Fake it till you make it, the saying goes. But what happens when you’ve “made it” but still feel like a total fraud? The term “impostor phenomenon” was coined in 1978 by American psychologists Pauline Clance and Suzanne Imes, who noticed their female students and therapy patients were full of doubt about their abilities. A 2021 survey found that up to 82% of people have experienced what’s become known as impostor syndrome – that nagging feeling that you’ve tricked everyone into thinking you know what you’re doing.
做到成功，俗话说。但当你“成功”了，却仍然感觉自己是个彻头彻尾的骗子怎么办？1978 年，美国心理学家 Pauline Clance 和 Suzanne Imes 提出了“冒充者现象”这个术语，他们注意到他们的女学生和疗愈患者对自己的能力充满了怀疑。2021 年的一项调查发现，高达 82%的人经历过所谓的“冒充者综合症”——那种感觉好像自己欺骗了所有人，让他们认为自己知道自己在做什么。
“Impostor syndrome is incredibly common among my clients,” says psychologist Dr Jessamy Hibberd, author of The Imposter Cure. “It seems to be worse among high-achieving, very competent people who are outwardly very successful and experienced.” Indeed, Michelle Obama, David Bowie and Maya Angelou have all spoken about feeling as if they didn’t deserve their success.
“我的客户中冒牌货综合症非常普遍，”心理学家、《冒牌货治愈法》一书的作者杰西米·希伯德博士说。“这好像在那些外表非常成功和经验丰富的高成就者中更为严重。”事实上，米歇尔·奥巴马、大卫·鲍伊和玛雅·安吉洛都曾谈到过感觉自己不配拥有成功。
Hibberd says it’s not just at work that people can feel like impostors: parenting, relationships and social media can all bring on feelings of inadequacy and a deep fear of getting found out. Impostor syndrome can lead to anxiety and depression, interfere with our ability to take risks, and make it harder to progress.
希伯德表示，人们在工作之外也可能感觉自己像冒牌货：育儿、人际关系和社交媒体都可能引发不安全感以及被揭穿的深深恐惧。冒牌货综合症可能导致焦虑和抑郁，干扰我们承担风险的能力，并使进步变得更加困难。
So what should you do if you can’t shake the feeling that you’re only a poorly worded email away from being fired? How can you overcome the fear that one bad day means everything will fall apart? We asked the experts for their tips on how to beat feelings of self-doubt for good.
所以，如果你无法摆脱感觉自己随时可能因为一封措辞不当的邮件而被解雇的感觉，你应该怎么办？如何克服一天糟糕的表现就意味着一切都会崩溃的恐惧？我们向专家请教了如何永远战胜自我怀疑的建议。
Track your fears 跟踪你的恐惧
“People with impostor syndrome often predict the worst-case scenario happening, and will turn down opportunities as they believe things could go wrong and then they’ll get found out,” says Hibberd. “I recently had this myself, when I tried to talk myself out of a public speaking engagement because I was nervous it would go badly.”
“有冒充者综合症的人通常会预测最坏的情况发生，并且会拒绝机会，因为他们认为事情可能会出错，然后他们就会被发现，”希伯德说。“我最近就经历过这样的事情，当我试图说服自己不要参加公开演讲，因为我担心演讲会进行得很糟糕。”
To overcome this, Hibberd encourages her clients to write down their anxious predictions and then track what actually happens – something she does herself. “When you start doing this you realise that the worst doesn’t happen, in fact things normally go positively,” she says. “You grow in trust and confidence as you realise it’s just your impostor brain talking, it’s not realistic. The next time I’m asked to give a talk and I feel nervous, I can look back and remember that I’ve felt this way before, but also I’ll be able to track how pleased I felt afterwards.”
要克服这一点，希伯德鼓励她的客户写下他们的焦虑预测，然后跟踪实际发生的事情——她自己也这样做。“当你开始这样做时，你会发现最糟糕的事情并没有发生，事实上事情通常都会朝着积极的方向发展，”她说。“随着你意识到这只是你的冒充者大脑在作祟，并不是现实的。下次我被要求发表演讲并感到紧张时，我可以回顾并记住我曾经有过这种感觉，同时我也能跟踪我在之后有多么高兴。”
Swim in the unknown 在未知中游泳
“Those of us who feel like impostors often have a belief that we always have to be the expert or have all our ducks in a row,” says business coach and therapist Amanda Brenkley. “When in fact, coming from a place of not knowing is a superpower, not a weakness.”
