Wouldn’t it be great if creating infographics was as simple as writing regular ol’ text-based blog posts? Unfortunately, the reality is that making visual content like this usually takes a lot more time, effort, and let’s face it — skill — than the written word. Usually.

But considering the popularity and effectiveness of visual content in marketing today, you can’t just afford to throw in the towel.

That’s why we decided to take all the pain and suffering out of infographic creation. Seriously — don’t throw in the towel just yet. You, too, can create professional-looking, high-quality infographics, and quickly. I’m going to prove it. First things first:

Download our 15 free infographic templates here.

Then, all you have to do is provide the content to use inside them. Easy as that! In fact, I’m going to show you just how easy it is by taking one of our 15 infographic templates in PowerPoint (pictured above) and creating my own, customized infographic with it. Then, I’ll explain exactly what I did so you get a sense of how easy it really is. 

Would you rather watch this tutorial instead of read it? Check out the video below:

Click here to download your free infographic templates.

How to Create Infographics For Free in Under an Hour

Step 1: Collect your data/content, and choose your desired template.

Your first step is to collect the data/content you’ll be using to populate your infographic, and choose an infographic template appropriate for representing that data. The important thing is to choose a template that specifically works for the type of data set/content you want to present. As you saw pictured above, you can download our 15 infographic templates in PowerPoint and choose whichever template you’d like. Some of your template options here include a timeline, flowchart, side-by-side comparison, and a data-driven infographic.

You can either collect third-party data or use your own original data. If you use third-party data, just be sure you properly cite your sources — just like in any other good piece of content.

To keep your infographic uncluttered by a ton of different source URLs, a great way to cite your sources is to include a simple URL at the bottom of your infographic that links to a page on your site listing the individual stats used in your infographic, and their sources — such as the blog post you’re using to publish your infographic. That way, your infographic looks clean and professional, yet people will still be able to access the sources no matter where the infographic gets shared or embedded. It may also even drive visitors back to your site.

For the sake of time (remember, our mission is to create an infographic in under an hour), for my infographic, I’m going to choose a compilation of social media stats, charts, and graphs we’ve already collected from our 2015 Social Media Benchmarks Report, and I’m going to pick the “Cold Hard Numbers” infographic from our collection of infographic templates, which is appropriate for my data set since it conveys statistics using charts and graphs. This template is pictured below:

Step 2: Customize your infographic.

Obviously, this is the most time-consuming part — but it’s also the most fun! Simply come up with a catchy title, plug in your data/content, and adjust your font sizes and formatting. Feel free to switch up the graphics, too, so they’re relevant to the data you’re citing. You can use the simple graphs and charts provided by PowerPoint to create things like the bar graph or the pie chart. (Note: Download our free infographic templates for a cheat sheet for using PowerPoint’s various features and tools.)

To customize the look of the infographic even more, you might add or change up the colors or font styles.

Finally, I included a link to my source (which can be found here), as well as the HubSpot logo so people know who created the infographic if it gets shared in social media or embedded on other websites — which is definitely something you want, since one of the main benefits of infographics is their shareability.

That’s it! This whole thing took me under an hour to put together — much shorter than it would’ve taken me if I’d started from scratch (not to mention more professional looking … and cheaper than hiring a designer). Here it is:

Share this Image On Your Site

<p><strong>Please include attribution to http://ift.tt/n37HpG with this graphic.</strong><br /><br /><a href=’http://ift.tt/1gDlo7Y’><img src=’http://ift.tt/1TnwGQf’ alt=’social-media-benchmarks-hubspot’ width=’669px’ border=’0′ /></a></p>

Step 3: Add an embed code and “Pin It” button, and publish it!

The only thing left to do is to publish and promote your awesome new infographic. As I mentioned earlier, we recommend using your blog to publish it (including your list of sources), including a “Pin It” button for visitors to easily share your infographic on Pinterest, and create and add an embed code for visitors to share it on their own websites and blogs, as we did above.

Editor’s Note: This post was originally published in August 2013 and has been updated for accuracy and comprehensiveness.

 

Where do you see yourself in five years?

That question is, as HubSpot recruiter Emily MacIntyre puts it, “so boring.” 

