Impostor Syndrome: Stop Measuring Your Inside Against Everyone's Outside

You walk into the room and it starts immediately.

The person across the table who carries themselves like they've never questioned a decision in their life. The one with twenty years at the organization who seems to have an answer for everything. The one who's polished in a way that makes you wonder what you look like by comparison.

And just like that, without anyone saying a word to you, you start measuring. How am I showing up relative to them? What do people think about my experience next to theirs? Am I enough in this room?

I've been in that room more times than I can count.

Here's what took me longer than it should have to understand. You are measuring your inside against everyone's outside. You are taking your most private doubts, the ones nobody sees, and holding them up against the most curated version of someone else. The version they decided to bring into the room that day. What's underneath it for them you will never know.

The comparison was never fair. You were never working with complete information.

What helped me was catching the moment I started measuring and asking myself one question instead — am I prepared? Have I done the work? Do I know why I'm in this room? Because when the answer is yes, what someone else looks like becomes a lot less relevant.

You were not invited into the room by accident [insert your room here — the meeting, the board table, the interview]. Someone decided you belonged there before you walked in. The only question is whether you're going to agree with them.

More to come.