When I first got to know what impostor syndrome was, I thought it was just another synonym for insecurity; perhaps a fancier replacement of the word, to be used by highly celebrated and successful individuals. In some articles and references, the words are used interchangeably.

I also noticed that people prefer to be associated with impostor syndrome than with insecurity, which further fueled my curiosity to clearly differentiate between the two.

By definition,however, Impostor syndrome is the feeling that you don’t deserve to be where you are at the moment, that you just got lucky and soon everyone will find out that you are a fraud.”

Insecurity, on the other hand, refers to a lack of confidence in different aspects of life. It is a feeling of helplessness or inadequacy and can often cause you to think you are unable to fit in with peers, reach goals or find acceptance and support.

Logically, for you to fear being exposed as a fraud, you must have attained a certain level of success or achievement while those who consider themselves failures and lack confidence may not have achieved much (so the fear of being exposed as a fraud will hardly cross their minds).

Impostor syndrome is much more complex than insecurity and people who suffer from it tend to be very successful whereas people with high insecurity tend to be less accomplished.

Impostor feeling makes you question your ability to compete or fit in without being found out as a fraud while insecurity makes you just question your abilities.

Since both conditions question our ability to perform, and involve self-doubt, how can you tell when it is an impostor syndrome and when it is insecurity.

Below are few ways I have differentiated impostor syndrome from insecurity:

1. Personal growth versus self-pity: Impostor syndrome can drive you to push yourself into becoming a better individual. Alicia Liu writes that the impostor syndrome “drives her to work harder, look for different solutions, and second-guess nearly everything she does.” Insecurity can, on the other hand, drive you to drown in self-pity.
2. Humility versus arrogance: Individuals with Impostor syndrome undermine their abilities. They usually prefer to stay under the radar, under perform and lower expectations in an effort to hide their feelings of being found out while insecure people exaggerate superiority to cover up their feelings of inadequacy.
3. Responsible versus control-freak: Impostor syndrome can cause you to shirk from responsibility since you are afraid of portraying your competencies. On the other hand, when you are insecure, you enjoy control. You would want to make up for your lapses by exercising control over others and taking charge of every situation.
4. Kindness versus bullying: Impostor syndrome often leads you to overcompensate, to be extra kind to others in a bid to avoid being ‘found out’ while insecurity makes you want to pick on and push others around as a way of making yourself feel better.
5. Competition versus comparison: An excerpt from Joyce Roche’s boo An empress has no clothes: Conquering self-doubt to embrace success, “Impostor syndrome includes one’s ability to compete, social standing and fitting in while insecurity is primarily about one’s ability”. From this statement, it is easy to conclude that impostor syndrome happens because we try to compare our success with other people’s success. We therefore compete and try to fit into others success stories while ignoring our own feats of achievement so we say stuff like “I don’t deserve to be here”, “my success is by chance”, “everyone will soon find out that I am not as smart as I claim to be” etc. Insecurity happens mainly because people compare their weaknesses to other people’s success, and they say things like “I am not good enough”, “I am not smart enough to do this” etc.
6. Success versus failure: Fear of success leads to impostor feelings. Success causes people with impostor syndrome to mount up more self-doubt. We ask questions like “What if I get the job? The expectations will be raised the next time. They will expect this level from me all the time” etc. Insecure people are clouded by an intense fear of failing. We doubt our ability to succeed and feel like we can never get anything done well.

Nobody wants to feel insecure or feel like an impostor but at some point we do. For now, I am not certain if it is possible to experience both at the same time. However, there are known ways of overcoming impostor syndrome and insecurity which I canshare with you in a subsequent article.

But for those of you like me who feel like impostors, I leave you to reflect on this quote by Marianne Williamson:

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s for everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.