Studies show that vulnerability actions cure imposter syndrome far more effectively than building skills. Research also shows that maintaining a false persona takes more cognitive effort and degrades performance more than actual incompetence.
“It takes more cognitive effort to maintain a false persona and it degrades performance more than actual incompetence.”
This means people suffering from imposter syndrome get hit twice: they feel all the emotional and cognitive deficits of perceived incompetence (whether or not they’re actually incompetent), plus the additional drain of pretending to be someone they’re not. Vulnerability—admitting what you don’t know, showing your real self—eliminates the second cost entirely and often dissolves the first as well.
Brené Brown’s work confirms this: showing you don’t know everything causes the feeling of being an imposter to start dropping. The counterintuitive truth is that the thing you’re afraid to do (be vulnerable) is the exact thing that cures the problem.
Related Concepts
- Shame stagnates behavior
- Self-improvement is self-annihilation
- Hiding who you are makes you feel more like an imposter