How can you tell if your imposter syndrome is justified?”
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“Many people feel imposter syndrome, that they don’t really know what they are doing and will be found out at some point. They live with anxiety and fear that each interaction will reveal their ignorance, and holding that tension ironically increases the chance of them making a mistake. ”
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“Part of the reason for that fear is the Peter Principle, which is the idea that people get promoted until they are past their level of competence. ”
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“My observation is that subjects of the Peter Principle rarely have the self awareness to realize their lack of competence, instead blaming everybody around them when things go wrong. This is related to the Dunning-Kruger effect where the skills needed to accurately assess your own competence are the same as the skills to actually be competent. ”
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“For those who don’t know Dunning-Kruger, they gave people a test and asked them how they thought they did on the test. The lowest performers significantly overrated their own performance, believing they were above average when they were in the bottom 25%. The highest performers underrated their performance, thinking they were barely above average when they were in the top 25%. Part of this is that the high performers knew what they didn’t know, so they could see more easily how they could be better. ”
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“If you are questioning your own competence and experiencing imposter syndrome, it likely means that you are actually a high performer that is underestimating your own competence, as in Dunning-Kruger. What would it mean if that were true? How would you act differently if you believed that? ”
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“#confidence #selfassessment #coaching ”
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