But love ’em or hate ’em, those tried-and-true interview questions still make their way into even seasoned interviewers’ candidate conversations.

And even if you’ve aced the question in past interviews, somehow you seem to black out the embarrassment of fumbling through your answers. So when it comes time to interview again, you’re left sweating and tripping over your words as you try to remember how you tied together your real passion of opening up a skydiving joint with your work optimizing paid search campaigns.

In an attempt at helping you stay dry and composed in your next interview, we’ve collected a lot of those popular interview questions — curated from Glassdoor’s list of the most popular interview questions in 2015 — and supplied you with some guidance on how to nail the answers. No sweat. No tears. Minimal stumbling. 

How to Answer 10 of the Most Common Interview Questions

1) What are your strengths/weaknesses?

Candidates typically struggle with this question because it forces them to awkwardly toe the line between bravado and confidence, self-defeat and self-assessment. This is why you sometimes get that urge to answer with fake-weaknesses — the folks over at Glassdoor say a popular one is the whole “I’m a perfectionist” routine. Oh woe is you.

This question may take the form of other questions, too, so listen carefully. “You may hear a recruiter say ‘What’s one thing you want to learn more about?’ when trying to get at a weakness,” MacIntyre says.

What interviewers are getting at here is an honest skills assessment — in terms of both competencies and gaps. The way I stopped getting tripped up on this question is by remembering that a poor skill match in a role is just as bad for the company as it is for me. (If you’ve never slipped through the cracks in a hiring process and ended up in a role for which you’re not suited, just take my word on this one.)

From there, it’s simply a matter of having taken the time to reflect on what your strengths and weaknesses are relative to the position for which you’re interviewing.

For example, if you’re interviewing for an SEO position, a relevant strength to tout might be your analytical abilities. Start with that, and be prepared to explain some real-life scenarios in which you get to flex that muscle. For the same position, a perfectly reasonable weakness might be your writing. You could then go on to explain that while writing is part of your job, it takes you a while to get new pieces of content out the door. Glassdoor also recommends following up with how you’re addressing that weakness — so perhaps you could talk about how you’re taking a class in business writing, or working with a colleague who’s a skilled editor.

Again, you may find that there are gaps in the skill sets or qualities needed in the role — but it’s better you find out now than six months later when you’re back on the job market.

2) Why are you interested in this role/company?

If you’re focusing on candidate-centric things — work-life balance, benefits, compensation, better commute — you’re thinking about this question wrong.

Glassdoor’s advice? “Do your research on the job and company so you can give a few solid examples on why you’re good for the company, and how you can add value to them.” Your interests should lie at the intersection of company needs, responsibilities of the role, and candidate competencies.

That being said, it’s fine to show a little bit of your personal motivation. For example, if you’re interviewing for a podcasting position, here’s how you might break down the answer to this question:

Company Needs: We need to keep better company in terms of who we partner with and create content with.

Responsibilities of the Role: Source talent, come up with episode topics, prep guests, and edit episodes.

Candidate Competencies: Skilled with Audition, finger on the pulse of the industry, deadline-oriented, able to sell people on ideas.

Personal Motivation: I want to work with high profile people so I can learn from them and get some good connections.

So, what’s the intersection of company needs, role responsibilities, candidate competencies, and personal motivation? You might talk about how you’ve learned a lot over the years by interacting with, reading, or listening to the heavy-hitters in your industry, and you’ve seen firsthand the impact exposure to them can have on a company as well as an individual. Not only does an answer like that relate to the needs of the role and the company, but it ties in your abilities and shows that you’re personally motivated by the mission.

3) Why do you want to leave your current role/company?

This is always a fun balancing act, particularly when you’re running away from a job rather than to one. (Not the ideal situation to be in, but that’s the way the cookie crumbles sometimes.)

The right way to answer this question is to focus on opportunity. Be forward thinking. Talk about what this role or company offers and why that’s important to you. Don’t focus on what your current role lacks, why you don’t like your company, or how you feel like you’ve hit a ceiling.

So if your next step up at your current company is to a Director role, but that seat is currently occupied by a lifer, frame your answer around how you’d like to make an impact in a certain area that this new role or company provides. Or if you’re bored with an aspect of your day-to-day that is less prominent in the role for which you’re interviewing, focus on the chance to up your skill-level that the new position offers.

