Struggling with a crisis of confidence now and then isn’t unusual, whether you’re the leader of the free world or the leader of your neighborhood frisbee golf league team.

Self-doubt creeps in to the mindset of the most successful, self-assured person, bringing with it questions like:

“Am I really as good as everyone thinks I am?”

“Was it just luck that got me my job/promotion/etc.?”

“When will everyone find out that I’m a fraud?”

Those are some of the traits that make up impostor syndrome. While not a psychological disorder, it is a pattern of behavior that’s not uncommon in high-achieving individuals and others. And it’s a feeling that many people in counseling think they’re unique in suffering with, according to a recent thread in the Ask Reddit community.

“I suppose I see it as a fairly natural response of human experience that is widespread,” said Stephen Brookfield, a professor at Minnesota’s University of St. Thomas specializing in adult education who has extensively researched the phenomenon. “It was surprising to me that even people who I thought were extremely successful and seemed to have absolutely no problems in terms of exercising authority and had a great deal of credibility in the eyes of peers, it was revealing to me that they would talk like feeling like an impostor in the same way.”

Impostor syndrome also is something Brookfield isn’t afraid to admit feeling throughout his life.

“To take myself as an example, I feel exactly the same,” said Brookfied, who holds the John Ireland Endowed Chair at the University of St. Thomas. “Externally, I’ve been successful in my field, and hopefully, I have a good reputation. But internally there is always this element of self-doubt that says, ‘How on earth could I have fooled so many people for so long … when to my mind I keep making mistakes’?”

“When [impostor syndrome is] kept so private that you feel that you’re the only one, there is the danger that you labor in this vacuum of self-doubt and uncertainty, and that can be pretty demoralizing. Stephen Brookfield

Brookfield believes a culture that looks so negatively at failure and celebrates perfection—especially in the work arena—fuels this internalized lack of confidence and helps generate the questioning and anxiety that follow. That becomes magnified, Brookfield says, if the individual is part of an underrepresented minority.

“If you’re a young woman of color, and the first thing you start doing is talking about your feeling that you’re constantly making mistakes, and you don’t deserve to be there, and so on, that’s often viewed through a different culturally constructed prism, and people are more likely to say, ‘Well, here we have another example of affirmative action screwing us over because someone unqualified has been put into this job.’ I think there’s a danger for many people to go public with this early on.”

But Brookfield stresses that it’s essential for people—particularly those in established, high-level positions—to talk openly and publicly about their “impostorship” as a way to show how commonplace the phenomenon is. As an educator, Brookfield has consulted with institutions like the US military and the World Bank, and he’s found that it’s the senior-level managers who are the ones who understand the benefits and the victories that can be found by learning from mistakes. These are the individuals who also are best insulated from any negative backlash to be had from admitting feeling like a fraud.

In fact, that’s one of the reasons why Brookfield is so quick to open up about his own personal dealings with impostor syndrome:

“When it’s kept so private that you feel that you’re the only one, there is the danger that you labor in this vacuum of self-doubt and uncertainty, and that can be pretty demoralizing. That’s why talking publicly about it is so important. … I can do it with much less political cost and professional cost—and you could even say psychological cost—compared to someone who is a junior member of a group. … [S]omeone like me who’s an elder, white male gets rewarded for it, and people say, ‘How refreshing,’ and ‘Oh, you’re so open and vulnerable’.”

Normalizing impostor syndrome also helps when it comes to handling its effects. Over the years, Brookfield has developed responses and protocols for himself to tackle invasions of self-doubt based on the idea that it’s all a natural part of being human:

” ‘I know that that feeling is absolutely predictable and extremely widespread, and I shouldn’t take it as an indicator that I should quickly close things down and move on.’ … I say that to myself and that’s incredibly helpful’.”

“It was surprising to me that even people who I thought were extremely successful … would talk like feeling like an impostor in the same way.” Stephen Brookfield

However, if a person begins experiencing “extreme negative deprecation and the feeling that you don’t deserve to be taken seriously” to the point that it stops he or she from being able to function personally and professionally, then that person needs to seek treatment, according to Brookfield. But ultimately, the emotions associated with impostor syndrome can be considered as positive traits in a person, Brookfield says. It shows an individual is willing to accept other ideas and learn from experiences.