Do you ever feel as if you’re a fraud, you’re not as smart or accomplished as others perceive you to be, or you “lucked into” your successes rather than meriting them? You might be experiencing impostor syndrome. Also called impostorism, this phenomenon can occur in any area in which you are successful yet have a pervasive sense that you don’t deserve it and lack the skills or knowledge to do it. In other words, you’re out of your league, but nobody else realizes it.

Most everyone suffers from impostor syndrome at some point—even the distinguished actor Paul Newman, who, according to a 2022 memoir, said, “I am faced with the appalling fact that I don’t know anything.” I know I have, too; when I started medical school, I was convinced that they had mistakenly accepted the wrong John Swartzberg!

The term “impostor syndrome” was coined in the 1970s by two psychologists who observed that many successful career women tended to believe they were inadequate or not competent, despite evident academic and professional achievements. Though the phenomenon was initially thought to apply just to professional women, subsequent study revealed that it is widely experienced by people of all genders and across different cultures. It’s not clear what causes it, but cultural messages, personality traits like perfectionism, and family dynamics may play a role.

In a 2019 paper from Brigham Young University, researchers found that of 213 students in an elite academic program, 20 percent suffered from “very strong” feelings of impostorism. Researchers have also studied impostor syndrome in business executives. Many highly successful people, from Sheryl Sandberg to Tom Hanks, report in interviews that they feel like impostors.

Much of the research on impostor syndrome has been done with medical students, residents, and physicians, who seem to be particularly vulnerable to the phenomenon, as I know all too well. Women in these high-pressure environments are especially likely to experience it. In a pilot study of 138 medical students in Philadelphia, for instance, published in the International Journal of Medical Education in 2016, almost a quarter of male students and nearly half of female students experienced impostorism, as assessed by a questionnaire. In another, older study of family medicine residents, one-third (and more women than men) reported believing that they were less intelligent and less competent than others perceived them to be.

Impostor syndrome isn’t considered a disorder, but it’s associated with substantial psychological distress. In the 2016 study cited above, impostor feelings were correlated with physical and emotional exhaustion, cynicism, and depersonalization (feelings of unreality or of disconnection from one’s body). Other studies link impostor syndrome to depression and anxiety (though such studies can only show associations, not causality).

Impostor syndrome can negatively affect your job performance, too. You may undervalue your skills, avoid taking on extra duties for fear of performing them poorly, or engage in self-sabotage (for example, not trying hard so that if failure occurs it can be attributed to lack of effort and not lack of competence). On the flip side, you may over-prepare for tasks or projects because of an intense fear of failure. Some research has shown that impostor syndrome can make it difficult to find a new job, get promoted, or earn a higher salary.

Is there hope for the impostors among us? Yes; impostor syndrome is a perception, and perceptions are modifiable. Here are a few steps that may help:

• Talk about it with others. You may find that people whom you admire also feel like impostors.
• Write down specific successes and accomplishments; if you believe something was not an accomplishment but rather luck, write down the concrete steps you took to successfully complete the task.
• When you get positive feedback, make a record of it along with what your immediate doubts were. This might help you see a pattern of discounting others’ positive opinions about you.
• Act as if you believe you are competent, even if you don’t feel that way; this may help to shift your feelings.
• If impostor syndrome causes major distress or interferes with your ability to function, seek help from a mental health professional with experience in this area.

More tips on how to overcome imposter syndrome are in this New York Times article.