Impostor syndrome
To be, or not to be... 🙃
Please take this read with a little grain of salt, as it’s very personal, and this doesn’t apply to everyone, as every person is a different world.
Enjoy the read… or not.
“To be, or not to be, that is the question.”
What a beautiful soliloquy by Shakespeare. This is how I feel sometimes when impostor syndrome kicks in, but instead of wondering about “to live or not to live”, my mind wanders to the question of “do I know this well, or do I not know it so well”.
For 20 years of my life, I’ve been dabbling in several different fields of work, many of which I didn’t learn while going to university, but which were completely self-taught, and with which a seed of doubt seemed to come along for the ride, uninvited.
Most of those years, I’ve been working mostly as a designer, front-end developer and most recently as an artist and educator. I’m well positioned as the latter, nevertheless I struggle on and off with thoughts of “I’m trying to become an artist” or “I’m trying to teach what I know…” or even “I’m trying to go back to web development”. In every sentence, the word “trying”, sneaks into what I think and say, and then people correct me and say, “But you’re an artist”, “you’re an educator”, “you’re a developer”, and I catch to myself thinking and saying, “Yes, I know I am, but I still don’t feel like a real one, not yet”. “Not yet”, as if continuing to walk any of those paths would eventually take me to a finish line where I’d finally feel that “I had arrived”. And I say “as if”, because years have gone by, and I still catch myself sometimes doubting myself and thinking I’m not there yet.
It’s a weird feeling when it kicks in, because it feels exactly as the name suggests. I feel it’s wrong of me to say, for example “I’m an artist”, because maybe when people come and see my work and talk to me, they’re gonna realize I’m not a real artist yet, and they’re going to discover that “I’m a fraud”, that “I’m not real”. Oh, I am so wrong, I can say right now while I’m writing this and not feeling impostor syndrome at the moment. How dare I think like that of myself, when I’ve work so hard over the years to become the artist I wanted to be. I work everyday on my artistry. I know that, I can rationalize it. However, this sneaky bastard (impostor syndrome), seems to crawl out from under the bed sometimes.
I wonder why this self-doubt doesn’t fully go away, even as more time passes and, of course, I gather more knowledge and experience in the fields I’m working with. I wonder if it’s because, for the longest time, I’ve always been multidisciplinary. I enjoy doing different things at the same time (but some things can’t be done at the exact same time, so one has to go back and forth with it between periods of time). I have an infinite curiosity to learn new things. I get bored with easy and routine work. I need challenges to feel alive, and so I can never have a feeling that I have fully mastered something when I look around and see other people who have spent 10 or 20 years focusing on a single field. Hence, I can’t compare myself to them, because I don’t have that level of knowledge.
I wonder if the fact that I am a woman plays a role, and it seems, at least in my circles, that women tend to doubt themselves more than men. I’ve had so many conversations with brilliant women around me in the past months on the topic, about how they’re struggling in their own way with impostor syndrome, and then I’d say, “You’re not alone. This is my bread and butter for years”. I have an on-and-off relationship with impostor syndrome, because while I wouldn’t say I feel it daily, I have periods and moments every year when it feels strong. And while every time I feel it, I try to rationalize that it’s not true, because I have proof I know what say I know, it’s still hard sometimes to convince myself otherwise, when once again I compare myself with others who are more knowledgeable.
I oftentimes try to tell myself “Be more like a man”. They’re fearless. They fake it until they make it—again, just talking about the men I’ve experienced in my circles—who always, when they share stories about going to job interviews or doing certain tasks at work, say, “Well I didn’t know how to do that, but I said I knew it. I figured I could learn it along the way”. They are just so sure of themselves, they even know they can surely learn something. I’d be kind of terrified to lie about something I cannot do and maybe not learn in time. How do men around me seem to have this confidence in themselves?
I wonder if it has to do with how we grow up—and I’m talking about a long time ago because I’m pretty sure it’s different for new generations. But imagine growing up in the 80s and 90s in a third-world country, where, as a girl, I would often be taught to be kind, respectful, polite, not to be rough, and not to try certain things that were considered too hard for girls and meant only for boys. And I’m not talking about what was taught at home, but rather at school and in the communities around me, as fortunately I grew up with parents who encouraged me to pursue anything I wanted and to always go all the way.
And while at home I had support to pursue anything I wanted to do, I was also educated to excel and always do my best and be the best at anything I’d do, no matter what, no questions asked, trying again and again until I reached the top. As a result, perfectionism is always around the corner, and with it, perhaps self-doubt sneaking back and forth whenever I can’t be at the top.
What if it’s the fact that many of the fields I’ve always been interested in pursuing are male dominated, sometimes at a ratio of 90% men to 10% women. And so the expectations of many people within such fields are sometimes lower if one is a woman, because they’re not used to having many women interested in the field.
