Today Sarah dives into the common but often unspoken experience of imposter feelings at work. If you've ever felt like a fraud or doubted your achievements, you're not alone—and this episode will help you kickstart the process of overcoming those thoughts.

Episode Show Notes:

[00:00] Introduction

Meet your host, Sarah Archer, leadership coach and career strategist.

Overview of the episode: imposter feelings and their impact.

[01:15] What Are Imposter Feelings?

Statistics: 70% of adults experience imposter feelings at some point.

Triggering situations: new roles, promotions, or stepping out of comfort zones.

[04:20] The Disconnect Between Perception and Reality

Telltale signs of imposter feelings: doubting accomplishments and fearing exposure.

The role of internalized rules and harsh self-judgment.

[07:00] Roots of Imposter Feelings

Potential origins: childhood, early career experiences, or authority fears.

Sarah shares her personal story of overcoming imposter feelings.

[10:10] The Brain’s Coping Mechanisms

Strategies like perfectionism, avoidance, and overworking to manage feelings of exposure.

The exhausting impact on confidence, career growth, and mental energy.

[13:00] Breaking the Pattern

Understanding imposter feelings as a psychological pattern, not a permanent state.

Levels of change: environment, capabilities, beliefs, and identity.

[15:30] Real-Life Transformation: Sally’s Story

A client’s journey from imposter feelings to confidence in a new leadership role.

The importance of embedding new thinking patterns.

[17:30] Actionable Strategy: Identify and Reframe Your Rules

Unearthing unhelpful rules with prompts:

• “If I were really smart, I would…”
• “I know I’ll be competent when…”
• “I should always…”

Reframing rules as if advising a friend.

[18:50] Final Thoughts and Next Steps

Take time to identify unconscious rules and seek support if needed.

Resources and coaching opportunities available on Sarah’s website.

Useful Links

Sign up for Weekly Career Inspiration

Learn about Leadership & Advancement Coaching Programmes

Book a Free 121 Clarity Call

Join The Love What You Do Facebook Group

Connect with Sarah on LinkedIn

Rate & Review the Podcast

If you found this episode of Unstuck & Unstoppable helpful, please do rate and review it on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

If you're kind enough to leave a review, please do let Sarah know so she can say thank you. You can always reach her at: sarah@careertreecoaching.co.uk

Welcome to Unstuck and Unstoppable,

the podcast for ambitious female

2

leaders who want to create more impact,

income, and influence in their careers.

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feel connected to their passion

and purpose, but without

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selling out or burning out.

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I'm Sarah Archer, a leadership coach

and career strategist, helping women

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like you thrive in leadership roles

while staying true to your values.

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I'm the founder of CareerTree

Coaching and have over 15 years of

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coaching experience and significant HR

leadership experience to share with you.

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I know as a female leader it can

be hard to find time to focus

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on your career aspirations.

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The day job can be all consuming.

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Plus, no matter how senior you are,

there are always going to be times

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when you feel stuck, when you have

self doubt, or feel like an imposter.

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And that's where unstuck

and unstoppable comes in.

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Each week I'll be sharing practical

strategies, insightful interviews and

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inspiring stories to help you boost

your confidence, lead with purpose

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and achieve sustainable success.

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If you're ready to stop playing

small and unlock the incredible

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potential you have within you and feel

unstoppable, you're in the right place.

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Let's get started.

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Welcome to episode two of the

Unstuck and Unstoppable podcast.

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I am so pleased you're here.

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The reason I chose today's session was

because this is a topic that comes up

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quite often for clients that I might be

working with, either through my leadership

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programs or through my career confidence

program, transform your confidence.

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as I'm going to explain the statistics

show that, a lot of people imposter

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at different points in their career.

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And so I thought it would be useful to

do a session on imposter feelings and

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give you a technique to help you start

to work on it because obviously we can't

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in 15 minutes, and I'll explain why as we

go through this, switch it around so you

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no longer have those imposter feelings.

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It is a process of addressing the thinking

patterns that have emerged, but I'm going

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to give you a technique to kickstart that

process if you feel this is something that

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you might be grappling with at the moment.

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And if it's something you want

to work with me on a deeper level

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with, then you can just message me

directly and have a chat about it.

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There will be a strategy to take away

to begin to work on tackling this.

