The Imposter Cure, by Dr. Jessamy Hibbard - Review
The Imposter Cure - Dr. Jessamy Hibberd,
The imposter in us!
Imposter syndrome has become a bit of a focus for myself and my operations of late. I have been leading several workshops and informal sessions with solo entrepreneurs, artists, craftspeople, and professionals on a range of topics recently, and the feedback we most often heard was about how self-doubt, insecurity and a lack of confidence was and is an ongoing challenge for all of them. We saw regardless of what actual work they were doing, how successful by conventional metrics they were, their range of experience and achievements, the same sentiment was expressed by all corners. We see personally in our contact with any range of professional, or craftsperson the same thoughts doubts and themes come back again and again.
We wanted to explore this in depth and with that expanding the topic to the wider psychology of the entrepreneur, as this seems to be a common thread in our space that everyone encounters and is of common interest to all people who work by themselves or within a structure. That´s why the next few reviews on our site will be focused on the best recommended books based on both imposter syndrome as well as other areas of the mentality and thoughts that are common to solo entrepreneurs and small business professionals.
After reading The war of art by Steven Pressefield, a great volume on the how to frame the challenges of being a performing artist set to a hero and nemesis dynamic, we look to focus on imposter syndrome, by reading The Imposter Cure by Dr. Jessamy Hibbard, (ISBN: 978-1-78325-306-7) released in 2019.
The definition of imposter Syndrome that is used in the book is interesting, as
“A condition in which people believe they are not worthy of success and have a persistent belief in their lack of intelligence, skills or competence.
Am I the imposter?
The author sets the book up in three sections, that follows a very strong narrative thread, built on first clearly defining what imposter syndrome is, how it manifests, and how it applies to you. The first section take time to deal with the many arguments, discussion and mental juggling that occurs with imposter syndrome. The means in which the insecurity, doubt, and confidence damage that it does, is both obvious and sneaky is outlined in the first few chapters in a way to help guide the reader in understanding which thoughts, they have may be part of imposter syndrome, as well as the ways in which it will twist and turn into different words feelings, emotions and formats, to continue to trick you into believing you’re not good enough.
The author has contextualized a list of the different feeling sets and from there outlines the common phrases and words that we say to ourselves to downplay our skills success and achievements. The outline that we can both be successful, have achievements, and then in many ways dismiss, diminish, and ignore them as signs of success is interesting as the book seeks to clearly cover as much ground in the beginning to capture as many ways people will tell themselves they are unworthy.
I appreciate that time is spent framing the manifestations of the feelings and emotions as this is often less stated, the book goes out of its way to make it relevant to the reader to capture their flavor of doubt and insecurity so that they then understand that even though the words might be different the feelings are the same. And that the reality we are projecting on ourselves is indeed imposter syndrome. Clearly working with understanding what is and isn´t imposter syndrome while also clearly giving counter points to the fallacies that we present ourselves we are led into the next section of the book.
Which deals with why it´s simply not true. The various statements, ideas and fallacies are tested and run through at length and effectively given time to be presented discussed and ultimately proven to be false, either our own lack of confidence self-doubt or similar is presented in each of the various arguments, and self-talking points. These then are dismissed with discussion evidence and review. The analysis ultimately comes to the point to say no you are not an imposter; you just think you are. Evidence your environment and your skills are real and that leads us to our final part of the book.
A series of ideas thoughts and tools to do the more long-term work of dealing with our feelings and thoughts. The real work starts here after being presented with the definition and arguments, we see the evidence and now comes the corrective work. A range of tools, systems and ideas are presented in tangible forms to allow you the ready to being the corrective work to understand that you´re not an imposter, far from it, and now is time to remedy those thoughts. Specific ideas and actions are aligned to the various flavors of doubt and challenge allowing the reader to find the path that best speaks to them the book does a lot to outline how your emotions and feelings are influencing you in ways that are not real and how to deal with them.
Summary
I recommend this book strongly for anyone that is juggling the doubt, insecurity and confidence issues that seem to infect over 70 percent of us all, regardless of gender, career, and employment status. The challenge is real and it´s entirely workable. The Imposter Cure setup how for you as a read to firstly realize the issues, sets up how to understand them and how they are false, and finally provides a range of tools and systems to manage how you got into that thought process in the first place.
This book is very much for the internal processing of imposter syndrome and gives many tools to work through your variant of imposter syndrome.
Well written with many resources this should be a read for any professional and those who have or feel like they’re not good enough or worth of success or who struggle with success and achievements.
If you´re dealing with imposter syndrome or feeling in doubt about your business, then please reach out to us at timh@department45.eu, or on our Instagram we can work with you to help understand what challenges you´re facing in your business or your approach. We also host local meetups and evening sessions in the Lisboa Portugal area, where we gather artists, craftspeople and small business professionals to talk through subjects like imposter syndrome amongst others.
Tim H,
Lead Consultant
Department45.com
