"Write down the thoughts of the moment. Those that come unsought for are commonly the most valuable."
- Francis BaconWhile trolling the blogsphere today I came across this quote from Francis Bacon and decided to follow its instructions. Here goes...
I've been pretty open my recent accomplishment of completing my PhD in Psychology but now that I've finished my degree, its time to enter the real world - you know the world with jobs and regular hours and having to ask to take an afternoon off. While these elements will certainly take some getting used to, I'm super excited to start a PostDoctoral Fellowship later this month at one of the research hubs in the country. But even though this is an amazing opportunity, I'm coming down with a bad case of nervousness - especially of the inferiority complex / imposter variety.
A few years ago, while I was working part time with a department at my university that focuses on improving the teaching abilities of graduate students, I went to a workshop on the Imposter Phenomenon. This is a pretty wide-spread issue where graduate students have a general feeling of not being qualified for or worthy of their accomplishments. This is a difficulty that I definitely struggled with in grad school but honestly, in the past year or so, I was feeling like I'd sorted it out - I began to feel like I did belong in the role and that I was doing a good job. But now with this new job, new set of responsibilities and new group of people to prove myself to, I'm worried that I'm going to go right back into that mind-set of feeling like a pretender. So while I keep telling myself that I'm nervous for the job because I'm going to have to get up so early etc... I'm now starting to think that this imposter feeling is what's really at the root of my uneasiness.
Any suggestions from those of you out there who either have or are still struggling with this issue?
3 comments:
Great post. Well, being aware is the first step. Now in my sixth year of grad school I feel less imposter syndrome too. But I could see me feeling it all over again with a new job too. Do some positive self talk. Focus on all the things you've completed successfully. It always works out and you always do a great job. Therefore, there is no reason to expect this challenge to turn out any less brilliantly than the ones before. You have a history of success because you're awesome. Accept it :)
Thanks for stopping by my blog - glad to have found yours too! Come back to visit :-)
I echo April's pep-talk. I think she hit the nail on the head!
Post a Comment