clearly. But it goes beyond observation — you’ll need to see your thoughts clearly too. You must recognise they don’t define you and catch where they’re distorted — such as when you undervalue yourself and overvalue others. This is not about arrogance, but emotional truth calibration.
• Interpersonal Relationships (IR) & Empathy (EM)
Once you understand your emotions and trust your worth, you can better connect with others. The next step is therefore connecting in a positive, balanced way that values them.
Imposter patterns often include misreading others — assuming they’re more confident, competent, or critical than they are. You might defer too quickly or easily when challenged. This means you and the business are losing out on your valuable contributions.
Balancing these EQ areas helps correct that skew.
A Deeper Layer: The SA/SR Trap
Often, imposter syndrome is driven by an emotional mismatch between:
Self-Actualisation (SA): your drive for achievement, meaning, and impact and
Self-Regard (SR): your internal sense of acceptance and value
When SA is much higher than SR, it creates a stress point:
You push hard to grow, succeed, and contribute… but don’t feel good enough inside of able to strive towards it or experience satisfaction when you get there.
It’s like running ever faster on a treadmill that never ends. The result? Pressure, exhaustion and constant self-criticism.
🟢 Coaching focuses on re-balancing this vital dynamic. That doesn’t mean letting go of your drive — it means anchoring it in self-worth, not self-judgment.
Other Influences: Cultural and Systemic Dynamics
Many belief systems are shaped not just by personal history but by society and personality traits.
For example, many women are subtly or overtly taught they are less worthy than men — less entitled to speak up, take space, or be in power. These biases are often invisible to those who benefit from them.
That’s one reason why imposter syndrome is disproportionately high amongst women in leadership. It’s not just internal doubt — it’s the emotional inheritance of inequality. This is part of a cultural belief system.
Women often wait to be recognised in their role; men are more likely to assert their value and ask for what they want. That gap is systemic, not personal.
Senior leaders need to understand this. Without awareness of bias, organisations will keep overlooking talent and reinforcing imposter patterns in others.
Some psychologists believe personality plays a part. For instance, some people may be predisposed to putting pressure on themselves — due to perfectionism or neuroticism. From experience, I focus on what we can change and the key issues ultimately, are emotional ones. Most clients who put in the effort significantly improve, so I prioritise empowerment over fixed-trait thinking.
We Must Challenge Our Feelings With Evidence
Many of us may be locked into belief systems by emotional discomfort.
You could show someone all the evidence that they’re more capable than they think — but if this clashes with how they feel about themselves, it won’t land. It may even make them feel worse. The resulting emotional dissonance can trigger shame, defensiveness, or withdrawal.
Like many deeply held belief systems, imposter syndrome can be challenged by evidence — if we’re open to that challenge. But often we aren’t — because it doesn’t feel emotionally safe.
For example: when I assess Self-Regard (SR) and someone scores below, say, 80, they often can’t accept compliments. They feel awkward, even ashamed, when others say positive things. It’s like the praise doesn’t compute. Their beliefs reject the evidence — and that dissonance doesn’t uplift them, it unsettles them.
This shows how powerful faulty emotional learning is.
Until we develop new emotional frames of reference — not just intellectual understanding — our minds will defend old beliefs, even painful ones. They become emotionally self-supporting.
Coaching Pathway: How Do We Change?
📉 Deepen Emotional Self-Awareness – Learn to identify and name emotions
📉 Enrich Self-Regard from Within – Anchor your worth in the many varied aspects of your value (not just what you achieve but who you are).
Write down examples of your strengths and impact. Repeat positive self-talk. Inject energy into those words. Even if it feels awkward, over time it works.
📉 Reality Testing Calibration – Spot distorted thinking and challenge it with evidence.
📉 Strengthen Boundaries and Self-Compassion – Especially in relationships.
📉 Normalise Vulnerability – Accept that doubt, failure, and imperfection are part of being human.
🟨 This isn’t about “fixing” you. It’s about helping you see what’s always been true: you were never the fraud. You’ve always had incredible value — and now you’re ready to feel it.
