Talking mental health...

Imposter syndrome feels like one of those words that the more you talk about it, the more you realise everybody has it. When you first develop imposter syndrome you feel alone, isolated, possibly even stupid.

It can make you feel like you're unable to do your job properly and others are constantly critiquing or judging you. It's not until you realise how little evidence there is to support this self-doubt that you realise imposter syndrome might just be that - a syndrome. 

A syndrome is a group of symptoms which consistently occur together. In this case the symptoms include things such as inadequacy, lack of intelligence, and ultimately the fear of being found out. 

But the thing with symptoms is that their indicative of other issues or conditions. We tend to blame ourselves for those symptoms when really the issue or conditions are simply that we are a human being. 

We are complex, intelligent and a bundle of thoughts, emotions and beliefs which all influence how we feel and although we are all unique, we are all bound by these shared symptoms. Until we realise that the person sat at the other side of the table, who we think is constantly judging us, feels exactly like us and that imposter syndrome is just another thing which makes us human.  

If that doesn’t help, try remembering this: “We will care a lot less about what people think of us when we realise how seldom that actually do” David Foster Wallace

Positive affirmations feels like a silly thing to say to someone who simply cannot feel any kind of positivity. In fact it could come across as insulting. We are all biologically controlled by how we feel and simply telling someone to “look on the bright side of life” is a bit like wilfully ignoring quite deep and intricate emotional difficulty. We’ve all been there, when someone has insisted you “cheer up”, and you think “Ah jackpot, if only I'd thought of that - problem solved!" (If only it was that simple.)  

However, despite this, I do still think there's a place for positive affirmations and the way that we see life. A practical example which brought this to life for me recently was the red car game.

Think of the last time you saw a red car. Unless you own one it's probably really difficult to remember the last time you saw a red car on the road. But now that I've made you aware of red cards on the road, you’re probably going to see them all the time. And that's not because I've just painted most of the cars in the world red, it's because you've become more attuned to red cars in the world. 

Why am I going on about red cars? Well the same theory could be used for the positive things that we may otherwise be missing within life. This is the beauty of gratitude and gratitude practise. There is a body of evidence which suggests simply listing three things you're grateful for per day for more than 20 days can boost mental well-being. And that might be because people are just becoming more aware of things which were only there.

Something I found useful in the past is to identify when I have negative thoughts or beliefs about the world around me by telling myself that this is a negative thought and by trying to become more aware of the positive things around me. I soon find after a couple of hours of practising this throughout the day, I have a more of a spring in my step. 

According to Epictetus “The chief task in life is simply this: to identify and separate matters so that I can say clearly to myself which are externals not under my control, and which have to do with the choices I actually control.” 

I first came across this phrase while I was researching stoicism (the endurance of pain or hard times without a display of feelings or compliant), but it really stuck out to me because it is such a simple way of looking at life. It's something that I routinely talk about during mental health training and more specifically when discussing stress.

I often find is that people stress over things which are beyond their control and if they were to take more of a 'stoic' opinion, it may remove some of those stresses in their life. Don't get me wrong there are some stresses which are beyond your control and stress feels almost inevitable. However, for me, things such as whether or not there will or will not be traffic on the road on a morning shouldn't be something that I should allow stress me out.

What I can control is my reaction to that stress and if my reaction is acceptance and calmness, that’s one less stress I have to deal with.

A simple technique to highlight the stresses you can control in your life is by creating a quick “control vs uncontrol” list. take a few minutes to sit and write down everything which stresses you our right now, highlighting which of those you can control, and which you can’t.

Once you’ve done that, remove the things you can’t control and shouldn’t really stress you out

PS - Just make sure the act of writing it down isn't too stressful - if you can't find a pen, a classic stress trigger, the notes app on a phone is a great substitute.

Failure is often viewed as a bad thing within society. You see examples of this in sport, in media, and in the workplace. Failure is often dismissed, not talked about, and labelled as an embarrassment. And this brings with it the fear of making a failure or mistake. 

I think a fear of making a mistake can be really dangerous. Mistakes are what makes us human. Mistakes are what sets us apart from AI. I believe a key part of building trust and developing relationships is the comfort in vulnerability and the permission to make a mistake.

Mistakes make us learn and grow, and be innovative, and to try new things. If we have a fear about that then we're not going to try. If we’re not going to try then we won’t progress or get better. 

What reinforces this fear of failure is a lack of representation of people who have failed. I recently attended a wellbeing workshop hosted by Jamie Peacock the ex-international rugby player.

During his talk, he listed all of the achievements he's had in his life which included competing at the highest level in his sport. However, what quickly followed up after listing his achievements were his failures. For me, that is a powerful demonstration as someone who may be perceived as being invincible (Jamie literally won the title of Man of Steel) describe how they're just a human being like everybody else. 

When we have a workplace culture where our people are afraid of making mistakes, people don't put their heads above the parapet, they don't take risks, don't do things differently and productivity stagnates. 

Failure is good, but what isn't good is not wanting to try.

“Evolution forged the entirety of sentient life on this planet using only one tool: the mistake.” – Dr. Ford, Westworld TV series (Played by Anthony Hopkins)