Courage Before Confidence Part 2: Imposter Syndrome and the Comparison Trap

In Part 1, I told you about a failed lizard rescue, a wall of fire, and the annoying truth that courage has to come before confidence. If you missed it, you can find it here. (Short version: you don’t feel ready before doing the scary thing. You feel ready after. And the doing-it-scared bit is non-negotiable.)

This is Part 2 — the voice in your head that tries to undo all of it. Imposter syndrome, the comparison trap, and the rigged little game we keep trying to win.

That Voice That Says You’re a Fraud

Imposter syndrome. I don’t think I’ve met a single person who doesn’t have it, at least sometimes.

It’s that feeling that you don’t really deserve to be where you are. That you’ve somehow fooled everyone into thinking you’re competent, and any minute now they’re going to figure out the truth.

I used to think imposter syndrome meant I actually was an imposter. That the feeling was evidence. That if I felt like a fraud, I probably was one.

Case in point. Yet again, I was filling in for someone in a job role I was hopelessly underqualified for.

My boss (I can’t call him manager, it’s way too formal for this guy) was basically the Bush Tucker Man. (If you’re too young to know who that is, google it.) He could identify every species of vegetation on earth just by looking at it. Every frog, bird, and insect — if he could hear it or see it, he could name it. He looked wizardish (if that’s not an actual word it totally should be) and ancient, wrinkled from too much sun exposure I guess. He had a long, slightly crusty beard, and a tea mug that said ‘Grumpy Old Man’ on it (and had so much tannin build-up the outside was white, but the inside had stained permanently brown).

He also didn’t like me. And it was obvious.

I can’t really blame him. Here was this bright-eyed, enthusiastic university graduate who’d studied an Arts degree (loved it, fantastic experience, highly recommend. But zero frog content). Arriving to help him on his critical quest to save the environment. And she didn’t know one cricket call from another. Let alone one blade of grass from the next — though honestly, they DID all look the same.

Once, he asked me what I’d learned at uni in Film & TV. I was so nervous, being put on the spot like that, knowing he already thought so little of me, my mind went completely blank.

‘Umm… I… I can’t really remember,’ I stuttered.

It had been a year since I’d graduated. ONE YEAR. The look of disdain he gave me could have shrivelled a cactus in a rainstorm.

Anyway, I took my role seriously, not just because I desperately wanted to win over my boss, but because I genuinely cared about the environment. I didn’t want to be responsible for signing off on a housing development that would destroy the last known habitat of the Greater Speckled Tussock Sedge. (Not a real species. Probably. At this point I still couldn’t tell.)

So I bought a copy of the iconic Costerman’s Native Trees and Shrubs and a bunch of other incredibly boring books about plant identification. I spent my weekends, hours and hours, biking up and down the Yarra, collecting leaf samples, which I’d carefully tape into a giant scrapbook, labelling each one with important notes. What the bark looked like. The shape of the branches. Thrilling stuff.

When I did site visits alone, I’d take a sample of every grass and tree species I could find, put them in zip-lock snack bags (not very eco-friendly in hindsight), and cart them back to the office. Then I’d pepper my poor, long-suffering colleagues with questions. ‘Do you know what species this is?’ ‘Is it rare or threatened?’ ‘Do you think that developer was lying when he told me it’s all just weeds?’

They were incredibly patient. I think they could see how nervous and earnest I was.

My boss? Not so much. His reaction when I proudly showed him my completed scrapbook, evidence of my commitment, my progress, my desperate attempt to prove I belonged there?

One raised eyebrow. And a grunt.

That’s imposter syndrome in a nutshell, really. Working twice as hard to feel half as good enough. Collecting evidence that you’re competent, only to have it dismissed, or worse, to dismiss it yourself. Because no matter how many grass samples you collect, that voice in your head still says you don’t really belong here.

For what it’s worth, the tables did turn a little after he nearly killed me. We were out in the 4WD doing a duck-counting census, after I’d spent another thrilling weekend watching ‘Ducks In Sight’ on repeat so I could tell my chestnut teals from my wood ducks. Distracted by duck-spotting, my boss drove into a deep ditch hidden in long grass, very nearly rolling the car. We came to a stop at an extreme angle, teetering on the edge of what felt like the Grand Canyon but was probably only a moderately steep hill. My boss clambered out saying with a dry mouth ‘stay still, keep your seatbelt on while I get help,’ and ran off down the road. I’d never seen him run before. I’d have laughed if I weren’t so terrified.