“那些感觉自己像冒牌货的人常常认为我们总是必须成为专家或者把所有事情都安排得井井有条，”商业教练和治疗师 Amanda Brenkley 说。“实际上，从不知道的地方出发是一种超级能力，而不是弱点。”
It is possible, says Brenkley, to train the brain to be comfortable with uncertainty and to enjoy swimming in the unknown. “You don’t have to come in all guns blazing, knowing everything,” she says. “Remind yourself that it’s perfectly OK to say ‘I don’t know’; it’s good to ask questions; it can feel empowering to ask for help. Actually, you might find that people respond better to the curious learner, rather than the know-it-all expert.”
布伦克利表示，训练大脑适应不确定性，享受探索未知的感觉是可能的。“你不必一开始就全力以赴，什么都懂，”她说。“提醒自己说‘我不知道’是完全正常的；提问是好事；寻求帮助可能会让你感到更有力量。实际上，你可能会发现人们更愿意回应好奇的学习者，而不是自以为无所不知的专家。”
Nobel prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman embraced this philosophy, breaking down new and complex ideas in what he called his Notebook of Things I Don’t Know About, a technique that became known as the Feynman Method. Normalise that you’ll never know everything, and that it’s OK. Maybe even start your own notebook.
诺贝尔奖得主理查德·费曼接受了这种哲学，将新和复杂的思想分解为他所说的“我不知道的事情笔记本”，这种技巧后来被称为费曼方法。接受你永远不可能知道一切，这是正常的。也许甚至可以开始你自己的笔记本。
照片：Getty Images/iStockphoto
Celebrate your wins 庆祝你的胜利
“Those with impostor syndrome tend to be very hard on themselves when things don’t go well and belittle any success they have,” says Hibberd. “When things go right, they’ll say ‘I was just lucky’ or ‘I had a good team’, which is why they never feel good enough and feel disconnected from their accomplishments.”
“有冒牌货综合症的人往往在事情不顺利时对自己非常苛刻，贬低他们所取得的任何成功，”希伯德说。“当事情顺利时，他们会说‘我只是运气好’或‘我有好的团队’，这就是为什么他们永远觉得自己不够好，感觉与自己的成就脱节。”
To combat this, Hibberd asks her clients to write down three things they’ve done well every day. “I ask them to read them out in our sessions and they find it incredibly hard at first,” she says. “They’ll say, ‘Oh I forgot to do it,’ or visibly squirm as they read it to me. People are much more comfortable replaying the things they’ve been unhappy with. But over time, celebrating wins like this feels more natural, and you can even up the negative thoughts with positive ones.”
为了对抗这种情况，希伯德要求她的客户每天写下三件他们做得好的事情。“我会要求他们在我们的会话中读出来，他们一开始发现这非常困难，”她说。“他们会说，‘哦，我忘了做’，或者在我读给他们听时明显地扭动身体。人们更习惯于回顾他们不满意的事情。但久而久之，庆祝这样的胜利会感觉更自然，你甚至可以用积极的想法来抵消消极的想法。”
Create an impostor-busting CV
创建一个击败冒充者综合症的简历
“I ask clients to write a big list of their achievements or create a big CV of everything they’ve done and keep adding to it all the time,” says life coach Ash Ambirge, author of The Middle Finger Project: Trash Your Imposter Syndrome and Live the Unf*ckwithable Life You Deserve. “I tell them to imagine they’re making this for someone who’s not in their industry. Many of the amazing things they’ve done they’ve never written down or said out loud.”
“我让客户列出他们的一大串成就，或者创建一份他们所做一切的详细简历，并且不断添加内容，”生活教练 Ash Ambirge，著有《中指项目：抛弃你的冒充者综合症，活出你应得的无法忍受的生活》一书说。“我告诉他们想象自己是在为不在这个行业的人制作这份东西。他们所做过的许多了不起的事情，他们从未写下来或大声说过。”
Ambirge then gets clients to take a step back and imagine they were reading about this person as if it wasn’t them. “I ask them, ‘How would you feel if you heard about someone who’d done all these things?’ and ‘What would your 16-year-old self feel about the person who’d achieved all this?’ Sometimes just seeing your accomplishments on paper is enough to make you stop feeling like a fraud and start feeling like a badass.”
