How I overcame imposter syndrome and developed confidence

Hey everyone,

As a person with ADHD, I have experienced imposter syndrome throughout my entire life. Every time I achieved a big win, that voice inside would tell me that I didn’t deserve it or that I wasn’t good enough. With my ADHD, I would see moments of high success and then a week later severe failure. This made me question my ability. There were several moments I felt this way. Here are a few:

• In middle school, I got the highest math score. During the next test, I got a C.
• In high school, I received a scholarship to USC. During my first years, I underperformed, got my first C in a class, and questioned if I deserved to be there.
• After acing my interview for my first job, I struggled to excel once I started and thought I'd be fired.
• And as a founder, this happens every other month. I make a sale, a user churns, and then I must rebuild my confidence to succeed.

It wasn’t until I looked at how this affected me that I realized I needed to take action and start believing in myself. This is my story.

How I felt

For a long time, I didn’t know what to call the feeling. There was a constant tug of war in my head between my success and self-worth. I felt capable of succeeding because I had in the past, but at each new stage of my life, I struggled so much - it made me feel like my success was all a fluke. Not only was I facing an internal battle, but externally my classmates and coworkers would make small remarks and doubt me as well. I realized that this was a problem when it started to affect my professional life. I hesitated to speak up in meetings and didn’t want to take the lead on projects. I knew I had to change my mindset.

Developing confidence in myself

Recognizing that my self-doubt was holding me back, I took action. One of the first things that helped was learning to get comfortable with mistakes and being bad at things. I did this by trying new things like rock climbing, cooking, and coding. Rather than viewing missteps as a sign of incompetence, I saw them as a necessary part of the learning process. Everything has a learning curve, and while I might be bad at first, that doesn't mean I'm an imposter; it just means I'm growing. I studied myself and realized that I followed a similar pattern. I was bad at things for about a year or two and then I'd hit my stride. I just needed to be patient and develop my systems. My imposter syndrome stemmed from my lack of faith in my ability to achieve success consistently. By creating routines and finding ways to streamline my work, I began to see predictable results. When doing something a certain way becomes automatic, you eliminate the room for error, and as a result, I'm more likely to achieve success. The more I practiced system building and patience, the more I trusted my abilities. Success indeed breeds self-confidence. The more evidence I had that I could do something, the more I began to feel like I deserved to be there and that I wasn’t a fraud. I began to realize that it was okay to fail, as that's an essential part of the learning process and developing better systems.

Conclusion:

Overcoming imposter syndrome was a journey, and it wasn't easy, but ultimately, this allowed me to achieve my full potential. It was hard to believe in myself when convinced that my accomplishments were just luck, timing, or someone else's hard work. However, by building my confidence, getting comfortable with mistakes, developing systems, and being consistent, I learned to trust in myself. I hope my story will help others understand that imposter syndrome is real and can be overcome with the right mindset and attitude.

Get Help

If you need help overcoming imposter syndrome and want to achieve your potential, check out scattermind.co. We help professionals with ADHD reach their potential and achieve their goals!