And no matter what you do, no matter how tempting it is, don’t badmouth coworkers, bosses, or companies. You’re wearing your professional pants today.

4) Why was there a gap in your employment history?

Recruiters are more forgiving of employment gaps than you might think, particularly if you’re working in marketing or tech. Often people leave jobs to pursue personal interests or take a professional risk that doesn’t end up panning out — and they’re left without a job for a while.

I asked MacIntyre for her perspective on employment gaps just to make sure I wasn’t being too lenient as a hiring manager. “There aren’t too many red flags, unless they left a company suddenly without having a job lined up,” she said. “I’m just listening for a good reason, whether it’s downsizing, trouble finding the right role, or embarking on a career change.”

5) What can you offer us that someone else cannot?

I really hate this question, because it puts you in the position of explaining why you’re a special flower when, frankly, there are other people out there that can do this job, too. There just are. But alas, people ask it anyway, so here’s what I’ve learned about how to answer this question well.

First, don’t harp on skills. Any candidate they’re seriously considering for the position will have a similar skill set, so this isn’t something unique that you can offer. Where people tend to differ more is in their qualities — persistence, drive, creativity, etc.

Then, try to align the qualities that make you stand out with the problem or difficulties inherent in the role. For example, if the role requires getting buy-in from a lot of different stakeholders in order to move work forward, that’s a really tough thing to do. No matter how skilled you are at your discipline, inability to get over that hurdle will make you ineffective. So maybe you highlight that you’re great at building relationships, and talk about how you’ve done that in the past. Or you could talk about your creative approach to problem solving, and how you’ve used that to get over people-related hurdles in the past.

These are all qualities unique to you (and, yes, maybe some other people out there), but if you have the skill set and the qualities they need — hey, you’re sitting right in front of ’em, and the other person isn’t. 😉

6) Tell me about an accomplishment you’re extremely proud of.

This is a question that you might hear phrased in a couple different ways. One of the ways MacIntyre has positioned it is, “What’s something you can do better than a room of 100 people?” She says questions like this are great because they take someone out of the day-to-day, and get candidates talking about something they’re passionate about. This gives a great window into who the person is, not just what kind of work they do.

So no matter how this question is phrased, if you hear it, keep in mind that the recruiter is probably looking to understand what makes you tick. What motivates you. What you’re passionate about. Some interviewers are open to hearing about accomplishments outside of work, while others will be more interested in hearing about something work-related — it’s alright to ask if they have a preference for one or the other. But be prepared with a few examples on each side just so you’re not caught with your metaphorical pants down.

If you’re uncomfortable bragging, remember that this question is all about what you’re proud of. They specifically asked to hear it! So don’t worry about sounding like you’re full of yourself, and tell a short but interesting story about what you did, and why it mattered to you.

“The best questions let the candidates shine,” MacIntyre shared, “and that’s why I love ones like this.”

7) Tell me about a time you made a mistake.

The worst way to answer this question is to take the same approach candidates often take in the “what’s your weakness?” question. Trying to frame a mistake as someone else’s fault, or highlighting an inconsequential mistake to imply that you only make small mistakes, is a total cop out.

There’s also a way to answer this question that isn’t a monumental failure, but isn’t a huge success, either — and that’s thinking of a mistake that’s so far back in your career that it’s pointless to bring up today. For example, if you’ve got nine years of experience in funnel marketing and you’re talking about the time you failed to copyedit an email in 2007, you’ve technically answered the question, but not satisfactorily. Yes, you’ve admitted a mistake, but it’s not relevant to the professional you are today or the role for which you’re interviewing. 

Instead, think about a real mistake from the recent past — the last year or two — that has a clear takeaway you can share with the interviewer. Here’s a hypothetical example that an interviewer would love to hear for, let’s say, a Sr. Manager of PR:

“A few years ago I found myself in dire straits from a hiring standpoint. I misread some cues from someone on my team in terms of how engaged they were, and I ended up losing them to another team internally. It left us without a copywriter, and I ended up having to take on all of that extra workload while scrambling to backfill. In retrospect, I realize I should’ve been having more proactive conversations with that employee about her career growth. She loved the work she was doing as a writer, but just felt there wasn’t enough progression for her on the team — which I could’ve outlined for her had I been more communicative with her about it. I ended up finding someone great to backfill her, and I outlined a strong career path for her that we talk about on a quarterly basis.”

