So how can you stop feeling like a fraud, if you suffer from Imposter Syndrome? Here are 20 easy tips that can help:

As with everything, recognizing the signs is the first step toward overcoming Imposter Syndrome. You might suffer from impostor syndrome if:

• You suffer from a crippling fear of failure.
• You find it hard to accept praise and rarely ever congratulate yourself for your wins.
• You apologize for yourself when you didn't actually do anything wrong.
• You avoid appearing confident for fear of people seeing it as arrogance or overcompensation.
• You feel like you "got lucky" when in reality you prepared and worked really hard.
• You hold yourself to impossibly high standards.
• You consider yourself a failure, even if only 1% of a project went wrong.
• You're convinced you're not enough no matter what you do.
• You use words like “merely”, “only”, “simply” when talking about your own abilities or successes and you use phrases like “It might just be me, but…” or “Not sure I know what I’m talking about, but…”.

Click here to learn more about the power vocabulary has over our emotions.

Conditions like Imposter Syndrome get worse when you feel like you’re the only one experiencing them. It’s important to understand that 70% of the world feel this way, regardless of their age, gender, nationality or ability level. World-renowned celebrities like Nicole Kidman and Emma Watson have openly admitted feeling like a fraud, despite their seemingly evident success. The main thing to remember is that you’re not alone and you’re not weird for feeling like this. It’s a common thing we all go through at some point in life and many people just like you have learnt to overcome it.

I know it’s hard. It feels like bragging and you don’t think you deserve to express pride in your work. But if you can’t talk yourself up, at the very least try not to talk yourself down. Using words like “merely,” “only,” “simply” and “just me” might seem harmless, but they can do more damage to your psyche than you think. Same applies to attributing your hard-earned success to luck or someone else’s efforts. There’s nothing wrong with being humble, but make sure to give credit where credit is due.

When you feel like a fraud, it's usually because you're comparing yourself to some “perfect” standard that's either completely impossible or just unrealistic in your particular situation. Sometimes “good enough” is not only acceptable, but preferable – like when you have a strict deadline and you can’t afford to spend too much time on every little detail. Besides, you’d be surprised how many people will actually consider your “good enough” to be perfect anyway. Oh! And always remember that just because a mistake occurred or a set-back popped up, that doesn’t mean the end result isn’t still above average. Click here, if you need further assistance coping with cognitive distortions like perfectionism.

Humans are social creatures. We thrive in an environment of mutual assistance, so not only is it acceptable for you to ask for help, but usually those of us who reach the top have only done so because of the support they received from others. No man is an island. Never try to do everything on your own, because we each have our gifts and our weaknesses. None of us are good at everything, so the only way to succeed in life is to accept we will sometimes need help. And that’s okay. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. In fact, it’s a virtue to be proud of.

In a world where only those at the top of the ladder get praised, the benefits of being new to a field are largely overlooked. When you’re not expected to have vast experience, you’re free to ask questions that haven’t been asked before and to approach problems in ways others might not have thought of. You can think with the fresh perspective of an outsider, which can be both liberating for you and profitable for the business. In fact, many businesses purposefully recruit people from completely irrelevant fields to tackle problems in their line of world, precisely because of this outside-the-box thinking.

Often in today’s world, a lot of us operate under a performance mindset, which causes us to notice our inadequate feelings very acutely and to underline our mistakes as evidence of our limitations. All it does it make us more concerned that we’re unfit for the position. But cultivating a learning mindset means you experience your limitations very differently. Your mistakes are seen as an inevitable part of the learning process and are merely proof that you are pushing yourself outside of your comfort zone, which is healthy. Instead of comparing yourself with others who are doing better, you compare your current work with your own past work, so you can see how you’ve progressed. This is a much healthier attitude overall! Click here to find out how to cultivate this sort of attitude in your daily life.

A lot of people who feel like a fraud do so because a part of them feels as though they’re more important and unique than they actually are. They have an image in their head that they actually have the potential to be perfect, which simply isn’t true of anyone, coz perfection isn’t real. Click here, if you think you’re able to see past your excess self-importance and you’re ready to see mediocrity as a virtue rather than a curse.

