Do you ever feel like an impostor?

I hope you'll bear with me as I'm more than a day late on my weekly blog - if you've even noticed I've been posting on Thursday.

 

Over the past few days, I've received several blogs and articles discussing the concept of "Impostor Syndrome." Tegan at http://www.brightarrowcoaching.com/ explains it as follows:

What is the Imposter Syndrome?

Introduced in 1978, by Pauline Clance and Suzanne Imes, in a paper entitled "The Imposter Phenomenon in High Achieving Women."  A concept describing individuals who are marked by an inability to internalize their accomplishments and a persistent fear of being exposed as a "fraud".

The term isn't new to me, but I never really felt it applied to me before because I didn't consider myself very 'high achieving'. I spent most of my career as a classroom teacher and felt confident in my ability - perhaps even over-confident.

 

But about 8 years ago I attempted to move into school administration. What ensued is what I endearingly refer to now as 'my five years of failure'.

 

I say 'endearingly' because I despite being unemployed 3 times in 5 years (failure), I also know, without a doubt, that during those three years I saved two schools from closing despite incredible odds -- and I learned a tremendous amount in the process.

 

And everything I learned during those five years -- and the previous 48 years -- prepared me for what I do professionally now.

 

And now, despite (or maybe because of) receiving high praise for what I do, being the 'all-star' -- now, I feel like an impostor.

 

Do you feel like an impostor? What do you do to get over it?