Quick question. When imposter syndrome hits you, what does it actually look like?
Is it the paralysing need to prepare more before you feel ready to speak? The quiet certainty that you should probably know more than you do before you open your mouth? The feeling that if anyone looked too closely they’d realise you’ve been winging it all along?
(Relatable? Great. You’re in excellent company.)
Here’s something that most people don’t realise: imposter syndrome doesn’t look the same for everyone. It’s not a one-size-fits-all experience. There are actually five distinct types — identified by psychologists Pauline Clance and Suzanne Imes — and knowing your type isn’t just interesting self-knowledge. It’s genuinely useful, because different types need different tools.
Let’s meet them.
TYPE 1: THE PERFECTIONIST
You set the bar somewhere around ‘completely flawless’ and then feel like a failure when you don’t clear it (which is often, because the bar is somewhere near the ceiling).
You hold back ideas until they’re perfect — which means they sometimes never come out at all. You catastrophise small mistakes.
You spend three times as long on something as you need to, and still feel it wasn’t quite good enough.
Sound familiar?
You’re not too demanding.
You care deeply about quality.
The work is to separate ‘good enough to share’ from ‘perfect’ — because perfect is keeping your best ideas locked away.
TYPE 2: THE EXPERT
You believe you should know everything — or at least significantly more than you do — before you’re entitled to have an opinion.
You feel fraudulent because there is always more to learn.
You undervalue your existing knowledge and resist speaking up unless you can cite a source, quote a statistic, or produce a credential.
Here’s your reframe: genuine expertise includes knowing what you don’t know.
The people in the room who speak with the most authority are rarely the ones who know the most.
They’re the ones most comfortable with appropriate uncertainty.
TYPE 3: THE SOLOIST
Asking for help feels like admitting weakness.
Collaboration sometimes feels like an admission that you can’t do it alone.
You’d rather quietly struggle than let anyone see the joins.
You do brilliant work, often in isolation, that goes largely unseen because you haven’t let anyone in on how good it is.
Your reframe is to remember that nobody built anything worthwhile entirely alone.
Instead of asking for help, request specific input or support. Collaborate to share ideas, gain guidance or an expert opinion.
Asking for input isn’t weakness — it’s strategy.
TYPE 4: THE NATURAL GENIUS
You believe that if you’re truly talented, things should come easily.
When something takes real effort, multiple attempts, or a lot of iteration, you conclude it’s evidence that you’re not actually good at this.
So you give up early — before the idea has had a chance to mature into something brilliant.
Your reframe to take not of is that virtually everything worth doing is hard.
The struggle isn’t a signal that you’re not good enough.
It’s a signal that you’re doing something that matters.
TYPE 5: THE SUPERHUMAN
You compensate for feeling like a fraud by working harder, longer, and more quietly than everyone else.
You take on more.
You stay later.
You make yourself indispensable.
And then, exhausted and stretched thin, you’re the last person in the room to speak — because you’ve been too busy holding everything else together.
Your reframe to remind yourself of every day is that being indispensable through output is not the same as being valued for your thinking.
Your voice matters as much as your work.
So — which one are you?
Most people have a dominant type and a little of one or two others on the side. (I’m a recovering Perfectionist with a strong supporting Superhuman. We don’t need to dwell on that.)
The important thing isn’t the label. It’s what you do with it. Because once you know your type, you can start to catch it in action. You can notice when the Perfectionist is keeping your idea hostage until it’s flawless. You can spot when the Expert is telling you that you need one more qualification before you’re allowed to speak.
And you can choose, consciously and deliberately, to do something different.
That is where everything changes.
COMING UP ON 21ST MAY…
In the Own Your Confidence masterclass, we go much deeper into your imposter syndrome type — not just identifying it, but understanding exactly why it shows up for you and building the specific toolkit to address it. It’s free, it’s live, and it won’t be recorded.