然后，Ambirge 让客户退后一步，想象他们正在阅读关于这个人的故事，就像那个人不是他们自己一样。“我会问他们，‘如果你听说有人做了所有这些事情，你会怎么感觉？’还有‘你的 16 岁自己会对完成所有这些成就的人有什么感觉？’有时候，仅仅看到你的成就被写在纸上就足以让你停止感觉自己是个骗子，开始感觉自己很酷。”
Learn to take a compliment
学会接受赞美
“Those struggling with impostor syndrome find it particularly hard to take and remember compliments, and they gloss over successes,” says Hibberd. “We have to learn to take credit when it’s due. This can feel uncomfortable or unnatural at first – try starting by simply saying ‘Thank you’ when someone pays you a compliment or gives you credit.”
那些与冒牌货综合症作斗争的人发现，接受和记住赞美尤其困难，他们会忽略成功，希伯德说。“我们必须学会在应该的时候接受赞誉。这起初可能会感到不舒服或不自然——试着从简单地说‘谢谢’开始，当有人给你赞美或给予你认可时。”
The next step is to start paying yourself compliments. “Remember to tell yourself when you believe you have done well,” says Hibberd. “Then you can begin to tell others about the things you have done well, achieved or learned.”
下一步是开始给自己赞美。希伯德说：“记得在你认为自己做得好的时候告诉自己。”然后你可以开始向他人讲述你所做的好事、取得的成就或学到的知识。
Embrace your failures 拥抱你的失败
“There’s a tendency these days – especially online – to only share the best bits of our jobs or our families and friendships, and that can make impostor syndrome feel even worse, as it seems like everyone else has got it all figured out,” says Brenkley. “We’re very good at pretending things are effortless, but we don’t share the feelings of nerves or inadequacy along the way, or all the hard work that’s gone into an end result.”
如今有一种趋势——尤其是在网上——只分享我们工作或家庭、友谊的最好部分，这可能会让冒牌货综合症感觉更糟，因为看起来每个人都已经一切尽在掌握，“我们非常擅长假装事情毫不费力，但我们没有分享过程中的紧张或不足感，也没有分享最终成果背后所付出的所有努力。”布伦克利说。
Brenkley says that by embracing our failures and mistakes – by sharing our pitfalls, and even rewarding ourselves and others for the learning opportunity – feelings of being inadequate or a fraud no longer feel like something we have to hide. “Growth and discomfort are a circle, not a straight line, and no one gets it right 100% of the time.”
布伦克利表示，通过接受我们的失败和错误——通过分享我们的陷阱，甚至奖励自己和他人以学习机会——感觉不足或是个骗子不再是我们必须隐藏的事情。“成长和不适是一个循环，而不是一条直线，没有人每次都能做到 100%正确。”
Find your thread 找到你的线索
For many people, impostor syndrome strikes when we’re trying something new, putting ourselves in a different context, or getting out of our comfort zone. Ambirge says that’s when it’s important to reflect on what your “secret sauce” is – your USP, which translates across many different areas of your life and your interests.
对于许多人来说，当我们在尝试新事物、置身于不同的环境或走出舒适区时，冒充者综合症会发作。安布里奇表示，这时重要的是反思你的“秘密配方”——你的独特卖点（USP），它跨越了你生活的许多不同领域和兴趣。
“If you’re starting something different, it’s easy to feel out of your depth or like you don’t know what you’re doing,” she says. “But actually, if you look back at what you’ve done in the past, you’ll probably be able to trace some commonalities or a theme, for example it could be creativity, or helping people find their purpose, or even just being inquisitive. If you map out your life so far, the path may seem jagged, but there will be a thread between your previous experience and this new interest or project. Sometimes, that’s all it takes to make you realise that you’re not a fraud trying to fool everyone. Everything you’ve done before is an advantage, and you do have valuable skills. Now you’re just applying them to a different setting.”
如果你开始做不同的事情，很容易感到力不从心或不知道自己在做什么，她说。“但实际上，如果你回顾一下过去所做的事情，你可能会发现一些共同点或主题，比如可能是创造力，或者帮助人们找到他们的目标，甚至只是好奇。如果你梳理一下到目前为止的生活，路径可能看起来参差不齐，但你的先前经验和这个新的兴趣或项目之间会有一个线索。有时候，这就能让你意识到你并不是一个试图欺骗所有人的骗子。你之前所做的一切都是一种优势，你确实拥有有价值的技能。现在你只是在不同的环境中应用它们。”