8) How do you handle stress or pressure?

Not well.

I mean, what do you want me to say? I think that’s why this question trips people up a lot — the kneejerk reaction is that you’re being asked how stress makes you feel, not how you react to it. But that’s what the interviewer is getting at: what actions you take when stressful situations present themselves.

And you do take certain actions. Try to reflect on the last three to five situations in which you were stressed at work. What did you do to move past the stress? If you jot down what you did, you might see a framework start to emerge.

By way of example, I know a lot of people I work with respond to stressful situations by taking a step back from the chaos and writing down a list of what needs to get accomplished to get their arms around the problem. They find breaking up a big, complex problem into its components makes it easy to start doing productive things to calm down.

Try to answer in terms of frameworks like that instead of cringing and saying “Oh, heh, I love stress, heh, bring it on!”

9) What would your direct reports/boss/colleagues say about you?

“This is one of those questions where they’ll respond something like ‘I’m not a micromanager,’ or ‘I lead by example,’ so you have to take answers to this with a grain of salt,” says MacIntyre.

But questions like this that lend themselves to trite or fluffy answers give you an opportunity to stand out. MacIntyre says if she does ask a question like this, she gets excited when she hears an individualized response — something that tells her more about the candidate as a person. That could be anything from “I’m an unrelenting fan of Bruce Springsteen” — something (presumably) unrelated to the work at hand — to, “That I’m a sucker for beautiful design and I totally geek out doing it whenever it pops up in my role.”

Much like the questions about your weaknesses or a time you’ve failed, just be sure you don’t use this question as an opportunity to humblebrag. Keep your “tendency to work too hard” to yourself.

10) What questions do you have for me?

The biggest mistake you can make with this question is to have no questions. It indicates a lack of curiosity and research.

The second biggest mistake you can make is asking superficial questions. This also indicates a lack of research, but perhaps worse, it doesn’t exactly make you sound smart.

What’s an example of a stupid question? For starters, anything you can find out on your own through a bit of research. These include information like basic company history, product or service suites, key hires, or company performance — provided the company releases information publicly. 

Unless you’re in the final stage of the interview, it’s also smart to steer clear of questions that are related to HR — things like time off, salary, or benefits packages. If you’re still in the stages of exploring whether there’s a mutual fit, jumping to this end stage may advance the interview process too fast, and it could turn out unfavorably for you as a result.

Some better questions to ask are ones that are built off of the conversation you’ve had with the interviewer. Dig deeper into something you talked about that lends itself to more nuanced discussion. For example, if you’ve been interviewing for a writing position and the interviewer briefly mentioned that writers on the team dabble in design, you might ask some follow up questions, such as:

• “You mentioned writers dabble in design. Were they already capable of design before they started here, or did they learn on the job? What resources did they use to learn?”
• “You mentioned writers dabble in design — do they also dabble in other secondary skills, like coding?”
• “You mentioned writers dabble in design. How often do they do their own design work, versus working with the internal design team, freelancer, or agency?”

Another great topic for discussion is team structure, and how teams interact with one another. Getting context on how the team you’re interviewing for is structured, and how they fit into to the larger organization, is not only a thoughtful question but also critical information for you to have. Without it, it’ll be hard to know whether the position is right for you based on where you are in your career — and where you want to be. 

Nailing Not Just the Answers, But the Delivery

The contents of one’s answers are just one part of the interview. And while they should be enough to move the hiring conversation forward, some interviewers can get thrown by the content of the answer if the delivery is poor.

Poor delivery could be a matter of stammering, saying a distracting number of “likes” and “ums,” getting short of breath and speaking in an awkward cadence, or just droning on long after you’ve sufficiently answered the question. This sounds like trite advice (and maybe it is, but here we are): The interviewer wants you to do well. They don’t want to keep interviewing candidates, and they definitely don’t want to be in a super awkward conversation for a half hour watching you squirm.

