God-Examination, Self-Clarity, and The Paradox of Imposter Syndrome
The Disciple-Leader Newsletter #59
Discipleship
“Envy is inversely correlated with self-examination. The less you know yourself, the more you look to others to get an idea of your worth.”1
Lawrence Yeo
I think Yeo’s idea is brilliant and insightful.
And incomplete.
“The less you know yourself, the more you look to others to get an idea of your worth.” How do you come to know yourself? You change day by day, hour by hour, even minute by minute. You are constantly undergoing microevolutions of the self.2 You’re constantly becoming a different person, so how can you know the real you?
Joseph Smith answered that question. “If men do not comprehend the character of God they do not comprehend themselves.”3
Read that statement with your name substituted in. “If (insert your name) does not comprehend the character of God, (insert your name) does not comprehend himself/herself.”
With that in mind, if I were to edit Yeo’s teaching for completeness, I’d say, “Envy is inversely correlated with God-examination. The less you know God, the less you know yourself. The less you know yourself, the more you look to others—instead of God—to get an idea of your worth.”
It’s also worth pointing out that envy is an interchangeable word here. Check this out.
Fear is inversely correlated with God-examination.
Anxiety is inversely correlated with God-examination.
Worry is inversely correlated with God-examination.
Insecurity is inversely correlated with God-examination.
Anger is inversely correlated with God-examination.
Contempt is inversely correlated with God-examination.
Apathy is inversely correlated with God-examination.
Guilt and shame are inversely correlated with God-examination.
I could go on. You get the point.
All patterns of negative thinking are inversely correlated with God-examination. God-clarity is paramount for self-clarity. Without God-clarity, there is no self-clarity. Without God-clarity, your sense of self will never fully materialize. Your self-understanding would be best described as shallow. Superficial. Surface-level.
Do you want a flourishing, deep, eternally satisfying sense of self? Do you want to know and love yourself as well as humanly possible? Then I have an invitation for you.
“And now, I would commend you to seek this Jesus of whom the prophets and apostles have written, that the grace of God the Father, and also the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost, which beareth record of them, may be and abide in you forever.”4
Leadership
“The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.”5
William Butler Yeats
Think about your life experience. You have probably seen and can identify with this statement. In many ways, this paints an accurate picture of our culture. Whether it be religion, politics, social media, or something else, there is a silent majority filled with what Yeats would call “the best” and an outspoken minority filled with what Yeats would call “the worst”.
Two writers have helped me cogitate this idea. I think both are worth sharing here. One comes from a moral perspective. The other from a religious perspective. Both, ultimately, come from a leadership perspective.
First, from The New York Times’s David French.
“Things fall apart; the center cannot hold.” William Butler Yeats wrote these words in his poem “The Second Coming” in a different time of violence and fear. The year was 1919, Europe was still reeling from World War I, a deadly influenza pandemic was sweeping through the world, and the Irish war of independence was underway. Yeats was writing from the heart of a storm, a storm that would grow indescribably worse in 20 short years.
I think of Yeats’s words often. By “center,” he’s referring not to some kind of moderate political middle but rather to the moral center of civilization. When the moral center gives way, nations fall.
I thought of those words again when I saw the blood on Donald Trump’s ear on Saturday. Now is the time for America’s moral center to rise up and declare — with one voice, neither red nor blue — “Enough.” We either recover our sense of decency and basic respect for the humanity of our opponents, or we will see, in Yeats’s words, the “blood-dimmed tide” loosed in our land.
The cultural conditions for chaos are created by a lack of courage and character. Yeats lamented that the “best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.” And already, we’ve seen the passionate intensity of the worst on display. Members of one extreme faction have claimed the shooting was an elaborate ploy to generate sympathy for Trump. At the same time, members of the opposing extreme faction have attempted to claim that President Biden is responsible for the attack.
How does the center hold? Democrats and independents must stand in solidarity with Republicans, grieving for the dead, praying for the wounded and giving thanks that Trump survived with only a minor wound. Virtually every leading Democrat has condemned the violence with a loud voice, and Biden has both condemned the violence and spoken to Trump directly.
All of this is good and necessary, but it is not sufficient. Each of us has our own role to play, in our own circles of influence, either big or small. There has rarely been a better time to love our enemies, to pray for our nation and to remember — during one of the most fraught political campaigns in generations — that each and every one of us is a human being, created in the image of God.6
Second, from Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of The Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.
I do not agree that “the best lack all conviction” because you, seated before me robed and hooded, and a host of good people across the earth like you prove otherwise. I believe you to be the very best, and I am counting on you to be consumed with conviction.
But alas, I fear that in too many cases “the worst [of our day] are full of passionate intensity.” No child should have to go to school fearful that they won’t live to see their parents that evening. No citizenry should have to live with a system—pick a nation, any nation, or put a pin in a world map almost at random—where corruption is rampant, where chaos is the order of the day, and where statesmanlike character, elevated (to say nothing of elegant) speech, and dignified personal behavior are seemingly alien concepts. No young people your age—or any age—ought to face conditions in so many places where poverty and abuse (including sexual abuse), malnutrition and disease, and human trafficking and terror are still the rule rather than the exception for too many people, including too many children.
Well, I don’t want to dwell on anything negative today, and you might say it has always been so down through time, and maybe it has. But it doesn’t have to be! So go out there and light a candle. Be a ray of light. Be your best self and let your character shine. Cherish the gospel of Jesus Christ and live it. The world needs you, and surely your Father in Heaven needs you if His blessed purposes for His children are to prevail. You have entered to learn. Now go forth to serve and strengthen. If correcting all the world’s ills seems a daunting task, so be it. Go out there and be undaunted. If we cannot look to you to change the world, tell me to whom we should look.7
Mental Performance
“Doubt your doubts…”8
Dieter F. Uchtdorf
One of the greatest mysteries of the human mind is how and why we deal with self-doubt and imposter syndrome in the way we do.
Marcus Aurelius astutely observed, “It never ceases to amaze me: we all love ourselves more than other people, but care more about their opinion than our own.”9
We care more about others opinions, yet, we often only believe their opinion of us if it’s negative. If they tell us something positive, we almost have this automatic tendency to doubt their sincerity. This comic strip explains my point.
Organizational Psychologist Adam Grant outlined how he thinks about this paradox:
Others believe in you
You don’t believe in yourself
Yet you believe yourself instead of them
“If you doubt yourself, shouldn’t you also doubt your low opinion of yourself?”10
Stop doubting yourself. Start doubting your doubts.
“I now believe that imposter syndrome is a sign of hidden potential. It feels like other people are overestimating you, but it’s more likely that you’re underestimating yourself. They’ve recognized a capacity for growth that you can’t see yet. When multiple people believe in you, it might be time to believe them.”11
The Antidote to Envy. Blog post by Lawrence Yeo.
Atomic Habits. Book by James Clear
Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith. Page 345.
The Second Coming. Poem by William Butler Yeats.
After Such Violence, The Center Must Hold. NYT Op-Ed by David French.
Banishing All Shadows. 2018 BYU Commencement Speech by Jeffrey R. Holland.
Come, Join With Us. Speech by Dieter F. Uchtdorf
Meditations. Book by Marcus Aurelius.
Hidden Potential. Book by Adam Grant. Page 232.
Hidden Potential. Adam Grant. Page 233.