Thus, is impostor syndrome in a way a matter of gender upbringing? I certainly haven’t met as many men in my life with impostor syndrome as much as the women around me. Might perfectionism have something to do with it? Does it have to do with pursuing careers in fields where a large percentage of people are of the opposite gender? Is it rooted in not staying focused on one single field for years, or even in not going to university to learn one’s profession?
Oh well, how is it for you? How do you manage your impostor syndrome? Where do you think it’s rooted?
For me, it helps to talk to myself more gently through that inner voice we all have inside us. Reminding myself what others say about my work, and that those are not dreams, but real opinions. Telling myself that I probably know very well the things I so often doubt myself about knowing, but that my standards for knowledge might be too high and that I need to get back to reality and look at the average as well. While it may be good to have high standards, because they push me to become better, the process of becoming is also valuable, as at some point that is already something to be proud of and confident about.
I wish this last thought would be so easy to tell myself when impostor syndrome kicks in to make it fade away. But some rational thoughts are not so easy when one is in crisis mode. I guess it’s a process. One thing for sure: it’s getting better now, compared to a few years ago, as I slowly build more confidence through experience, discuss the topic with others, and by analyzing myself to be better equipped in dealing with impostor syndrome.
Until next time,
✌🏽
Thanks for reading! 🙂🌈🪷
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I don't know if what I feel is something I'd describe as "imposter syndrome"as I relate it to intergenerational trauma and formative grief. I was brought up in a catholic family as the eldest son of an eldest son, my father passed unexpectedly when I was 6. I had been raised with a lot of attention and expectations for my future, but when my father passed his people fell apart, all Italian and born through generations of frustration with Neapolitan life. There wasn't any continuity, my mother was disowned and so were her children. They were all lapsing catholics so I have the shadow of God, not just my father. I have been through a life of struggle, not only with the resulting trauma-related mental health but also the expectation that I honour the memory of my father, who has otherwise been forgotten by everyone - not only that, but that I should affirm the rectitude of a patriarchal Catholic tradition that centers boys and men as the providers and pioneers of providence. We never attended church but those teachings have stayed with me. Even the most faithful among my family have only consoled me with platitudes about the afterlife, not any meaningful spiritual atunement to my father's memory.
I don't mean to trauma dump so much in a single comment without counterbalancing with a corresponding methodology. I have done much to repair, or even manifest, a self-certainty around how my time is prioritised. Letting go of my father's lost dignity and the expectations of generations of lost faithful has been the most obvious, but most difficult endeavour. It has also, paradoxically brought me back to God, but not in the Catholic tradition. I've spent a lot of time meditating on Sufi notions of "Ruh" which correspond across various religious traditions, "Rous" in Eastern Orthodoxy and "Bodhi" in Buddhism, which all refer in some way to a kingdom of heaven "within" that is also without, and everywhere. In the struggle to recover myself and know myself in spite of formative trauma and grief I will probably carry for the rest of my life, I have to come to find the most energising force *is* God, the belief that I am known in my totality by God and that God is within me and comprises all humanity for all eternity. It is there I return to my father and my people who have lost their faith, I open my heart to them, I proffer the mercy that I know they would proffer me were they to know the essence of my struggle and I find that cleanses me of the frustrations I otherwise feel. Any spate of unworthiness I intercede with time reserved for meditation in this way.
Like you, I grew up in the 90s, the over-abundance of culture that to this day is owed so much appraisal for its worthiness (slight digression, but most recently I purchased an EP from 1995 called "April" by a band called "Flow" from Japan, very beautiful guitar rock that's come to be the soundtrack for mornings I wake up too early and am met with the sunrise) and then the apparent decline we've lived through where the same over-abundance has increased by exponents but is now met by indifference. The world is hammed in by dread and eschatology, but I feel I've lived all of this already at the age of 6 and at 38 I've tired of it. Every step of my life has been defined by the decision to live for others, and of what remains uphold what I know to be my best, and if I can't then allow myself the mercy of rest. I do this with the certainty of the kingdom of heaven within and so long as I find my time spent to be gratifying then the certainty is fulfilled and I find peace. I hope this doesn't read as being beaten over the head with peity as I don't think that's how anyone comes to meaningful spiritual atunement, but I struggle to account for the remainder that is my faith when I speak on the methodology that has made me more productive now, in my middle age, than any time prior.
I hope something is relatable in what I've shared, but for you more specifically I would recommend to think back to your past, your childhood, your ambitions, think of what you would have wanted for yourself now, from then, then think of what it is you've achieved now that would have been unthinkable to you in your youth. Try to find the part of you from those times that persists and relate the substance of your life lived and recognise the truth of your accomplishments and what you've honoured of the girl who saw her future with a tenacity not otherwise expected of her.
Thanks for sharing! This resonates a lot 🙏🏽