There is an impostor among us

The good news is that if you have had it, or if you’re struggling with it right now, then you’re very likely a high achiever, an accomplished individual who strives for excellence and success. The bad news is that you’re unable to internalize and accept said success, and you’re constantly haunted by feelings of self-doubt and inadequacy. Even more so, you’re usually thinking “I won’t be able to do this”, and you’re utterly surprised when you’re actually able to do it, only to be immediately frightened by the next step, the next challenge, or the next opportunity.

At university, the impostor syndrome can strike with unimaginable depth, particularly if we’re trying to get hold of a graduate degree: the long writing process, the scarce and infrequent chances of proving our worth to our supervisors and peers, as well as the constant reminders of other people’s impressive achievements, can all take a toll on our confidence. We are then held back by the crippling thought that people like us couldn’t possibly achieve what we want to, because we’re simply not good enough.

How to fix impostor syndrome?

Since the term was first coined in 1978, numerous authors have tried to shed light on the issue from different angles, but to no avail: there is no miraculous cure yet. However, we can still face the problem with some perspective: a widely accepted fact about impostor syndrome is that it is caused by our own picture of other people. We see them as authentic, rather than frauds like ourselves, and therefore we fail to picture them as having the same fears and doubts that we have. In a sense, we just fail to imagine how deeply flawed everyone else, including our professors, our heroes, or the smartest among us, truly are.

Fake it ’till you make it

As for many things in life, practice makes perfect. Perhaps you don’t feel like a researcher, or you don’t have yet the guts to teach that lecture, or you struggle imagining yourself as a scientist, but even like that, you wake up every morning and choose to show up. You give a leap of faith, trusting that you’ll make it as you go, hoping that no one will discover your fear and that nerve-racking omen of failure that doesn’t seem to ever leave.

And then you do. You make it as you go. All the experience and knowledge that you’ve gathered suddenly becomes evident, and you feel comfortable in your skin for a little while. It’s a passing feeling, but if you keep holding onto it, it will become, if not permanent, at least habitual.

In the next installment of the Impostor Syndrome series, we will provide a quick step-by-step guide on how to cope with this issue, in order to make it more bearable.