How do you define your purpose?

Imagine you’re at a dinner party and some people you’ve not met and someone asks what do you do? What’s your reaction and line of response?

For many people it’s to dole out the name of their employer, describe what their employer does. For others it is to repeat their job title or start to dole out their job description.

Relatively few of us tend to answer that question by explaining our purpose. Our purpose. Our identity. Not our assumed identity for this current employer. Once you understand your purpose, you have a key piece of the puzzle to overcoming imposter syndrome – because you can’t really be an imposter to yourself.

Today we’re looking at the trait of being a soloist in your work. Imposter Syndrome shows up for all of us in different guises but one thing in common is the way that voice in our head seeks to and quite effectively manages to compare us to others and in the process sets us apart from the pack.

Today we’re dipping into the work Taibi Kahler’s five drivers.

Like so many things the concept of Kahler’s five drivers can be used to help us understand our natural happy state of play and how we can productively interact with others. And like so many things when overplayed they can also be fertile ground for our Imposter Syndrome.

n our moments of greatest self-doubt

The imposter is given fertile ground to exaggerate those doubts and selectively present us with evidence of all out failings, our shortcomings and blind us to what may be good about ourselves.

Even if you’re British, it’s not boastful to be mindful of the gifts and qualities that you bring but this can be hard to summon in dark times.

When we’ve grown up in the service of others, we become used to seeing achievements through the work of other people. When we step up into leadership, because there is always another boss, we can sometimes be tempted to see our role as creating achievements through this new person instead of for ourselves.

Many of us, from an early age, have experienced situations where conformance or performance shortfalls results in punishment of some kind. No pain, no gain. So it said.

This develops into a learned pattern of behaviour and a lack of self-kindness and self-compassion to ourselves. And research shows trauma and depression in many people in western societies can be traced back to lack of self-esteem and self-kindness.

Many of us grow up with values like Lana. We show early gifts. We shine academically in our early school years. Our values and how we are valued by others becomes embedded in our expertise. When we tackle new and unfamiliar challenges, we instinctively look for the benchmarks by which success is measured and set our goals against these.

But you are unique. There is no-one with the same set of cells, the same knowledge, the same personality and the same capability as you. And you are a product of the time you were born in. There never will be another you, so celebrate what the unique you can bring to the party because there will always be gifts you can bring that no-one else can. Yet if you choose not to show up – we all lose out.

Most people have experienced imposter syndrome at some point in their adult life. It creeps up in many forms.

You can feel imposter syndrome after getting a promotion or landing a great job – it’s that sudden turn around look at everyone else sense – I’m different, I’m not like these people, How did I get here and most importantly When will they find out I’m a fraud

It all begins with an idea.