Facing Imposter Syndrome With Community
In our last blog, we talked about ADHD and Imposter Syndrome. In this one, we are going to talk about how to work to eliminate it.
When it comes to struggling with Imposter Syndrome, there are a lot of things that have happened to get us to this point in our lives. Unrealistic expectations, both from others and ourselves, preventing us from seeking help. Our tendency to socially isolate because of the fear of others betraying us or abusing us. A lifetime of our successes being minimized, and our failures being magnified and criticized. Many of us had no one to explain the What, When, Where, Why, and How to set goals, define our process, and set realistic expectations. Mistakes were never a part of the learning process for us. They were a declaration of our ineptitude, a moral failure, another nail in the coffin for our self-confidence. Many people with ADHD have been so betrayed by the people around us that asking for feedback is a morass of fear of rejection or humiliation.
The negative environment that many grew up in, and may still live in, is the root of many of our issues with Emotional Dysregulation and Imposter Syndrome. We have to learn to create an environment of positivity in our lives to replace the negativity that we lived with. That means learning to ask for help, building a support system, redefining our expectations of success, developing a system that works for us, forgiving our mistakes and learning from our failures, and setting boundaries for ourselves and others.
So how do we do this?
Seek Help
As men, we live with the ingrained expectation that we are supposed to be strong, stoic, and unfeeling, working automatons. We have learned over the years that this is an unrealistic expectation, and that it has caused a lot of harm to men in our society.
When we are working on this, we can’t do it alone. We have to start with therapy. Therapy is important because we have to find the root of the Imposter Syndrome. Where does it come from? Why is it so pervasive? Therapists help you recognize negative influences in your life, what we can do to combat them and give us positive support to keep improving. Many therapists can also help you with mindfulness techniques, self-affirmations, and healthy coping mechanisms which are integral to managing our Imposter Syndrome, as well as our ADHD.
Coaches are another valuable resource for people with ADHD and Imposter Syndrome. Because people with ADHD need positive external stimuli and practical defined How-To’s, such as what we are discussing today, coaches can be that positive, uplifting support. Coaches help us build a strong foundation to develop these tools and philosophies, and give us the accountability we must have to follow through with things until they become a solid system in our lives.
Build a Support System
Many people with ADHD, especially men, struggle with keeping and maintaining meaningful relationships with people, even our spouses. We have to live very intentionally and do our best to not allow ourselves to become socially isolated, though. This may be easier said than done for many, however.
Therapy and Coaching can help with this, but we also have to make sure that we are learning how to communicate effectively and how to self-advocate. We have to explain to people around us about how ADHD affects us and how they can be supportive. We can not afford to have people around us, regardless of who they are, ignoring our ADHD, not being supportive, and forcing us to live with unrealistic expectations. We deserve love and to be cared about and compassion. We do not deserve derision, shame, or abuse.
Because of our brain structure and wiring, understanding how to look at ourselves objectively can be extremely difficult for many people with ADHD. To gain more self-awareness, we often need objective people who can help us learn about ourselves, our feelings, and our accomplishments. This is where Therapists, Life Coaches, and positive social support really help us. Follow this blog for a future article about Relationships in particular and how to maintain friendships and other types of relationships.
Redefine Success
Men live with unrealistic expectations of productivity. However, very few of us with ADHD were ever given an education that taught us sufficiently how to be productive. We were compared to others or told to compare ourselves to others who were at completely different levels of their lives than we were. We were told that if we worked hard and did whatever it took, that we could be like this person or that person. These teachings ignored the facts that people are drastically different, with different resources, different access to education, and different cultural norms.
Does that mean we can’t have role models? Absolutely not. In fact, we need them. However, we can not waste time comparing ourselves to them or others. We have to learn to redefine success as to what it means to us. This means we have to understand our own capabilities, our own access to resources, and our own limitations. The only person we should compare ourselves to is the ourselves of the past.
Our goals can not be to be as rich as that person, or as fit as that person. Our goals need to be based on being better than we were, and working towards a future where we are better than we are now. Our goal isn’t perfectionism, it is to do the best we can, at the pace that we can, and to do it more often than we don’t. In the meantime, don’t forget, we also have to truly celebrate our wins, no matter how small.