So, remember to:

• Chill. Breathe.
• Speak slowly so you don’t trip on your words or lose your breath mid-monologue. One way to enforce this is via an old theatre trick in which you force yourself to speak just a little bit slower than you think is natural. It helps you enunciate, gives you time to choose your words more carefully, and makes it easier for the listener to absorb what you’re saying. Just don’t go so slow that they think they’re in a time warp or something. 
• If you’re unsure of how to answer a question out the gate, take a beat and think of how you really want to answer instead of starting a tangent just to fill the silence.
• Look for facial and other physical cues that the interviewer is ready for you to wrap it up on a question.
• Stop saying “like.” And “um.” Slowing down your cadence a touch will also help with this.

To reinforce the importance of remaining calm, cool, and collected in your delivery, I’ll tell you an interviewing story my friend relayed to me about a really kind recruiter that helped her get her current job. In her first in-person interview, she was really nervous and apparently it showed in the first round of feedback.

The recruiter called her back and said, “When you come back tomorrow, drink a beer and just relax.”

Some Parting Thoughts on Interviewing

Everyone bombs some of their interviews. If you bomb the interview because of lack of preparedness, that’s one thing. If you bomb it because it just wasn’t a fit, try not to get down on yourself by remembering that it’s not just that you weren’t a fit. It’s that you and the company weren’t fits for each other. For example, if someone lobbed me one of those purposefully weird interview questions like “How many zeros can you fit in a Subaru?”, I’d be both SOL in the job department and relieved because that’s an insane question to ask someone. 

You might also do well to remember that interviewing is kind of like dating. If it’s been a while, you might really suck at it. But you’ll get back in your groove the more you do it. So if you find yourself newly on the job market, try to stack your interviews in order of interest if possible — scheduling the ones you have more interest in after you’ve had a few trial runs at less interesting roles. 

If you can’t stack your interviews, ask a forgiving friend or family member to do some dry runs with you. It’ll be awkward, but saying the answers to common questions you might come up against — like, out loud — will make it more likely to come out with some degree of eloquence when it really counts.

Any marketer will tell you: happy salespeople are the currency of a job well-done. When you bring awesome leads to your account reps, you make their jobs infinitely easier. Instead of weeding through mismatched prospects, they can focus on closing deals with solid fits. This efficiency is especially important in the media world where established sources of revenue are waning, and publishers are needing to get creative in how they’re keeping their businesses alive.

Inbound has the potential to fundamentally change the publishing industry in terms of how media reps sell, in addition to how they generate leads to the products that they’re selling. But still, marketers have a hard time convincing their sales teams to participate in inbound marketing efforts and to sell inbound marketing to advertisers.

Sales leaders would rather focus on familiar terrain that they know works: reaching out to potential prospects on LinkedIn and selling the same advertising solutions for years. But then you hear stories of companies that have lead engines that are 100% inbound. You also hear about publishers like The Next Web that are using their own content as inbound marketing tools—to drive sales to events and courses.

It’s time for a change and for sales teams to help lead the charge.

To demonstrate the value of inbound and get your sales reps participating, you need to show the ROI: in media especially, short-term quick wins are fizzling out. Account reps need to focus on building lasting prospect-and audience connections. Here’s how to convince your sales team that inbound is worth their while:

1) Demystify Inbound

Banner ads are easy to sell and implement because they represent a very simple model: click in, click out, make purchase. When it comes to tracking the ROI of content, however, the path is much less clear.

For one, audiences follow a series of complex interactions en route to the path to sale. Try to show your media account reps a diagram, and they’ll be instantly confused.

But you know it works.

Instead of getting bogged down with marketing mechanics, explain the dynamics you’re observing in terms of common sense. Tell a powerful, human story—that people need to do their research before committing to a purchase decision. Point your sales team to key leaders like Rishi Dave, CMO of Dun and Bradstreet, who put it eloquently: “today’s buyer is entirely research driven.”

Inbound is where all internal team conversations should converge. Not to mention, when sales reps practice inbound themselves, they’ll do a better job selling its value proposition to advertisers.

2) Help Connect the Dots

This bullet point speaks specifically do sponsored content campaigns.