A good way to stop attributing your successes to luck is to keep a journal and look back on it from time to time. Writing them down in as much detail as possible means you can objectively see precisely how much effort you put into them and you won’t be able to deny that you did play a role in those achievements after all, even if it was just the decision to say yes or no, when you could have said the opposite. The metrics you use to track and measure your success will depend entirely on your personality, field of work and many other things. Testimonials are a great way of documenting your success, if your work has a lot to do with making others happy. Views, revenue, comments from peers or superiors could also be great metrics, but remember that they don’t always show the whole picture. They’re only a portion of what proves you’re not a fraud. The point is to look back on them when you feel as though you have no proof that you’re not a fraud, not to use them to make yourself feel bad for not doing better. Click here to learn how to show some gratitude for where you are and what you’ve been through.

Like I said in my video, there is a whole world of other people out there and some are going to be better than you at some things. Your bank account might not look like Warren Buffet’s, your IQ might not be Mensa material, and your face might not be as recognizable as Oprah’s. But that doesn’t mean you’re a fraud, just because you’re still trying to achieve some success in life. You’re entitled to grow at your own pace, so show some respect for your own abilities and experiences. We don’t all start at the same level, so even though your outward success might not appear as impressive, you may have overcome tougher obstacles in the process. The important thing is to not allow social network posts and biographies of successful people make you feel like you’re not good enough just because you’re you. If you need more help to stop comparing yourself to others, click here.

Even the most talented athletes miss most of the shots they make. The best business-people have lost money on most of the trades they’ve made. We are all human and so none of us are immune to making mistakes. We’re all wrong some of the time – in fact, we’re wrong most of the time! It’s part of life. Just because you fail sometimes, this doesn’t make you a fraud. It just makes you human. No one knows the future and no one knows the precise formula for success. Those who try more often will fail more often, but they are the ones who are more likely to figure out what works. None of us really know what we’re doing most of the time. We take educated guesses based on what we know and hope circumstances don’t change too much. That’s the best we can do, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

You may feel like you’re always you, but your mind, your body, your experiences and your emotions are constantly changing. The sum total of who you are as a person doesn’t remain the same as you grow through life. Every choice you make slowly changes you into a new person. Your opinions will change with every new piece of information you learn. Sometimes you’re on a roll and sometimes you’re in a rut. The fact of the matter is that you won’t always feel confident in your abilities. Sometimes there will be a little voice inside you saying that you don’t deserve to be where you are, but you need to ignore that voice and put it in its place from time to time. Sure, it pays to heed its advice when you’re being a little over-confident, but when it’s trying to convince you that you didn’t earn a position you clearly worked hard for, you need to shut it up and show it who’s boss.

Okay, I need to be super careful what I write here, because teaching people how to be authentic is literally my business. But there are levels of authenticity. You wouldn’t talk to your grandma using the same words and tone as you would to your superior at work. You aren’t being dishonest when you use professional jargon, nor are you being inauthentic when you wear a suit to work, even if you feel more comfortable speaking and dressing more casually at home. My point is, we represent ourselves differently to different people, depending on the context, but being authentic as you do it is more about how you feel rather than how you act. If you are being authentic, you will feel in alignment with your core values. The things that are most important to you are being achieved in ways you feel comfortable with. Hopefully that made sense. If it didn’t, let me know.

Credentials don’t mean much. That being said, they’re still important in certain situations. Of course you’d want a qualified surgeon to perform heart surgery on you, and you’d want to see their credentials to prove it. But when you measure yourself based on your credentials alone, things can get messy. Your colleague isn’t more worthy of getting that promotion just because they went to a more expensive university. Many things go into success and a lot of the time, people who achieve the highest accomplishments don’t even have what’s considered “the proper credentials”. Make sure you’re always qualified to do the job you’re hired to do, but don’t go overboard judging yourself based on a piece of paper. Your degree doesn’t define you. No single thing does.

