We explore the phenomenon of “imposter syndrome” with expert Laura Capell-Abra of Stress Matters and find out what the buzzword actually means.
Imposter syndrome is a phrase which has broken into the public awareness in the last few years, gracing headlines, social media sites, and watercooler conversations in equal measure, but what actually is it?
“It’s not a syndrome in a medical sense,” says Laura Capell-Abra, Co-Founder of workplace wellbeing business Stress Matters. “It’s essentially when we have fear or anxiety that we’re not prepared enough or aren’t the right person to do a particular thing or to be a particular type of person. It’s when we feel uncomfortable with the idea that we’re capable of doing something. There are so many different variations and ways in manifests in people. Some people might feel that they’re not experienced enough, others may feel that they’re not old enough etc.”
Imposter syndrome isn’t a medical condition as the term might suggest: “I always say to people, it’s not a syndrome in terms of it’s a condition. It’s better to think of it as imposter feelings. So we might feel like an imposter, but we’re going to have times in our lives where we don’t feel like an imposter and actually, if we reframe it as a feeling rather than a thing that we have, then it’s much easier for us to understand that it comes and goes.”
According to a national study conducted by Funding Guru in 2023, 62.30% of event professionals reported experiencing imposter syndrome at work over 12 months, though other professions such as healthcare and the creative arts have even higher rates. Laura doesn’t feel that these feelings are necessarily more prevalent in the events industry than anywhere else, but the figures are worryingly high not helped by the uniqueness of each event: “It quite often comes from when we’re doing something for the first time. It is that fear of the unknown. People often feel more comfortable the more times they’ve done something. That’s not to say you can’t be very experienced in what you do and feel like an imposter. That happens quite a lot too. But when we believe in ourselves the feelings disappear.”
Mental health and wellbeing have become much less of a taboo topic over the last few years, leading to more of an open acknowledgement of imposter feelings within the industry: “What’s been lovely over the last few years is that people are a lot more comfortable talking about how they feel. I love that in terms of the mental health work I do. Only a handful of years ago, people didn’t talk about mental health and how they felt, and it was a sign of weakness. We’re starting to shift as an industry and as a society and it’s not as frowned upon as before. There’s also the other side of that, as we have a lot more visibility of other people in the industry now with social media. You see what other people are doing and are maybe comparing yourself to others.”
The biggest question for those experiencing imposter feelings is naturally how to tackle them. There are many ways to do this, but one method which Laura finds helpful is to treat the feelings like a news story of dubious veracity: “I find it helpful to think of it as a fake news story. Asking what proof is there? Can I find anything to prove that I’m right and I am an imposter? And can I prove that I’m totally right and find no contradicting evidence whatsoever? Sometimes that’s better to do with other people because we may have confirmation bias and need other people to remind us that it’s not true.”