Create Your System
We have to figure out a system that works best for us. It’s not enough to just build habits, we have to create a system of habits that are things we can maintain and thrive in. We also have to determine what tools work best for us. For some people, it’s a digital system of alarms, to-do lists, calendars and managing our productivity needs. For others it’s a purely analog system, with things in paper journals, calendars and sticky notes stuck everywhere.
But we absolutely have to put in that structure in our lives. We can’t depend on our memories, we can’t depend on our time management, and we certainly can’t force ourselves to do anything that we do not want to do. So we have to determine what tools that we can enjoy using and that we can easily maintain the use of. We also have to go slow, and recognize that again, our goal isn’t perfection, it’s doing the things more often than we do not.
We don’t have to write in our journal every day, but we need to do it as often as we can. We have to decide whether we want to be late for our kids’ recital or other appointments, or make sure that we put it into our calendar with the required number of notifications and alarms so that we aren’t late and disappointing our loved ones.
Learn Self-Compassion
Speaking of disappointment. We have to learn how to practice self-compassion. We have to be more kind to ourselves and recognize that some things are out of our control and stop trying to live up to these unrealistic expectations in our lives.
We have to go back to our roots and relearn that mistakes are a part of life, and they are the only way that we learn. They are not the end-all-be-all of failure. True failure comes from not taking the time to learn from our mistakes. We have to spend time to really focus, not on the failure, but on how to improve upon it in the future.
We have to learn to identify and focus on our strengths. As adult men, we have likely learned several coping strategies for living with ADHD. To manage our ADHD effectively, we need to identify those strengths and weaknesses, and determine how to use our strengths more than we focus on our weaknesses. We have to lean into the things that we enjoy doing, not just in life, but also in our relationships and careers. Seriously, in the words of Marie Kondo, if it doesn’t bring us joy, then throw it out.
If we have a hard time figuring out our own strengths and weaknesses, then we need to have a support system in place that we can ask for objective feedback on how well we are doing, or if we have room for improvement. This can come from a coach, loved ones, colleagues, and leaders in our lives that we trust. We have to listen with an open mind and take the feedback we receive and celebrate our successes and learn from our failures.
Define Your Boundaries
Speaking of, we also have to have a support system who also uplifts us and celebrates our wins with us. If we do not have that network of people, then we have to make it, and we have to eliminate those who tear us down or force us to do things that do not align with our values and goals.
This means putting in place boundaries, not just for others, but ourselves. To put in place boundaries, we need to make sure that we communicate them openly and honestly. We need to explain our needs and our limits. This is a two-way street, though. We need to make sure that while we are sharing what we are comfortable with, we are taking into consideration fair and reasonable boundaries from others.
We have to set in place clear expectations of the behaviors that we need, and be gracious if people can not live within those expectations. It’s better to have these things said up front than to suffer through a relationship that is doomed to failure or suffering.
We have to make sure that we put in firm boundaries for ourselves to prioritize self-care. This means making sure that we rest when we need to rest, and set aside time every day to relax, and a day every week, where you pursue your hobbies, friends, and have time to blow off steam from the stress and frustration of the week.
Positive reinforcement is an important part of this. Not just for them, but for yourself. When you or a loved one follow through with respecting and honoring a boundary, then thank them, give them praise and appreciation. Ironically, the same goes for yourself when you respect your own boundaries. Remember that setting boundaries is an ongoing process and may require patience and compromise. Do your best to honor the effort people put in, but hold firm to your boundaries and eliminate those who refuse to respect them.
You Are Not Alone
Remember, if you struggle with any of the above, there are people who are here to help you. Our Men’s ADHD Support Group on Facebook is one resource, as well as our Discord channel. There are also amazing therapists and coaches out there who can truly help you put in place everything you need to not just manage your ADHD, but to thrive with it.
Shane Thrapp is a Certified ADHD Life, Relationship, and Career Coach.
Through his business, Creating Order From Chaos, he has helped hundreds of people find their paths through the chaos of life with ADHD and find their order and purpose.
He is also the Operations Director for our nonprofit Men’s ADHD Support Group, a board member for the Inattentive ADHD Coalition, and a public speaker who works to be a voice in advocacy for adult ADHD awareness.
If you want to help support our efforts, then please consider donating so that that we can keep Inspiring, Educating, and Empowering men to thrive with their ADHD.
