A guide to diagnosing your own self-doubt
How to know if you have "imposter" syndrome or "hero" syndrome
A few days ago I was sitting across from my dad at our favorite cafe, doing our usual father-daughter Sunday morning ritual: chatting while dissecting a lone berry scone parked between us. Me — shaving off the crispy exterior. Him — excavating the fluffy interior.
When sharing confectionary delights, we have an unspoken father-daughter rule: stay in your lane.
And that rule for safely navigating shared scones, closely mirrors our rule for safely traversing topics of father-daughter conversation. At least, that was the case.
Until this particular day, when my father went dangerously rogue.
You see, I’ve known this man a long time. One and thirty years, to be specific.
And not once has this man ever dipped even one baby toe into the swampy land of my love life. But on this particular day, he veered into a sticky marsh of inquiry on the matter — opening with a question:
“Saricha…” he began, clearly careful to choose his words, “do you ever think that maybe you seek out underdogs in the guys that you date?”
No daughter wants to discuss boys — let alone be critiqued on their choice of boys — by their father. But, I’m also equally certain that no father wants to broach the topic unless absolutely necessary, as it breaks the fourth wall on their daughter’s delicate flowerhood.
“Nah, I don’t think I go for underdogs, Dad.” I hastily replied with an awkward smile, desperate to relieve us both of this torturous topic. But even as the words left my mouth, I could taste skepticism in my track record.
Because upon reflection: many of my prior boyfriends were, in fact, “underdogs”— people that weren’t “bad boys,” so much as they were struggling boys. Good guys, from rough places, in tough situations. Oftentimes, they didn’t just come from broken homes; they came from shattered homes.
And one of my boyfriends once put it best — a fighter still early in his MMA career. He had an aura of resilience as undimmable, as the tattoos covering his body were indelible.
“Y’know buttercup,” he once said with a coy smile, while squeezing me tightly after a brutal fight, “It’s not fun getting your ass beat and being broke. But then again, I’d hardly recognize my own life if it looked any other way.”
At the time, I longed to help him and others in need of helping. But why?
As I silently picked at the remaining crumbs of a shared scone— I couldn’t help but sense that whatever prompted the pattern of boyfriends in my personal life, may also be what had prompted the pattern of burnout in my professional life.
Sometimes our self-doubt pokes so deeply, that it wraps straight back around. Our insecurity overcompensates, and we strive to be “the savior.”
It was an uncomfortable realization.
Maybe I’m not a good person with a big heart. But rather: a weak person, that wants to be “the hero.”
And I didn’t like the sound of that one bit.
Decoupling hero syndrome & imposter syndrome
When we talk about self-doubt in the workplace, it’s easy to anchor on “Imposter Syndrome,” and overlook what’s sometimes even harder to admit aloud: “Hero Syndrome.”
And it’s because of that— the lack of discussion on Hero Syndrome — that I suspect my self-doubt went ~undiagnosed~ for far too long.
I sensed some type of insecurity in me, but “Imposter Syndrome” didn’t hit the mark. I never questioned if I fundamentally belonged in most settings — even when I was surrounded with impressive people.
I had too much long-standing privilege to feel like a true “imposter.” Loving parents that never made me question my baseline worthiness in this world. Parents that always made me know that I was, enough.
So, if I wasn’t battling Imposter Syndrome — what was I battling?
Self-doubt, I suspect, manifests in two ways:
Some people feel inherently unworthy, and doubt their ability to fit in, while others feel the need to be overwhelmingly worthy, and doubt their ability to continue standing out.
For a long time, I lacked a lexicon that could speak to the latter. And that’s a problem. You can’t take steps to address an ailment, when you lack the right language to even diagnose the disease.
So, here’s my take:
People with Hero Syndrome already hypothesize that they're worthy of success, but they’re deeply scared that they might not get it in new realms, or will lose the credibility that they already have in an existing realm.
Meanwhile, people with Imposter Syndrome question if they’re even deserving of success, and feel like they're already fighting a losing battle to prove that they’re some baseline level of “good enough.”
And that subtle distinction between the two can also lead to an interesting divergence in self-awareness:
Those with “Imposter Syndrome” can be well aware of their own insecurities. But, those with “Hero Syndrome” are often in denial about their own self-doubt, and will tend to rationalize their fear, rather than call it what it is.
Who? Me?
Now, sufficiently armed with two potential prognosis — let’s actually parse our own diagnosis.
Diagnosing your flavor of self-doubt
Both Imposter Syndrome and Hero Syndrome stem from the same problematic place: a deeply suppressed self-doubt, that leans on external validation to help us fleetingly forget that it’s there. And, both can even lead to a lot of the same problematic outcomes: overworking, burnout, and giving up before even starting the pursuit of hard things that we might secretly want in life.
But which one describes us better?
Are you an irrational “imposter” — wallowing, with the sense of something to prove?
Or, are you an irrational “hero” — frantic, with the sense that there’s something to lose?
