Coming soon: Righteous Badass Syndrome

If there’s anything this past week has demonstrated to me, it’s that Imposter Syndrome doesn’t actually affect the people it should. In fact, those who *should* suffer from Imposter Syndrome seem to suffer more from the Dunning-Kruger Effect. We all know what imposter syndrome is. It’s that niggling feeling that maybe you’ll be found out, they’ll discover you don’t belong, that you’re not smart enough or accomplished enough, or there are other people who belong in this room more than you do. It’s that inner voice that tells you, “if you are perfect, you belong.”

I’ve been annoyed with Imposter Syndrome as a concept for a while now. In my experience, the people who speak about Imposter Syndrome the most are those who are highly qualified, regularly self-aware, and always seeking growth and improvement. Imposter Syndrome rarely affects the people who are *actually* unqualified, who over-emphasize their accomplishments, and give no attribution of their success to external factors like privilege, luck, race, or gender.

I’m done with this bullshit. I’m over it. I’m tired of super brilliant, qualified, emotionally intelligent humans questioning whether they belong because there might be a person in the world who could possibly be an objectively better choice. No one is helped by any of us minimizing what we’re actually capable of. It needs to stop.

So here’s my proposal - Let’s all see if we can give ourselves Righteous Badass Syndrome instead. What is RBS? It’s when high-achieving individuals, in lieu of their objective success, externally and internally own their accomplishments, acknowledge self doubt, and instead of letting fear of criticism or failure get in the way, they pursue their goals and celebrate their accomplishments. RBS is characterized by a strong sense of ownership, an acknowledgement of where things can be better, and resilience.

This is the energy that allows us to stand up for what we believe, to hold our boundaries, to take care of ourselves and our communities, and to keep going when success doesn’t seem inevitable.

Righteous Badass Syndrome isn’t the cure to imposter syndrome, but it probably will be a good place to start. Let me know how it goes.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7174434/ This article defines Imposter Syndrome as “high-achieving individuals who, despite their objective success, fail to internalize their accomplishments and have persistent self-doubt and fear of being exposed as a fraud or imposter. People with Impostor Syndrome struggle with accurately attributing their performance to their actual competence,” and tend to attribute success to luck or help or other external factors.

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