Imposter Syndrome is the Imposter — Not You
When the email landed in my inbox asking me to deliver the keynote speech at the 2023 Birmingham Business Women’s Summit, I thought it was a mistake. Surely they’re not asking me? Why would they want me, Renae Ingles, a retired netball player from Australia, to speak in front of some of the most influential and accomplished businesswomen and leaders in the United States? After thoroughly ensuring that this wasn’t, in fact, some cruel prank, I reluctantly agreed.
Can I actually do this? Should I even be doing this? There’s almost certainly someone more qualified than me to do this. What if they change their mind?
Keynote Speech, Birmingham 2023
Imposter syndrome has followed me around for most of my life. I have always struggled with feeling inadequate and felt my most productive, most respected, and most liked when I was performing well for someone. From being a kid in school and feeling like I had to make straight As to make my parents happy, to feeling like I needed to be the first in the gym and the last one to leave so that I wouldn’t let my netball teammates down, to feeling the pressure to be the ever-doting and supporting NBA wife to my husband. I have spent my entire life feeling overwhelmed by these immense pressures and expectations. But you want to know what I’ve since learned?
Every single expectation that has contributed to my overwhelming sense of feeling like an imposter has come from me. Yup. Me.
……feeling like an imposter has come from me. Yup. Me.
My friends and family have always been a loving and supportive network in my life and my husband has been my number one supporter from the day we first met. So whether it was my parents, friends, teacher, teammates, or my husband, no one has ever put unreasonable or unrealistic expectations on me or made me feel like I wasn’t good enough or worthy of the positions I’ve held, titles I’ve won, or things I’ve accomplished. I am a person who has always loved feedback. I’ve always relished in hearing how I’m doing in any given space and where I can improve. I even ask my kids how I’ve been doing as a mom. If I ask, I genuinely want to hear the answer! And as I’ve waded deeper into this new chapter of my life, every person I talk to always ends up saying some version of the following: “Renae, you don’t have to do any of that extra stuff. I just love you for you.” Nobody has ever required me to move mountains to be accepted or be Superhero Renae to be accepted. They loved me and wanted me around simply because I’m Renae.
So where does imposter syndrome come from and why do so many high-achieving women experience it? I could talk forever about the societal expectations that girls fall victim to from a heartbreakingly young age, or the almost compulsive need to “tick every box” driven by the fear of failure, the wage gap between men and women, or the near constant comparison games we play fueled by social media. But I think the better conversation to have is how we release ourselves from the grips of imposter syndrome and learn to transform our mindset and use it to our advantage.
One of my favorite podcast hosts, who is also an author and motivational speaker, Mel Robbins, has a unique perspective on imposter syndrome that I really love. She says we aren’t actually imposters, we’re beginners. When I think about the moments of my life that I’ve felt the most like an imposter, I was actually at the start of a major transitional period: whether it was making the Australian netball team for the first time in 2009, every time Joe moved to a new NBA team (especially after we left Salt Lake City, a place we called home for eight years and felt safe in), retiring from netball, or delivering my first keynote speech — I felt out of place because I was starting over.
You’ve heard it before: humans are creatures of habit. We like the things that we know. We feel safest in our boxes and our routines and everything outside of them is the “Danger Zone” to our brains. And it makes sense right? This is all a coping mechanism to protect us from rejection, from failure, or from other people making us feel small or less than. But this is where the distinction of imposter thoughts versus imposter syndrome becomes important. A strategy that I’ve started implementing whenever I feel those anxious and fearful feelings creep in, is remembering that these are merely just thoughts. And we all experience this! We feel like we don’t belong in the rooms we’re in, or we’re not qualified enough to perform well, or that we somehow don’t deserve the things we’ve accomplished. The problem with imposter syndrome is that we internalize it and it becomes a condition of who we are. By looking at these things as merely anxious thoughts passing through, but don’t necessarily define who you are, you start to chip away at their power. You start to loosen the grip it has over you. And it stops being an incurable syndrome that you're doomed to live with forever, but rather something that we can curb and control.
Being a beginner can feel daunting. Trust me, I know. Every time I’ve had to step onto a new path, I’ve had moments where I wanted to quit. I desperately wanted to say no to delivering my keynote. I came close more than a few times, too. When I first entered the professional netball system at 15 years old, I became friends with Bianca Chatfield. She was 20 years old and encapsulated everything I thought a netballer and young woman should be. She was poised, a positive and affirming leader, and she was fun. She seemed like she had it all together. And as we’ve grown up together over the years, it’s been such a joy to watch as she navigated through her athletic career, retirement, family life, and now, her new endeavors. In the weeks and days leading up to my keynote, I leaned on Bianca a lot. I shared with her my fears and anxieties and not only was she validating those fears, she told me she could relate. My mind was blown. Bianca? This person who I’ve upheld as this picture-perfect image of perfection, charisma, and achievement for decades is now telling me that she often feels all the same things I do: fear, unworthiness, anxiety, self-doubt. I was stunned. She reminded me that I wouldn’t have this opportunity if I wasn’t capable of handling it. As soon as I walked off that stage and headed back to the green room, Bianca was one of the first people to text me asking how it went. I nearly robbed myself of seeing the totality of my friend Bianca because I had spent so much time convincing myself that she was everything I wasn’t or couldn’t be.
Madi Brown, Bianca Chatfield, Me! Julie Pendergast at the Commonwealth Games In Glasgow.
Social media is no help either. We’re fed a constant stream of people’s best and highest moments, comparing them to our worst and lowest, and end up feeling miserable, wanting to throw our phones across the room. Social media can be an incredible tool if you know how to use it properly. I’ve learned that I have to limit my time on the apps, I’m extremely selective about who I follow, and am almost always making adjustments as needed. I try to limit who I follow to people I actually know and love or people who inspire me or teach me something. I know that it can be incredibly difficult to see other people winning when you feel like you’re stuck or stagnated. But their wins don’t take away from anything you are doing or what’s to come for you.
Science author and professor, Adam Grant talks about imposter syndrome as a channel for hidden potential. If your brain can believe the worst thoughts about yourself, then, by logic, it can also believe the most positive thoughts about yourself. But like anything else, it takes practice. It takes practice to fight the urge to compare ourselves to the latest new job announcement on Instagram and choose to celebrate it instead. It takes practice to remember not to believe everything we see on social media. And it takes practice to embrace failure. Stepping into new chapters comes with built-in stumbling blocks. That’s just the way it is. These are the growing pains of elevating your life and purpose. When I made the Australian national team in 2009, I convinced myself that I only made the team because other more deserving players were injured. It put me on constant edge and I felt like I had to fight to keep my spot. One of my coaches gave me some words of advice that I still carry with me. He said, “You have a choice to make, Renae. You’re here now. What are you going to do with this moment?” So I gave it my all even though I was terrified. Every single game, I left everything on the field. And at the end of my first year on the team, I won International Player of the Year.
Every time I’ve felt imposter syndrome, I came out on the other end of it with a brand new indicator of my capabilities; not just as a team captain, or a mom, or a wife, but as Renae.
Ultimately, these intrusive feelings of self-doubt just mean that you care. This is a good thing! You care deeply about being a good teammate, a good mom, a good friend, a good spouse, a good colleague. If we can train our minds to believe that we’re already those things simply because we showed up and we’re trying, then we can start to distance ourselves from feeling like an imposter in our own lives. I know now without a shadow of a doubt that I was the best person to give that keynote speech last year. Why? Because there is no one more qualified to tell my story than me.
Don’t let imposter syndrome tell your story.
Nae x