If you’re like me, you may find that answer to be some blend of both. But, it’s still helpful to drill down to see which way we lean more.
1. How do you react to praise and achievement?
Both “heroes” and “imposters” crave achievement, and more specifically, public recognition of that achievement to help quell their self-doubt. But once they actually do “succeed,” they can feel differently about it. And that can lead to slightly different forms of suffering.
Heroes
People praise your accomplishments, and call you humble. But you know that you’re not humble. Not really. You genuinely feel proud of what you’ve accomplished, and enjoy celebrating your success. You love the relief of praise, but are frustrated to find it fleeting. Praise makes you feel good, but it also reminds you that you need to keep pace. You’re not conscious of it, but sometimes you sign yourself up for your own bloated workload to keep up the wow-factor. Finding the next heroic contribution becomes essential to maintaining your sense of security. Superman can never just bloody retire on the coattails of his own cape.
The result? Never-ending people pleasing. And not merely people-pleasing — but people surprisingly delighting! You’ll multi-task to awe others until your dying breathe. At its core, saying “no” is incredibly hard for you because it shatters your invincibility, and risks what scares you most: a perceived ~fall from grace~. You really are your own worst enemy: a hero so desperate that you become the villain, unaware how much you actively induce your own burnout.
Imposters
You overly dismiss your achievements internally. You really are humble. Too humble. Like, modesty-rotting-you-from-the-inside-out humble. And when people praise you, it actually makes you more uncomfortable because you don’t trust it. You’re more inclined to directly compare yourself to the other people in your environment, with twinges of competitiveness because other people’s excellence reminds you of what you think you lack. You look for any evidence bolstering the case you already told yourself: that you always have been, and always will be, incapable.
The result? Crippling perfectionism. You may not say “yes” to everything, but you’ll dump hours into perfecting anything that you do say yes to doing. And while you may not actively seek new tasks that overextend you, you’ll toil endlessly on whatever is on your plate — and still inevitably crumble in anxiety and fatigue.
2. How do you react to feedback and failure?
We all get extremely uncomfortable with the prospect of failure — “heroes” and “imposters” alike. And, constructive criticism, which we logically know to be important and helpful, still viscerally makes us feel defensive and prickly in spite of our best efforts to pretend it doesn’t. But, again, there are some subtle differences:
Heroes
You don’t consciously worry about failure that often. The “fear of failure” sounds far too catastrophic — and you have enough of a track record to know that you’re at least capable of doing ~ok~ at anything you try. But you don’t want to be just ok. You hate the idea of being unremarkable, which is why you don’t just strive to do enough to avoid failure — you strive to be exceptional because anything short of exceptional to you, feels like failure. You long to impress, struggle to delegate, and again, end up overextending yourself.
Constructive criticism also becomes particularly demoralizing to you because it feels foreign from what you’re used to, and far from what you want: an upward trajectory of unshakeable excellence. So you avoid feedback, and any risk-taking for that matter, that might put you in a situation where you couldn’t actually be your bar of excellence all the time. Mediocrity is a terrifying prospect, and new domains become particularly terrifying for you because they require hitting the reset button on your magnificence.
The result? You settle. You stick to the status quo too long, because you’re too scared to start from scratch. You stick to what you think you can successfully do, rather than what you long to do, in life. You fear giving your best shot at something, and still falling short. When it comes to venturing into new realms, the supposed “hero” is in fact the least intrepid of all.
Imposters
You think a lot about catastrophic failure — producing work so bad that it would have you publicly shamed, shuffling in sync with Cersei Lannister through the streets of King’s Landing. Being “exposed” as not merely mediocre, but indeed poor, riddles you — and is the forcing function behind much of your overworking and emotional duress. You’re not as focused on “wowing” per se, so much as you’re obsessed with guarding yourself from being perceived as less than.
The result? You flee. You’re more inclined to want to run away from situations because you feel intimidated. You may even blame the environment as “toxic,” and make a convincing argument for it too. But you and I know the real toxicity doesn’t live around you, so much as it lives within you: your own irrational sense of inadequacy.
Conclusion
Interestingly, both “imposters” and “heroes” can be simultaneously suffering the most, while also succeeding the most, in their spheres. And that’s because we fall into a mental trap:
You may think you can “out-work” the self-doubt that sits at the base of Imposter Syndrome or Hero Syndrome, but you cannot.
You can only “out-smart” it, by learning to see it clearly for what it is, so you can choose to ignore it when it pops up.
And that’s an important labor of love, that we all owe ourselves: to make sure that insecurity isn’t stopping us from living expansively. To start, stop, try, fail, create and pursue — again and again.
And indeed, honor the craftsmanship of being alive.
And I think, we’re all capable of it. The diligent work to diagnose ourselves, and the courage to take steps forward in spite of our most suppressed self-doubts.
Now that — is heroism worth celebrating and fighting for — wouldn’t you agree? Not the savior of our spheres, perhaps, but indeed, the advocate of our souls.
That’s how we become a true “Hero” — to ourselves, most importantly, of all.