Keep in mind that you, Ms. Marketer, might be a native ads expert. Your sales reps, however. They’ve likely never run a marketing campaign in their lives. Given that sponsored content is a new business area, the topic is also difficult to explain.

If you want sales teams to sell inbound, you need to help them speak to audiences of marketers, just like you. Here are some ways that you can help:

• Define the stage of your marketing funnel that your ad products are targeting and explain, in plain English, how they work
• Listen in on a few sales calls and chime in with specific marketing expertise
• Create sales enablement and one-sheets that speak to the value of your sponsored content campaigns
• Help establish clarity around value-based pricing, how long campaigns should run, and how results will be measured in terms of viewed, leads, and customers
• Check out our Ebook, “Why Publishers Need to Think Like Marketers” 

Lay out clear selling points around inbound for your company’s target customers. Help coach your sales teams around marketing-speak.

3) Provide Examples

Your company’s prospects and customers want stories and hard facts, not theories about ‘new marketing trends.’ Fortunately, inbound has been around for a few years, so there are plenty of resources to help. If you’re looking for inbound success stories, take a look at HubSpot’s success stories. You can point your advertisers to this page directly, to explain the mechanics of inbound campaigns.

Remember that success will vary from industry to industry, so you’ll want to make sure that your stories are relatable to your audience’s specific needs. The more tangible you are, the more likely sales teams and prospects will be to listen to your case.

4) Consult on Packages for Advertisers

As a marketer, you’re in the best position to empathize with the needs of your company’s target customer. Just like the prospects who cross paths with your sales team, you’re in the customer acquisition and retention trenches—every day.

So don’t lurk in the backgrounds.

Listen in on sales calls and recommend packages for your sales reps to sell (and upsell). Offer suggestions and examples for ways that your team can bundle inbound marketing options into your advertiser programs. Make sure that you factor in the metrics that your sales team is communicating to advertisers. You’ll want to include the following details:

• Type of content that your team can create
• Placement of that content and how it fits into your organic browsing experience
• Ideal timeframes for a campaign to run
• The forecasted # of views that campaigns generate
• Any related email sends
• Typical costs per lead

Speak in the language of marketers and emphasize your unique value add as a media company. Your prospects will take notice and listen to what you have to offer more closely.

Once You Do Prove the Value of Inbound

New doors will open for your media brand.  You’ll unlock new sources of value and carve out new revenue opportunities. Your persistence is worth it. Keep forging ahead.

“I got lucky.”

“I don’t belong here.”

“I’m a fraud, and it’s just a matter of time before everyone finds out.”

Sound familiar?

Most of us have experienced feelings of doubt and unworthiness at some point in our lives. But when your accomplishments are a result of your own knowledge, hard work, and preparation and you still feel inadequate … you’re probably suffering from impostor syndrome.

People who suffer from this syndrome often feel like frauds — despite being smart, skilled, capable professionals who actually deserve whatever commendations and praise they’re given. Rather than celebrating their accomplishments, they worry that they’ve somehow tricked people into thinking they’re good enough. As a result, they live in fear of being “found out” or “exposed.”

Impostor syndrome is actually fairly common: Researchers believe that up to 70% of people have suffered from it at one point or another. But that doesn’t make it any less damaging to a person’s confidence and career growth.

So if you feel like you’re suffering from impostor syndrome or something like it, know that there are ways to curb these feelings in a healthy, proactive way. Here are 11 tips to help you get started.

9 Tips for Coping With Impostor Syndrome

1) Know the signs.

We often overlook the signs of impostor syndrome that come up in our day-to-day lives. However, recognizing these signs is the first step toward overcoming them.

You might suffer from impostor syndrome if:

• You feel like you “got lucky” when you actually prepared well and worked hard.
• You find it hard to accept praise.
• You apologize for yourself when you didn’t actually do something wrong.
• You hold yourself to incredibly — sometimes impossibly — high standards.
• You find the fear of failure paralyzing.
• You avoid expressing confidence because you think people will see it as overcompensating or obnoxious.
• You’re convinced you’re not enough.

Pay attention to your language choices, both when you’re talking to other people and when you’re talking to yourself — especially when it comes to talking about work. If you find your own success or the praise others give you uncomfortable, do some reflective thinking on where those types of thoughts came from and what it means in your professional life.

