I have just returned from a weekend away in Anglesey with my partner and a groups of her friends. I am feeling well rested, and enthused with the great feedback I am getting regarding the impostor syndrome (IS) blog I posted last week. To follow up on the first instalment, I would like to talk this week about an intervention that is easy to instigate, though on the face of it, has little to do with feeling like an impostor: good posture.
When I left the RAF last year, I wasn’t expecting to be doing research into the prevalence and treatment of Imposter Syndrome. It started when I began my new life in the civilian world. A part of my resettlement package as a happy refugee from Her Majesty’s armed forces was a coaching course, in which I was expected to guide a varied group of people through challenges they were facing.
“I have written eleven books, but each time I think, ‘Uh oh, they’re going to find out now. I’ve run a game on everybody, and they’re going to find me out.’” Maya Angelou, publisher of seven autobiographies, three books of essays, several books of poetry, credited with a list of plays, movies, and television shows spanning over 50 years.
I find it amazing how people react to change. Whether it is a big change like a new system at work, or something small like what sort of coffee is being stocked in the break room; change brings fear. Fear of failure, of hardship, of leaving the familiar behind. We know this from learned experience. When we have had to change in the past it has caused us pain. Think of a child having to move schools and all the bonds they must break and replace, or someone quitting cigarettes and the rituals they will have to recreate in another outlet.
I was recently in North Wales lecturing some students on project management. I was sharing the class with a colleague of mine and we seemed to making at least some sense to the audience which is often the first hurdle. Our subject for that particular day was organisational change, which is a favourite of mine as it always creates an uneasy feeling in the room; people fear change and for good reason, but that’s a topic for another day.