Interrogate the Impression: A Stoic Approach to Imposter Syndrome

[I wrote this over the past weekend (March 22/23) while preparing for an interview that, by the time you read this, will have already occurred. As I considered how to respond to various questions, the feeling of imposter syndrome resurfaced, so, as I do with everything, I thought I would write about it. Despite my experience as a manager and project manager, I still encounter this feeling from time to time. ~r]

You have just received the interview, the promotion, or the assignment that challenges every capability you believed you possessed. Instead of excitement, you experience a familiar apprehension: they are going to discover that I do not belong here.

That feeling has a name. Imposter syndrome is the persistent belief that your accomplishments are unearned, that your success is a matter of timing and luck, and that at any moment the people around you will realize they made a mistake. Researchers Pauline Clance and Suzanne Imes first named the phenomenon in 1978, and today it appears across every profession, at every seniority level, and with every credential. Project managers are not immune. In fact, given the ambiguous, high-visibility, team-dependent nature of our work, project managers may be especially vulnerable to it.

Stoic philosophy offers a valuable perspective on this experience. Rather than providing a motivational slogan or a performance technique, it directly challenges the underlying judgment: you are treating an opinion about yourself as if it were a fact.

The Problem Is the Impression, Not the Interview

Epictetus opened his Enchiridion with what may be the most practical sentence in philosophy: some things are within our power, and some things are not. Within our power are our opinions, our choices, our desires, and our responses. Outside our power are our reputation (to a degree, of course), others' judgments, the outcome of a decision, and what anyone else believes about our value.

Imposter syndrome consistently violates this framework. It focuses on factors beyond your control, such as others' perceptions or whether you 'truly' deserve the role, and treats resolving these as prerequisites for action. This process requires you to convince yourself, prove yourself, and then seek external validation of your legitimacy. The sequence is exhausting and unending, as there is always another milestone before you feel settled.

From a Stoic perspective, imposter syndrome is not fundamentally a confidence issue but a problem of judgment. Accepting an untested impression, the belief that you are a fraud, leads to acting as if it were true without examining the evidence. Epictetus taught that the initial task when an impression arises is not to accept it, but to interrogate it: wait, observe, and critically assess its validity.

When that feeling of I do not belong in this room arises, subject it to scrutiny. What evidence supports this belief? You were invited, have solved problems previously, led teams through uncertainty, and delivered results under pressure. This impression does not withstand honest examination, yet many individuals accept it without such scrutiny. They accept the verdict without a trial.¹

What Is Actually in Your Control Before an Interview

At this point, Stoic philosophy becomes a practical tool rather than a theoretical exercise. By distinguishing between what you can control and what you cannot, your approach to interview preparation fundamentally shifts.

You cannot control:

• Who else is interviewing for the role
• What assumptions does the panel bring into the room
• Whether your background fits an unspoken preference
• How the conversation lands emotionally
• The final hiring decision

You can control:

• How deeply you prepare your examples and stories
• The clarity and honesty with which you describe your work
• Your physical readiness: sleep, arrival time, posture, pace of speech
• How you handle a question you cannot answer cleanly
• Whether you stay curious and engaged rather than defensive

This approach reflects the Dichotomy of Control.

This is not a technique to suppress anxiety, but rather a redirection of focus. Most pre-interview anxiety is devoted to factors outside your control. As one who practices Stoicism, you must intentionally shift your attention to what can be controlled, not to eliminate fear but to cultivate readiness.

Marcus Aurelius, who managed an empire, multiple wars, plague, and political betrayal, returned to this discipline again and again. "Confine yourself to the present," he wrote in his Meditations. Not to the imagined future where the interviewer sees through you. Not to the imagined past where you should have done more. To the preparation you can do right now, and the presence you can bring into the room.

Confine yourself to the present.

The Credibility You Are Discounting

Imposter syndrome often leads individuals to discount their own evidence of competence. Successfully navigating a difficult stakeholder situation is attributed to luck, timing, or team intervention. Delivering a project on a compressed timeline is dismissed as something anyone could have accomplished. Recovering a budget mid-execution is rationalized by initially flexible numbers.

Project managers are particularly susceptible to this tendency because much of their work is collaborative and often invisible to outsiders. Facilitating meetings that enable decisions, drafting communications that prevent conflict, and raising critical questions during risk reviews are rarely captured as discrete data points. As a result, it is easy to dismiss these contributions as insignificant.¹

The Stoic response to this is grounded in arete, the Greek concept of excellence through virtue rather than performance. Your value is not only in what you built. It is in how you led when things got hard, in the quality of your judgment under pressure, in the example you set for how a project team operates. That is real. You do not need to minimize it to appear humble. Honest self-description is not arrogance. It is accuracy.

For those interviewing, this requires practicing a straightforward yet demanding discipline: describe your specific actions, not just the outcomes. For example, rather than stating, 'the project succeeded,' articulate, 'I identified the dependency risk in week three, escalated it before it became a blocker, and restructured the timeline with the team to absorb the change.' Such statements are factual and deserve to be presented confidently.¹

A Stoic Practice for the Days Before

The Stoics practiced premeditatio malorum, or the premeditation of adversity. The objective is not to catastrophize, but to rehearse potential difficulties in advance to reduce the likelihood of being caught off guard. Many individuals avoid this before interviews out of concern for 'jinxing' themselves or increasing anxiety. However, the Stoics recognized that mental rehearsal enhances real-world performance.

• Try this: imagine the hardest question you could be asked. The one that touches the gap in your experience, the project that did not go well, the competency you are still building. Write out your honest, grounded answer. Not a spin, not a deflection. An answer that says: here is what I learned, here is what I would do differently, here is how that experience made me a more capable leader.
• Now imagine yourself answering it in the room, calm and direct. Not perfect. Not rattled. Just clear. That is the goal. Not to eliminate the hard question, but to strip it of its power to unsettle you.
• Then do the opposite: write out three concrete examples of work you are genuinely proud of. Read them aloud. Notice how it feels to say them without qualifying them. Practice receiving your own accomplishments as facts, not opinions. The interviewer will ask you to describe your values. You should be ready to do that without flinching.

Courage Is Showing Up Anyway

Marcus Aurelius wrote, "You have power over your mind, not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength." The interview outcome is an outside event. Your preparation, your presence, and your honesty are not.

Imposter syndrome suggests that confidence must precede action and that a sense of worthiness is required before attempting new challenges. The Stoics, however, advocated the opposite: right action precedes and cultivates steadiness. Preparation, presence, clear communication, and honest responses generate courage, which emerges through action rather than as a prerequisite.

You have power over your mind, not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.

It is not necessary to feel a sense of belonging before entering the room. Instead, focus on acting with integrity, preparing thoroughly, and communicating truthfully. Trust that by doing so, you have fulfilled your responsibilities. The outcome that follows is beyond your control.

That is not a lowering of standards. That is the highest standard. It is the Stoic Project Manager's standard.

Practice

Try these three exercises in the days before your next high-stakes moment:

1. The Control Audit. Write two columns: what is in my control and what is not. Spend your preparation time exclusively on the first column.
2. The Evidence Test. When the thought "I do not belong here" arrives, cross-examine it. List five specific pieces of evidence that contradict it.
3. The Honest Story. For your three strongest career examples, write them using this structure: the situation, your specific judgment or action, and the outcome (consider it a shorter version of STAR). Read them aloud until they feel like facts, not performances.

¹ Further reading: Harvard Business Review, Don't Let Impostor Syndrome Derail Your Next Interview — hbr.org/2019/12/dont-let-impostor-syndrome-derail-your-next-interview