To this day, I still have so many questions. Why didn’t he just call for help? Did the brick phones of the 90s have terrible reception? Why did he even leave me there alone? Maybe my weight shifting could have tipped us? Maybe he actually wanted me dead? Eventually I got bored visualising all the ways my body could break if I rolled down the hill, so I ate my cheese sandwich. What? I was hungry. Long story short, we got out safely. And he was always nicer to me after that.

But here’s the thing I wish I’d known back then: imposter syndrome isn’t evidence of anything, except that you’re human and you’re doing something hard.

Brené Brown writes in Daring Greatly (2012) that vulnerability isn’t a sign of weakness, it’s just ‘uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure.’ The stuff that shows up when you’re doing something that really matters to you. You don’t feel exposed when you’re coasting. You feel exposed when you’re trying, risking, putting yourself out there.

When I read that, I thought about all those years I’d spent feeling like a fraud. And it suddenly made sense. The imposter feeling doesn’t hit when you’re playing it safe. It hits when you’re growing. It’s not a sign you don’t belong. It’s a sign you’re somewhere that matters enough to be scary.

(It still feels terrible, mind you. But at least now I know what it means.)

The Comparison Trap

The thing about comparison is that it’s rigged. You’re comparing your insides to everyone else’s outsides; your messy, anxious, full-of-doubt internal experience to their curated, polished highlight reel. Of course you come off worse. The game is impossible to win.

Turns out, both halves of that have research behind them. A 2011 Stanford study by Alexander Jordan found people consistently underestimate how much others are struggling; we hide our bad feelings in private and put on a brave face in public, so we only see everyone else at their best. And a 2014 study by Mai-Ly Steers found that the more people compared themselves to others on Facebook, the more depressed they tended to feel. Comparing yourself to a curated version of someone else’s life is bad for you. Who knew.

One thing that helped me was curating my social media feed. If certain accounts consistently made me feel worse about myself, I unfollowed them. It felt radical at first, like I was being petty or dramatic. But you don’t owe anyone your mental health.

Dr Kristin Neff (2011) points out that self-esteem — that thing we’re all supposed to be chasing — is part of the problem. Self-esteem requires feeling special. Better than average. Above other people. And since everyone can’t be above average at everything, we end up in this constant competition, always measuring ourselves against others, always finding ourselves wanting. (Although we all try. Neff cites research showing that 85 per cent of students think they’re above average at getting along with others, and 90 per cent of drivers think they’re more skilled than the other drivers around them — including, apparently, the drivers who’ve recently caused accidents.)

Self-compassion is different. It doesn’t require being better than anyone. It just requires being kind to yourself, the way you’d be kind to a friend, even when you’re struggling. Especially when you’re struggling.

I remember reading this and thinking: but if I’m kind to myself when I fail, won’t I just keep failing? Won’t I lose my motivation? Don’t I need to be hard on myself to improve?

No. Turns out, the research is pretty clear on this. Dr Smith (2022) points to studies showing self-criticism doesn’t make you perform better, it just makes you more depressed. It makes you anxious and avoidant. It makes you less likely to try new things because failure feels catastrophic. Self-compassion, on the other hand, makes you more resilient. More willing to take risks. More likely to get back up when you fall down.

Coming Up in Part 3

So that’s the rigged game. Imposter syndrome that isn’t evidence of anything, comparison that’s designed to make you lose, and the kinder alternative — self-compassion instead of self-esteem.

But there’s still something underneath all of this. The shame that makes us hide what we’re really feeling. The conviction that we’re the only one struggling. Part 3 is where I get into all of that — plus the small, practical things that have actually helped me.

References

Brown, B. (2012). Daring greatly: How the courage to be vulnerable transforms the way we live, love, parent, and lead. Avery.

Jordan, A. H., Monin, B., Dweck, C. S., Lovett, B. J., John, O. P., & Galinsky, A. D. (2011). Misery has more company than people think: Underestimating the prevalence of others’ negative emotions. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 37(1), 120–135.