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you might be feeling that, sometimes

you're a fraud at work, sometimes you

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might be worried that you're going to be

found out, maybe you think you're going to

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be exposed as not being as good as people

think you are, you might have a level of

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anxiety about your performance and you

might have that dread on a Sunday night of

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Monday morning arriving, and they're all

very common because what's important is

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often when we feel like an imposter, we

don't want to tell anybody that we feel

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like an imposter because that's the level

of vulnerability that we just can't go to.

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And so we feel like we're

the only person who might be

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worried about our performance.

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We might appear confident to other people.

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We might be in a leadership position where

people think, yeah, we've got it nailed.

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We know what we're doing.

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We're good at what we do.

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But internally, does that, disconnect

between how we see ourselves

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and how other people see us?

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and the research tells us that around

70 percent of adults, it's not just

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women, but tends to affect women,

More than men, but around 70 percent

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of adults at some point in their

career will have imposter feelings.

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And for some people that

might be a permanent state.

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So it might feel like you've

always had these feelings.

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They've always been around.

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It's something you're

always having to deal with.

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And for other people, it might be

something that can come and go.

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So it might be triggered by a promotion

or, moving into a new role, can then bring

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up these imposter feelings, , or it might

be doing something out of your comfort

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zone that might trigger imposter feelings.

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certain situations can trigger,

those feelings of imposter.

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I don't want to call it a syndrome

because it's not a syndrome.

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let me share with you the dictionary

definition of imposter syndrome, but as I

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said it's not a syndrome, and that is that

it's a psychological pattern in which an

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individual doubts their accomplishments

and has a persistent and internalized

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fear of being exposed as a fraud.

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So the good news in that

definition is that it's a pattern.

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It's not a fixed state, even though

it might feel like that to you.

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it's a pattern of thinking

and obviously patterns can be

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broken, patterns can be changed.

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but this is why we can't do that

in 15 minutes because, if you think

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about how long you might have been

feeling like an imposter, if it's,

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something you've dealt with since you're

maybe early 20s, you might have had

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those feelings for 10, 15, 20 years.

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It's not going to be something

that's just going to be magic

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wand and you can, get rid of it.

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It requires a level of commitment

and motivation for change.

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And, work often with a coach or a

counsellor, to change that thinking

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pattern and embed new ways of thinking.

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But the good news is that

it's possible to do that.

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It's not something that you

have to live with forever.

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you can change it.

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And I think sometimes when we've had these

feelings for a long time, we think, well,

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I've just got to accept that's how I am.

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It's part of my personality.

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It's part of my DNA.

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But actually recognizing that it

doesn't have to be like that, that

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you can choose to do something about

it with support, I think can be

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really freeing because it's quite

exhausting living with those feelings

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as we're going to explore in a minute.

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The original research by the two

academics, Klantz and Eames, showed that

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there was a telltale sign for imposter

feelings, and that was the disconnect

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between actual and perceived performance.

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You might be somebody who's,

very good at your job or, seen

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as being very good at your job.

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You get great feedback.

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You get amazing performance reviews.

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People look up to you.

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You're seen as a leader and

inspiration, but inside, you're not.

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You just think, yeah, but

I'm not really that good.

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they've mixed me up with somebody

else, or, they're going to

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find out, I'm going to trip up.

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and it's that disconnect that is the

telltale sign for imposter feelings.

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If I were to ask you to describe

your success to date, If you

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suffer from imposter feelings,

you might say, well, I was lucky.

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I had help to get here.

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I was in the right

place at the right time.

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They couldn't recruit anybody else.

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There was only me left.

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despite evidence to the contrary,

you cannot see yourself in the

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way other people see you and

you judge yourself harshly.

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now there's no definitive

cause of imposter feelings.

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there's lots of thinking about

roots that it can come from and I'm

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not going to go into them all today.

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but it is useful to reflect on, where

this may have established itself.

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It might be from your childhood.

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It might be from a school experience.

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It might be from early career.

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It could be from friendship,

family situations.

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I know for me, when I felt like an

imposter, I could trace it back to my

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early career experience, when I worked

on the management training scheme.

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, some of the stores that I worked in had

a very command and control environment.

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And the management trainees often

called up to account for things

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that might not have gone right.

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Well, it left me with a

bit of a fear of authority.

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It left me feeling I

wanted to be invisible.

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I didn't want to be pushing myself

forward because that could be exposing.