2) Know you’re not alone.

When you have impostor syndrome, some of the most important encouragement comes from realizing how many hugely successful people, both male and female, have built amazing careers even while regularly coping with it.

Which highly accomplished people have spoken about their impostor syndrome? Here are some quotes from The New York Times and Forbes:

Author, Poet & Civil Rights Activist Maya Angelou:

I have written eleven books, but each time I think, ‘uh oh, they’re going to find out now. I’ve run a game on everybody, and they’re going to find me out.'”

Chief of the World Health Organization Dr. Chan:

There are an awful lot of people out there who think I’m an expert. How do these people believe all this about me? I’m so much aware of all the things I don’t know.”

Actor Don Cheadle:

All I can see is everything I’m doing wrong that is a sham and a fraud.”

Actress, Writer & Producer Tina Fey, from her book Bossypants:

The beauty of the impostor syndrome is you vacillate between extreme egomania and a complete feeling of: ‘I’m a fraud! Oh God, they’re on to me! I’m a fraud!’ So you just try to ride the egomania when it comes and enjoy it, and then slide through the idea of fraud.”

3) Distinguish humility and fear.

There’s taking humility in your hard work and accomplishments, and then there’s feeling overcome with fear because of them. Sometimes, simply being good at something can cause is to discount its value. But as Carl Richards wrote in a New York Times article, “After spending a lot of time fine-tuning our ability, isn’t it sort of the point for our skill to look and feel natural?”

It all boils down to feeling unworthy. I like how Seth Godin put it in a blog post: “When you feel unworthy, any kind response, positive feedback or reward feels like a trick, a scam, the luck of the draw.”

But it is possible to feel worthy without feeling entitled, and overcoming impostor syndrome is all about finding a healthy balance between the two. Godin goes on to write, “Humility and worthiness have nothing at all to do with defending our territory. We don’t have to feel like a fraud to also be gracious, open or humble.”

4) Let go of your inner perfectionist.

I recently wrote about how perfectionism, while helpful in certain contexts, can be a major roadblock for productivity. Turns out it can be a major roadblock for overcoming impostor syndrome, too. Many people who suffer from impostor syndrome are high achievers; people who set extremely high standards for themselves and are committed to doing their best and being the best.

But perfectionism only feeds into your impostor syndrome. When you feel like a fraud, it’s usually because you’re comparing yourself to some *perfect* outcome that’s either impossible or unrealistic.

Not only can no one do everything perfectly, but holding yourself to that standard can actually be super counterproductive. At some point, you need to take a step back and ask yourself: When is good enough good enough?

Read this blog post to see what a formula for “good enough” might look like. And if you need further encouragement, read this article from The Guardian.

Bottom line? While striving for perfection is certainly noble, it’s usually not realistic — and often, it’s counterproductive and will only make you feel more like a fraud.

5) Be kind to yourself.

Impostor syndrome often manifests itself as a voice in our heads, berating us with negative messages like “you’re not smart enough” or “you’re a fraud.” Negative self-talk is a bad habit, and it can heavily influence our stress and anxiety levels. “Being kind to yourself” simply means changing the way you talk to yourself in your head by practicing positive self-talk. Not only can it help you become less stress and anxious, but it can also help you build the courage to do things that’ll bring you greater rewards.

Maria Klawe, the president of Harvey Mudd College, suffered from what she called “impostoritis” for most of her career. While she found it hard to silence the negative thoughts completely, she practiced hard to add positive thoughts to her inner voice. “Now I wake up most days with a voice on the left side of my head telling me what an incredible failure I am,” she wrote. “But the voice on the right side tells me that I can change the world — and I try to pay more attention to it.”

First, try to catch yourself whenever you have a negative thought. Then, turn around and challenge your own claim. For example, if you find yourself thinking, “I just got lucky,” challenge that by thinking, “What steps did I take and what work did I put in to get to this point?” Then, you can answer your own question using affirmations, which are short, focused, positive statements about a goal you have. In this case, one might be as simple as, “I worked hard – and I always work hard.”

Psychologists have found that repeating affirmations like this can improve stress and anxiety levels, perhaps because these positive statements build a bridge into your subconscious mind.

