| I've struggled for the longest time with Impostor Syndrome. It is jarring to observe that the conditions for thriving are there but the mind keeps whispering that you are not good enough to achieve it. The first impulse is to try to cheer yourself up by "thinking positive" reminding yourself of your achievements and attempting to bolster your self-esteem. You are setting up a trap for yourself in which small disappointments shatter your fragile self-image. You enter a vicious cycle of rebuilding/breaking your self-esteem that has a huge toll on your mental capacity, as you have already observed. In the end, the only way out is to stop thinking about oneself. You understand that your self-image is illusory, then there is no self-image to damage. You are entitled to nothing except to experience life. Your true being becomes defined by something more essential than your work, your performance, your personal relationships and such. Curiously, once you let go you will observe your capacity for enjoyment and performance greatly increases. You work because it brings pleasure and satisfaction, not because it brings admiration or success. Let go of expectations and plans and you will observe that things work out on their own. Of course this does not happen overnight, everyone's path is different so it's difficult to say what will work out for you other than to be patient and accept your anxiety as part of a process of growth. In my case keeping track of my mood and my habits helped tremendously: https://medium.com/@duopixel/the-qualified-self-7f69c6b23623 |