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And so I can see.

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where some of those thoughts came from.

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and certain management styles there were

not conducive to, to me as an individual.

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so it was helpful for me to recognize,

okay, that's where it came from.

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And that's why sometimes I

struggle with the visibility piece.

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I've done a lot of work on it now,

and I've got through that, but I can

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definitely see where it came from.

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what tends to happen is once we've

had some of those experiences, is

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that our brain starts to develop

coping and protecting strategies,

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to enable us to function.

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Because our brain primary focus is

to keep us safe, and therefore it

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has to scan for risk, What it then

develops is a strategy to avoid risk.

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If you've got imposter feelings, the

risk is around feeling vulnerable,

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feeling exposed, feeling that you're

going to be held to account, feeling

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that you're going to be found out.

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And so your brain will develop

strategies to avoid that, which might

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look like holding yourself back.

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It might be playing small.

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It might be not taking risks.

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It might be always feeling

like you need to be in control.

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so that you are not exposed in any way.

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And then that has an impact because

that can lead to you working crazy

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hours because you feel like you've

always got to produce perfect work.

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it might be that you can't

switch off or you procrastinate.

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Or you don't push yourself,

or you avoid the limelight.

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you might feel overwhelmed, and have

that sort of hyper vigilance, always

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scanning for potential, exposure.

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You might feel exhausted from

having to pretend that you're

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confident, particularly if

you're in a leadership role.

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or you might be feeling that you're not

fulfilling your potential because you

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know that you're holding yourself back.

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And all of that is, very tiring,

very exhausting, and can leave you

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feeling that you don't have enough

energy for moving your career

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forward in the way that you want to.

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And I know I'm painting a bit of a bleak

picture, but if you are somebody who

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is feeling like an imposter a lot of

the time, it can take its toll on you.

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if you know that you're changing roles,

moving up, getting promotion, you

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might choose to avoid that because you

know it's going to trigger imposter

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feelings and you're going to, have to go

through all of that anxiety around it.

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it has an impact on your career.

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but as I said earlier, this

is a psychological pattern of

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thinking that you can change.

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We can think about.

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what support we might need to change that.

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As I mentioned earlier, you might choose

you want to work with a professional,

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particularly if these feelings have

been around for quite a long time,

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you might need that additional

support to help you with that change.

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That could be a counselor, it could

be a coach, or it might be you feel,

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Okay, I feel like I could work on

this myself or I could work on it

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with a support of a good friend.

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if you feel that, you've got, the space

to do that, then you can certainly

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start to work through it and I'm

going to give you a technique to

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start to work through some of that.

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but it's important to think about where

the change needs to happen because

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obviously there's levels of change

that we can make, but they're not all

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going to have the impact that you want.

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We can change our environment so we could

think, okay, the culture wasn't conducive

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for me and exacerbated imposter feelings.

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So it might be, okay, I'm going

to find a different culture.

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So I'm going to change jobs, that

might help for a while, but it's not

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ultimately going to change that problem.

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Pattern of thinking, or it might be,

you can think about changing capability.

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So I'm going to upscale because that will

make me feel more confident because I'll

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have those skills or that qualification.

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And again, that will help for a

while, but it won't ultimately

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change that pattern of thinking.

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Because the level of change that we need

to work at around imposter feelings is at

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the beliefs level and the identity level.

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Because even just saying, I am

someone with imposter feelings, you

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are creating an identity around that.

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we need to shift our thinking,

our patterns of thinking around

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our beliefs about ourselves and

our identity that we've created.

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that's the level we need to

be thinking about working at.

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and that's uncomfortable.

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Working at that level is uncomfortable.

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And as I explained, it takes time

and commitment and motivation for

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change, but it's definitely possible.

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For example, I had a client that

I worked with, I would call her

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Sally, that's not her real name,

but just to protect her identity.

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So she worked with me on my Transform

Your Career Confidence program, which

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is a three month program, because she

had just, got herself a new job as an

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director, which she was going to be

starting in three months time, because

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she was working her notice and she knew

she's always triggered by, changes in job.

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And obviously this was a

promotion for her as well.

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She was going to be working as

an director, as I said, and

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she wanted to make a change.

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She didn't want to have to go

into that, having to, manage all

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those kind of internal feelings.

