I spent most of my life chasing a very specific dream: I wanted to be a startup founder. Not just wanted — I felt I was made for it. I romanticized the pitch decks, the brainstorms, the visionary whiteboards. I loved the idea of building something from nothing, of being the kind of woman who could command a room full of people and casually mention her “runway” over dinner.
And I did it. I became that woman. I co-founded a startup. Raised money. Built a team. Lived the dream. And yet from the very beginning, something felt… off.
I blamed it on being new at this. I told myself I just needed to grow into the role, read more books and follow more LinkedIn Revenue Gods. Be bolder, louder, more persuasive. But the further I got, the worse it felt. Meetings became performances. Customer acquisition turned into a numbers game that left no space for real connection. The whole industry seemed built on posturing, exaggeration, carefully crafted hype cycles — and if I’m being honest, outright lies. I kept thinking: Maybe once we hit our targets, I’ll feel more grounded. Maybe once we close the next round, I’ll feel like I belong. But the imposter syndrome didn’t go away.
We tend to treat imposter syndrome like a mindset problem. A glitch in confidence. You feel like a fraud? Must mean you're too hard on yourself. Or you just haven’t earned your stripes yet. Or you're not celebrating your wins. And sometimes that's true. There is, indeed, the kind of imposter syndrome that comes from being new. From stretching into a bigger version of yourself. That version fades over time, as you build skill and self-trust and start embodying it. Yay! You faked it till you made it :-)
But there’s another kind. The kind that whispers: This isn’t you. But you don’t listen to it, because you know you can fake it till you make it. The whispers become louder until they turn into screams. Because this is a different kind. It’s a kind that doesn’t fade. It festers and festers because (as you’ll eventually realize) it’s not about a lack of confidence — it’s about a lack of alignment.
According to Kirkegaard, the great tragedy is that “Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.”
And after long enough time to be able to reflect, I eventually realized I wasn’t feeling like a fraud because I wasn’t capable. I was feeling like a fraud because I was performing. I was performing someone else’s definition of success. Playing a role that looked great on paper but felt empty in practice. And the longer I stayed, the more I betrayed myself — not because I didn’t know what I was doing, but because I did, and I didn’t like who I had to become to keep doing it.
That’s when I started asking bigger questions. About my values. About integrity. About the kind of impact I actually want to have - and whether any of that could live inside the current system.
Human Design entered my life around this time, and while I don’t subscribe to it like a religion, it gave me a vocabulary I didn’t have before. It framed this gut-deep discomfort not as failure, but as feedback. A signal that I had veered far from my natural rhythm.
And that was the reframe I didn’t know I needed. Imposter syndrome has become part of my inner compass. I no longer treat it as a dysfunction. It’s my soul waving a red flag.
Because here’s what I’ve learned: you can force success. You can build something that scales. You can lead, grow, impress, and earn — and still feel like a stranger inside your own story. You don’t owe your dreams their completion if they no longer feel like home. In fact, they are no longer dreams if you’ve already outgrown them.
If you’re reading this as someone who’s outgrown a dream — or who’s quietly wondering if the version of success you’re chasing is actually draining the life out of you — let me say this: imposter syndrome might be the most honest thing about your experience right now.
You’re not broken. You’re waking up. And if you need guidance in navigating this realm with calm and peace, book a free consultation with me.
