Is it imposter syndrome, or am I bad at my new job?

By coachingwithping.com. Updated October 2026.

You were promoted a few months ago, and since then part of you has been waiting for someone to notice that you don’t know what you’re doing. Maybe a question in a meeting caught you out today and you’re still going over it.

After a promotion it’s usually a mix of three things: an old belief that you’ll be found out, real skills the new role needs that nobody taught you, and sometimes a workplace that isn’t backing you. Only the first is imposter syndrome. It’s the part that stays put even when the evidence is good, and listing your wins rarely touches it.

How do I tell if it’s imposter syndrome or a real problem?

The old belief. The evidence is decent, with good reviews, things going fine and people asking for your help, and the feeling doesn’t move. You felt the same way at your last step up, and the one before. The fear is general, something like “they’ll realize I’m a fraud,” rather than about a specific skill.

A real skill gap. You can name it, for example giving hard feedback, setting technical direction across teams, or being the final call on a patient. Maybe someone credible has pointed to it. In a survey of 840 newly appointed hospital consultants, they felt ready for the clinical work and much less ready for leadership, supervision and money. A gap you can name is something to learn, and it says nothing about whether you belong in the job.

A workplace that isn’t backing you. You get less information, support or authority than peers in the same role, or people test you in ways they don’t test others. In a study of more than 4,000 academics, the more a field believed success required raw brilliance, the more its women and early-career members felt like impostors. As one commenter put it under a new manager’s post, “It’s not imposter syndrome if people aren’t answering your emails.”

Most people after a promotion have some of each. A skill gap needs a learning plan, and a workplace problem needs allies or a sponsor, so it’s worth knowing which one you’re looking at before you blame yourself.

Is it normal to feel like this after a promotion?

Yes. Nobody has tracked the same people before and after a promotion, but the research that exists points the same way. When the organizational behaviour researcher Herminia Ibarra followed consultants and bankers into bigger client-facing roles, she found they had to “convey a credible image long before” the new identity felt like theirs. In a survey of 3,116 US physicians, those in their first five years of practice had the highest impostor scores.

The often-quoted figure that 70% of people feel this way comes from a 2007 magazine article about an unpublished survey. A 2020 review of 62 studies found rates anywhere from 9% to 82%, depending on the questionnaire. The same review confirmed that imposter syndrome isn’t a diagnosis, though it often comes along with anxiety, low mood or burnout, which are.

Why doesn’t listing my accomplishments help?

Nearly every article on this tells you to keep a list of your wins. Pauline Clance and Suzanne Imes, the psychologists who first described the pattern, wrote in 1978: “We have not found repeated successes alone sufficient to break the cycle.”

Clance later described the cycle that keeps the feeling going. A big task lands and you feel dread. You either over-prepare, or you put it off and then cram. It goes fine, and the relief doesn’t last, because you credit the result to effort (“I only pulled it off because I worked twice as hard”) or to luck (“they went easy on me”). Each success gets filed under something other than ability, so the next task feels just as risky as the last.

How do I stop feeling like a fraud at work?

Clance and Imes gave their clients different homework from a win list. They asked them to record positive feedback along with how they stopped themselves accepting it. Try it for two weeks. Each time someone says something good about your work, write down the sentence your mind used to dismiss it, such as “they’re being nice” or “they don’t know what I don’t know.” Seeing the dismissals on paper shows you the pattern itself, which another win on the list can’t do.

If over-preparing is your version, cut it back gradually. Pick one routine, low-stakes task, decide in advance what good enough looks like, and cap your time. It will feel uncomfortable the first few times.

Ask for the specific feedback your fear is guessing at. At around 30 and 90 days, ask your manager what you should keep doing, and what one thing would make the biggest difference by a set date. And tell one person how you’re feeling, ideally a peer who has been in the role a year or two longer. They can tell you which parts of your experience are just what the job is like.

Can imposter syndrome be a good thing?

Partly. In a set of studies published in 2022, Basima Tewfik found that people with more frequent impostor thoughts were rated by supervisors, patients and interviewers as better with people, with no measured drop in performance. The doubt made them pay closer attention to others. They also had lower self-esteem, and Tewfik doesn’t recommend encouraging the thoughts.

You can keep the habit of listening closely and checking how people are doing, and still work on the fear underneath it.

Does imposter syndrome go away?

Nobody has measured how many months it lasts in a new role, so any number you see is a guess. It tends to ease the longer you’re in a role, and it often comes back at the next step up. Time alone doesn’t seem to shift the belief much.

The only randomized trials of anything for impostor feelings so far are of coaching. Three trials, with 103 employees, 101 resident physicians and 1,017 physician trainees, found that coaching reduced impostor scores. They tested one-to-one coaching and online group programs that work on thoughts and mindset, which is different from the EMDR-informed coaching I do. The participants were volunteers, many dropped out before follow-up, and most were women in medicine. No therapy has been tested for impostor feelings specifically yet.

Why am I so afraid of being found out?

When I was a trauma therapist, this belief often had a history. Some people had been the one who kept things together at home, or the first in their family to get this far, learning rules nobody at home could explain. Others got praise only when things were perfect. A belief learned under that kind of pressure doesn’t update just because your circumstances change.

That’s the part I work on in coaching. We look at what happens in you before the moments that set it off, like the all-hands or your first night on call as the attending, and use tools from EMDR on that moment and on earlier experiences that still shape how you show up under pressure. Then we rehearse the next one. There are no studies of EMDR for imposter feelings, and I’ve written separately about what the research on EMDR does show.

When should I see a therapist or doctor instead?

Coaching suits you if you’re mostly coping and the promotion has set off an old pattern. Please see a doctor or therapist if you notice any of these.

• Low mood or loss of interest most of the day, nearly every day, for two weeks or more.
• Anxiety or panic that’s hard to control, or sleep that won’t settle.
• Exhaustion, cynicism and dread about work that have built up over months.
• Drinking or other ways of numbing out to get through the week.
• Flashbacks, nightmares, or a trauma you want to work through. That’s therapy, which can include EMDR therapy with a licensed clinician.

If you have thoughts of suicide or self-harm, call or text 988 in the US or Canada, or call Samaritans on 116 123 in the UK and Ireland. Many professions also have confidential support programs, such as physician health programs.

Sources

• Clance and Imes, The imposter phenomenon in high achieving women (1978)
• Sakulku and Alexander, The impostor phenomenon (2011), on Clance’s impostor cycle
• Bravata and colleagues, Prevalence, predictors, and treatment of impostor syndrome: a systematic review (2020)
• Shanafelt and colleagues, survey of 3,116 US physicians on the imposter phenomenon, Mayo Clinic Proceedings (2022)
• Ibarra, Provisional selves: experimenting with image and identity in professional adaptation (1999)
• Westerman and colleagues, survey of 840 new hospital consultants, Medical Teacher (2013)
• Muradoglu and colleagues, study of more than 4,000 academics on impostor feelings in fields that value brilliance, Journal of Educational Psychology (2022)
• Tewfik, The impostor phenomenon revisited (2022), and MIT’s summary of the findings
• Zanchetta and colleagues, randomized trial of coaching vs training for the impostor phenomenon, Frontiers in Psychology (2020)
• Fainstad and colleagues, randomized trial of online group coaching for resident physicians, JAMA Network Open (2022)
• Mann and colleagues, randomized trial of online group coaching for 1,017 physician trainees, JAMA Network Open (2023)