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She was really committed to working

through the, thinking work, the

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cognitive processing work that we

did, the belief work that we did,

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she was really willing to experiment

with the tools and the strategies

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that we identified would help her.

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And she was lucky in that she could do

that experimentation in her existing

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job before she moved into her new job.

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It gave her an opportunity to

change her way of thinking.

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way of approaching certain situations

and, have the opportunity to reflect

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and think about those strategies and

to embed them when they worked for her.

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What that meant for her was

then she went into that new role

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feeling very differently about

herself and her capability because

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she had a lot of experience.

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strategies, she had new skills and new

ways of thinking, and she was committed

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to maintaining them as well, because

it's about really embedding those new

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thinking patterns and new approaches.

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It can really make a difference

to have that sort of shift in how

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you, want to feel going into a

new role or in an existing role.

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The first thing to do, and this is the

one thing I'm going to give you to

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think about doing today or to start

working on, is to understand the rules

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that you have created for yourself

about you, the way of being for you.

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we all create rules that help us

navigate life, some of which are helpful.

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So I mustn't step off the pavement into

the road when there's a car coming.

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That's a really helpful rule that an

unconscious rule that we have developed

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over time that protects us But some of

our rules that we create for ourselves

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and because there are there tend to

be unconscious We're not always aware

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of how distorted they might be They

become unhelpful to us for example

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a few of these rules could be things

like I should keep my head down so they

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People in authority don't focus on me.

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I mustn't challenge or

outshine anyone senior to me.

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That might have been a result of a boss

who, tried to keep you small because you

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were more able than them, potentially.

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I must deliver everything to an

exceptional standard, which could have

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been early school or career experience

where maybe you got hauled over the

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coals for something that wasn't.

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100 percent but those rules get

embedded and then we look for evidence

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to support those rules and they

become our way of navigating life.

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What we want to try and do is actually

understand what rules you might have

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created that are not helpful to you,

that you could think about changing.

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and by making them conscious, it helps us

to see, how unhelpful they are and enables

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us to get a different perspective on that.

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So you can unearth your rules

and it will take time because

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they're more unconscious.

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You might have to have a few goes

at this to bring out the more

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unconscious rules, but, you could

answer these three sentences.

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To try and flesh out your roles.

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So if I was really smart, I would

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I know I'll be competent at X,

insert, skill, capability, whatever

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it might be, when, dot, dot, dot.

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I should always, dot, dot, dot.

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Being able to answer those

questions can help you see what

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might be getting in your way.

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, for example, if I were really

smart, I would understand

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everything the first time.

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I know I'll be competent at X when

I know everything there is to know.

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these are rules that

I've heard people say.

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it's understanding what yours are,

and then when you've managed to flesh

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them out, picking the one that is the

most unhelpful and, to then reframe it.

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a great way to reframe it is

to think about what you would say

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to a friend if they had that rule

to help change the perspective.

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If you had a friend who said,

If I were really smart, I would

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understand everything the first time,

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What would you say to a

friend who had that rule?

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Well, you might say, is that reasonable?

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Does everybody understand

everything first time?

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What about the levels

of complexity involved?

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Isn't it a good thing to sometimes go

away and really deep dive into something?

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And help to shift and

reframe that potential role.

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So that's my So my takeaway for you

for today is to think about fleshing

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out your rules and then noticing

the one that could be the most

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unhelpful and to then reframe it.

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Sometimes you need help to get

these unconscious rules out.

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think about whether there's somebody

who could support you with that.

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if you want some help around this

because you want to go deep on some of

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these things, Get in touch with me and

we can have a chat about working on

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this together to help you move forward.

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more confidently in

your leadership career.

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I know that's a lot of

information to take in.

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I don't want to overwhelm you.

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There's lots of strategies and

tools we can work on, but I wanted

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to give you something to help

you recognize where you might be

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tripping yourself up by unearthing

some of these unconscious rules.

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Thank you so much for listening

to this episode of the Unstuck

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and Unstoppable podcast.

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I have lots of free resources you

can access on my website, ww.career

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tree coaching.co uk, and I'll

also put links in the show notes.

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If you found this episode

helpful, then please subscribe

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so you don't miss the next one.

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And please do share it with a

friend and leave me a review

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and I will personally thank you.

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Remember, you're capable of more

than you know, shine brightly.

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Lead boldly and unlock the

extraordinary potential within you.

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Be unstoppable.