When Messages Become Your Truth: Perfectionism & Imposter Syndrome

By Martin Truscott, NCPS Accredited Counsellor and Polyvagal-Informed Practitioner · Three Oaks Therapy · October 2026

Some sentences we hear when we are young stay with us long after the person who said them has forgotten saying them. Most of the time they were meant kindly. They were meant to encourage, to motivate, to help us do well. But messages don’t always stay as words. Heard often enough, they settle in and become the way we see ourselves. Quietly, without us ever noticing, they become our truth.

I want to share some of my own messages, how they shaped me, and what changed when I finally saw them for what they were.

The messages I grew up with

At school, the comments were familiar: “Martin could do better.” “If he focused more, he would be better.” At home and from other trusted adults, there was another one I heard again and again: “If you’re going to do it, do it properly – or don’t do it at all.”

None of this was cruel. The people saying it believed in me and wanted the best for me. But a child doesn’t always hear “you have potential.” A child can just as easily hear “what you’ve done isn’t enough yet.” And when you hear that often enough, the word “yet” starts to disappear.

How a message becomes a belief

In counselling we sometimes talk about introjects – a term from Gestalt therapy (Perls) for messages we swallow whole, without ever chewing them over to decide whether they fit. Transactional Analysis offers a similar idea in what Taibi Kahler called drivers: inner rules – Be Perfect, Be Strong, Please People, Try Hard and Hurry Up – that promise we’ll be okay as long as we keep to them. (I’ll come back to my own drivers shortly.)

Polyvagal Theory (Stephen Porges) adds another layer. When approval seems to depend on performance, the nervous system can learn to stay on alert. Falling short stops feeling like simple disappointment and starts to feel like a threat. That is why a small mistake can bring such a big reaction – in the body as well as the mind.

For me, the rule became clear, even though I would never have put it into words at the time: nothing is finished until it’s perfect, and nothing I do is ever quite good enough.

I didn’t see it for years

That is the thing about a belief that has become your truth – it doesn’t feel like a belief. It just feels like reality. I thought I simply had high standards.

I checked and re-checked my work. I found praise uncomfortable and quickly explained it away. I would finish something and move straight on to worrying about the next thing. Success felt more like relief than joy.

Alongside the perfectionism came imposter syndrome – what psychologists Pauline Clance and Suzanne Imes first described as the “imposter phenomenon”. The more I achieved, the more I worried that someone would notice I didn’t really deserve to be there. If I wasn’t perfect, surely I would be found out.

The gift and the cost

I want to be honest here, because this isn’t a simple story. Those messages also brought real benefits. Over around twenty years in IT, they drove me. I prepared thoroughly, I delivered, and I was trusted with leadership roles. “Do it properly” served me well in many ways, and I’m proud of what I achieved.

But the same messages also led me into a job that I found deeply stressful – a role that wasn’t what I really wanted to do. The difficult part was that I could do it, and do it well. That was the trap. Being good at something isn’t the same as it being right for you.

When your sense of worth is tied to performing well, “I can do this” quietly replaces “Do I actually want this?” Stepping away would have felt like failing – and failing simply wasn’t allowed.

Seeing the message for what it is

It was during my coaching training, while I was still working in IT, that I first came across the Transactional Analysis drivers. When I explored my own, Be Perfect came out clearly on top, with Be Strong and Please People close behind and almost level with each other.

In some ways I was already half aware of this. But seeing it named started me asking questions I had never really asked. What does “perfect” actually mean, and who decides? What does being strong look like – and is it really strength to never show uncertainty? And how was I supposed to be perfect and strong while also keeping everyone else happy? Those rules pull in different directions, and trying to meet all of them at once is exhausting.

So I did something that felt quite uncomfortable at the time: I asked for feedback. One comment, from an HR director, has stayed with me: “Sometimes you should let others find the answers, even if you find it hard not to say.”

That landed. I had been so keen to get things right and get them done that I hadn’t always noticed when others were finding things hard. Jumping in with the answer felt helpful to me, but it could come across as dismissive – as though their thinking didn’t matter. The very rules I was following to be good enough were getting in the way of the people I wanted to support.

Taken together, the feedback helped me build a much better understanding of what “perfect” really needed to be – often far less than I had been demanding of myself – and it showed me that I didn’t always have to have the answers. Sometimes the most useful thing I could do was step back and leave room for someone else to find theirs.

It was the start of noticing whose voice I had been listening to all those years. It wasn’t really mine. It was an echo of well-meaning people from a long time ago, carried forward as if it were fact.

Noticing didn’t make the voice disappear. It still shows up sometimes. The difference is that I can now hear it as a message rather than the truth. I can pause and ask myself: Is that actually true? Whose standard is this? What would “good enough” look like here?

That shift gave me the space to move towards work that genuinely feels right for me – sitting alongside people as a counsellor.

Questions you might like to sit with

If any of this feels familiar, you might find it helpful to reflect gently on these questions. There are no right answers.

What messages did you hear growing up about effort, success or getting things wrong?
Who said them, and what do you think they were hoping for you?
Which of those messages still feel like “the truth” today?
How has that message helped you – and what has it cost you?
Do any of the drivers – Be Perfect, Be Strong, Please People, Try Hard, Hurry Up – sound familiar? Which feels strongest for you?
If a good friend held that belief about themselves, what would you want them to know?

Messages can be looked at again

The hopeful part is this: what was learnt can be re-examined. This isn’t about blame. The adults in my life did their best with what they knew. It’s about choosing which messages you want to keep.

You can hold on to the parts that serve you – care, commitment, pride in your work – and begin to let go of the part that says you are only acceptable when you are perfect. Good enough, it turns out, is often more than enough.

If you recognise yourself in this – the never-quite-good-enough feeling, the fear of being found out, or a career that looks right on paper but doesn’t feel right – you don’t have to untangle it on your own. Counselling can offer a calm, unhurried space to notice the messages you carry and decide which ones are really yours.

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Martin Truscott · NCPS Accredited Counsellor · Polyvagal-Informed Practitioner
Broughton Gate, Milton Keynes MK10 · Online sessions across the UK

This post was written by Martin Truscott with drafting support from AI (Claude, by Anthropic). The personal experiences and views shared are Martin’s own. Concepts referenced: introjects (Gestalt therapy, Fritz Perls); drivers (Transactional Analysis, Taibi Kahler, 1975); Polyvagal Theory (Stephen Porges); the imposter phenomenon (Pauline Clance and Suzanne Imes, 1978). This post is for general information and is not a substitute for individual support.

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