6) Track and measure your successes.

When you feel like an impostor, one of the hardest things to grasp is how much of a role you have in your own successes. You might default them to luck or others’ hard work, when in fact, your own work, knowledge, and preparation had a lot to do with it.

To help show yourself that you’re actually doing well, keep track of your wins in a private document. There are a lot of different ways to track these successes, and the metrics you use will depend entirely on your job. If you’re a blogger, you might keep track of your posts’ monthly average page views and watch them go up, or compare them to the team average. You might also keep a separate tab to paste kind words people have written to you via email, Twitter, blog comments, and so on.

In the same vein as keeping track of your success metrics, keep a file on your computer of wins and positive reinforcement both at work and in your personal life. One of the best things I’ve done is created a folder on my personal Gmail account called “Happy,” where I’ve stored everything from my college acceptance email to praise from my colleagues and bosses. Whenever I need a lift, I open that Gmail folder and scroll through them.

You can create an email folder for these emails like I did, or create something like a “swipe file” (i.e. a digital file) on your computer or phone to store screenshots of emails, tweets, dashboard metrics … whatever makes you feel good about your hard work and preparation.

7) Talk about it with a mentor and your manager.

No one should suffer in silence. Sharing your thoughts and experiences with someone else will make you better equipped to deal with your impostor syndrome. We recommend sharing them with both a mentor and your direct manager.

Your mentor will be able to help you talk candidly about your struggles with impostor syndrome, while giving you a more objective point of view — especially if they work on a different team or at a different company. When you share your experience with them, you might ask if they’ve ever felt that way, or if they know someone who has. The best mentors are forthcoming about the struggles they’ve gone through and the mistakes they’ve made in their careers, and you may find that they have some helpful stories or advice for how to deal with what you’re feeling.

We’d also suggest that you talk with your direct manager about your experiences, too. Why? Because they’re more likely to have the knowledge and tools to help you overcome your impostor syndrome in the context of your current job. For example, you might ask them to help you find a system for tracking your successes, or figure out which metrics you should measure. Knowing what they know about both you and your role, they may also help you seek out more opportunities to shine and gain visibility on your team or at your company in general.

Speaking of opportunities …

8) Say “yes” to new opportunities.

It’s impossible to say “yes” to everything, especially when you’re feeling stressed or spread thin. But it’s all too common for people who have impostor syndrome to turn down career-making opportunities because they don’t feel like they’d do a good job.

When you’re presented with a new opportunity, it’s important to distinguish between the voice in your head saying you can’t do it because you’re not worthy and the one saying you can’t do it because you have too much on your plate. The former is your impostor syndrome speaking.

But remember: Taking on challenging new work and doing well at it can open a lot of doors for you. Don’t let your inner impostor turn down these game-changing opportunities. They can do wonders to help you learn, grow, and advance your career.

Keep Richard Branson’s famous quote in mind: “If someone offers you an amazing opportunity and you are not sure you can do it, say yes. Then learn how to do it later.” While it might be intimidating to take on a role you’re not sure you can succeed in, know that you were asked to do it for a reason, and there’s nothing wrong with learning new things and asking questions along the way.

9) Embrace the feeling, and use it.

It’s really hard to get rid of impostor syndrome completely — especially if you’ve had it for years and years. The fact that hugely successful people like Maya Angelou and Don Cheadle feel that way after all they’ve accomplished is evidence that it can sometimes be a lifelong condition. That’s why the best angle from which to tackle your impostor syndrome isn’t getting rid of it completely; it’s stopping it from hindering your success.

I like the way Richards put it: “We know what the feeling is called. We know others suffer from it. We know a little bit about why we feel this way. And we now know how to handle it: Invite it in and remind ourselves why it’s here and what it means.”

Richards says he’s been invited to speak about his work and career all over the world, and yet he still hasn’t been able to get rid of his impostor syndrome. What he has learned to do is think of it “as a friend.” Whenever he hears that negative voice in his head, he pauses for a minute, takes a deep breath, and says to himself, “Welcome back, old friend. I’m glad you’re here. Now, let’s get to work.”

What tips do you have for overcoming impostor syndrome? Share with us in the comments.