Dealing with self sabotage: Getting beyond impostor feelings
The Psychology Today article, Field Guide to The Self-Doubter: Extra Credit, by Susan Pinker, excerpted below, brings insight into the thoughts and feelings many people have about being incompetent or impostors:
Not giving herself credit
Rosalyn Lang has a Ph.D. in molecular biology, has just completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Duke University, and recently launched her own consulting firm. In other words, she’s a walking advertisement for what it takes to be successful in science: smarts, opportunity, and perseverance.
Yet when she looks back, she takes little credit for her successes. “I felt inadequate the entire time I was in graduate school. If I got a nice compliment, I just felt, ‘What? They’re trying to pull my leg! I can get kicked out at any minute.’”
Feeling like an impostor
Lang now realizes she wasn’t really an impostor. She just felt like one. Like many highly accomplished women, Lang suffered from “impostor syndrome.” On the outside, she was a star and a role model.
Secretly, though, she chalked up her successes to powers beyond her control, and meanwhile felt personally responsible for any failures—a feeling shared by 93 percent of African-American female college students, according to one study.
External success. Internal agony
According to recent studies of medical, dental, and nursing students with impostor feelings, the phenomenon is linked to perfectionism, burnout, and depression. This was true for Rosalyn Lang, whose impostor feelings drove her to work harder. “The work ethic was great. That’s the kind of focus you need to get everything done in graduate school,” she said. But “internal agony” was how she described her psychological state.
Read the full article.
Six steps for matching perceptions to reality.
- Separate your self-assessments from objective evaluations of your skills. Group-based evaluations, promotions, and letters of reference are less biased than the world seen through “impostor”-colored glasses.
- Give yourself opportunities to compete. Don’t let your self-judgment prevent you demonstrating what you know.
- Reduce your isolation. Talk about your feelings with trusted friends and colleagues. Seek out a mentor or advocate in your organization who believes in you.
- Enjoy your successes and acknowledge praise when it comes your way.
- Resist the impulse to deny and deflect compliments.
- Remember that those who project an air of confidence may not know more than you do. Research shows that most people overestimate their abilities.
See impostorsyndrome.com for more
Also see the Impostor syndrome page for more quotes, articles, books etc.
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As a therapist, I have talked to many beginning therapists entering the field, often highly qualified and accomplished. They often have guilt and insecurity, and I have literally heard them use the words, “I feel like an impostor!” Thanks for sharing.
If that is what black women feel, you can’t imagine what black men feel. We, as black men, have to be ‘hard’ and a M-A-N! So many black women want the ‘thug’. Quite a few black women thought I was gay because I read books and like to write stories and poetry. That’s how lost my black people are.