Being able to say out loud to someone “I feel like a fraud” can be very cathartic. Most of the time they will express to you that they often feel the same way, and this can make you feel better – especially if you were under the impression that you were the only one who felt like this. Having an open and honest discussion about it can not only validate your feelings, but can also offer you advice and assistance in overcoming the issue at large. Even just the simple fact that you clicked on my video and decided to read this article can be a huge help to you. It could make you feel even better, if you commented below to share your plight with me and other readers. This is why therapists, coaches and other helping professionals are so sought-after. Airing out your problems often helps, even if you don’t actively address them.

I often tell my clients that “fake it till you make it” can be a very helpful way to get ahead in life. Acting confident, smiling when you don’t feel like it and using strategic vocabulary have all been scientifically proven to increase the feel-good chemicals that not only make us happier, but also more confident and competent. I realize it seems like a hypocritical thing to say, when I’ve already suggested being authentic, but using proven methods of “faking it till you make it” is pretty much the same as following a recipe you found online. You didn’t come up with the recipe yourself, but the meal is no less your creation when you’re finished. It’s the same with following someone else’s advice or instructions. You are doing it, even though it doesn’t feel like your natural way of doing things, because you know it will help you in the end – or at least you hope it will. That doesn’t make you an imposter. You’re simply using a historically proven way to learn without trial and error – using other people’s prior experience!

I’m convinced love really is the key to everything. When you show unconditional love to yourself, you won’t berate yourself for making a mistake. Your self-doubts won’t grow into massive monsters that whip your mind with negative self-talk. Stress and anxiety won’t be allowed to flourish when positive habits like self-care and self-esteem are nurtured on a regular basis. When you’re nice to yourself you don’t tell yourself you’re not smart enough or that you’re unworthy. If you have trouble showing this kind of affection towards yourself, click here to learn easy ways to do it without feeling cheesy or egotistical. Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) is a proven way that can help you make the most of neuroplasticity (your brain’s ability to change itself). With the help of a professional, you can overwrite old, unhelpful brain pathways (like negative self-talk and feeling like a fraud) and replace them with preferred attitudes and positive behaviours. I myself am a certified Cognitive Behavioural Therapist, so if you’d like my help with this method, click here.

Most of the time, we only feel like a fraud when we’re focused on our own self-image. What are people going to think of me? How will I feel, when they realize I’m a fraud? How will it affect me when they reject me? Focus is a powerful thing. When you shift your focus from yourself to other people, these feelings disappear. So the easiest way to stop feeling like a fraud is to start thinking about how you can serve others. Ask yourself how you can make other people feel, what you can do to improve the quality of service they receive, etc. This suggestion comes from the idea that showing unconditional love to people can usually fix any problem, even your own. So click here to learn how to start thinking and acting in this way.

We are all unique. There are certain things only you can offer the world, because you have a distinctive set of skills that sets you apart from everyone else. You may have the same knowledge as most of the other graduates of your particular university, but your personality is different, the way you express yourself and convey your ideas, the way you think and the way you process are all different. These things combine to create the exceptional being that is you and so you are the only person in the world who can provide your abilities in the way that you do. If you don’t do it, no one else can fill that void in the exact same way you do. Remember that.

This is a leap of faith for most people, as we like to believe that we’re 100% unique in every possible way. However, as members of the same species, there are certain things we all have in common. We all get stressed and unsure some of the time. Everyone, even the most distinguished and intelligent among us, messes up, says silly things, and even lets a fart slip every once in a while. We rarely – if ever – see these people in such an unfaltering light. And of course, each of us is very well informed about our own flatulent moments. So, even though we logically understand that these people are human too and as such have bowel movements just like us, we somehow convince ourselves that this doesn’t happen in their circles. As a result, when we set ourselves up in prestigious roles, we feel as though we’re just pretending to fit the bill. That we’re imposters and don’t deserve the position or the praise, because it’s only a matter of time before we get found out as the vulgar beings we really are. But of course this isn’t just about bodily functions. CEOs, kings and philosophers all feel self-doubt sometimes. They feel inadequate and embarrass themselves in the presence of others. We’re all the same, so it’s okay if we attempt success.

Try out the above suggestions and if you’re still finding my advice too difficult, you can ask for help in the comments below, send me a message, or book a FREE breakthrough session so I can help you through Skype.

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Until next time, remember: Happiness doesn’t require energy. It requires Strategy.