Have you ever heard of Imposter Syndrome? It is a term that I have heard thrown around for a few years, but interestingly enough I never heard it until I started working in higher education. Verywellmind has a great article talking about imposter syndrome, but the definition is basically when a person feels that others view them as more competent than they feel they actually are. I sometimes think of it as when I am looking around for the adultier adult only to realize I am the adult in the room.
I realized recently that I have struggled with this most of my life. More importantly, I realized that I am not the only one that has these thoughts or struggles with feeling “not enough.” Logically, it is crazy to think of having 4 degrees and being in a faculty position at an institution of higher education and still feeling like someone is going to figure out I’m actually not smart. However, logic is no match for insecurity in most situations. I have tried to battle this, but have not made much progress. Instead, I ended up working myself into a frenzy and thinking everything that went wrong was my fault.
I decided a little while ago that I was really going to try to work on this aspect of myself. The first thing I felt like I needed to do was admit that I feel this way to some of the people that I trust most in my life and that I am around the most. I checked that box and then tried to figure out my next step. I decided that I should push myself to do something that was outside of my normal comfort zone that would require a commitment. I decided that I would move forward with the suggestion that David had made about us starting a podcast. Now, you have to remember that I struggle with the thought of anyone being interested in anything I have to say, so this was way outside of my normal reality. Out of that has come our podcast, Perfect Chaos, which you can learn all about at our Perfect Chaos blog. Now, I am to the point that I want the podcast to succeed, but am afraid to step out further with it. I’m not telling you that to promote the podcast, but to illustrate that I still have a long way to go.
I have finally decided to do something I probably should have started with in the beginning. I’m going to do some research. I want to know more about IS so that I can learn better how to deal with the feelings of inadequacy that I struggle with on a constant basis. I want to learn how to take a compliment without feeling like I have to devalue what I have done. The crazy part is, it has taken hearing other people say they feel the same way (people that I deeply respect and feel like have their stuff together) for me to decide that there has to be a way to move past this.
I’m not sure what that will look like, but I can promise that I will try to blog my way through it in the hopes that it will help someone else who feels this same way. Isn’t it crazy how much time we spend telling others that they are enough only to tell ourselves we aren’t enough?
Beautiful Minds Inspire Others 