Imposter Syndrome

Truth be told, I’m a bit of a learning nerd.  I have an unquenchable thirst for discovering new things. As I’ve said in past postings, I pour through books and in recent years (especially throughout the last two), I have embraced podcasts.  They are so great when I have something mundane to do and I can’t sit down with a book.  Most are an hour or less and it gives my curious brain something stimulating to do while I’m performing very unstimulating tasks like dusting. 

Today I listened to a portion of a podcast from Dr. Zubin Damania, also known as “zdoggmd”.  I discovered Dr. Damania on Instagram when he started speaking about Covid response.  I found him to be very balanced in his approach as a doctor and human being to help people understand the facts about the pandemic.  He’s a physician in the San Francisco Bay area, assistant professor, comedian, musician, and now internet personality.  I continued to listen because he did present facts and ideas about what was happening, but he made it entertaining and palatable. 

His podcast today was about Imposter Syndrome.  His guest was Dr. Rachel Zofness, who is a Stanford and USFC professor and pain psychologist.  Both of these well-known teacher/speaker/professional orator types suffer from Imposter Syndrome.  Imposter Syndrome is loosely defined as doubting your abilities and feeling like a fraud.  It happens most for high-achievers who find it difficult to accept their accomplishments.  They question their abilities, their knowledge and their credentials and wonder why people even listen to them. 

As these two extremely knowledgeable, highly educated, well-known speakers described the symptoms of this syndrome, I began to feel like they were digging around inside my head.  I started this blog with trepidation from day one.  I knew I had some abilities, perhaps even some giftings, to express things in creative writing.  I doubted that anyone would want to read or care about what I write.  I am completely blown away with how people I don’t even know have responded to my writings.  Compliments are hard because I tend to not believe them.   I keep thinking it can’t last.  And then I put something out in the universe and get amazing and meaningful feedback about how that entry spoke to them, and I once again begin to believe in myself.  Imposter Syndrome can apparently be very real even for people like me who are just experimenting with living out a dream to put my writing skills to use in some small way.

Dr. Zofness had some great tips for how to combat Imposter Syndrome because she suffers from it and did a lot of research in how to deal with it in her own life.  First, we need to acknowledge it’s happening and accept that it’s not unique and we are not alone – in other words, normalize it so it’s not so scary. Secondly, we have to externalize it so that we don’t become attached to it internally.  She suggests saying, “I am not this, I am feeling this way.”  In other words, don’t label yourself as unworthy, but recognize that you might be feeling unworthy at times.   And last, but not least, we need to reframe it.  We have to realize that it’s a sign of our success, we’re stretching, we’re achieving.  We haven’t arrived completely, so there will be times of feeling insecure or lacking in confidence. 

So what is that thing that you are telling yourself you aren’t good enough to put to use?  How often do you tell yourself you don’t deserve the attention you are getting?  Do you let doubt stop you from taking that next big, or even small, step?  Well, join the club.  Recognize Imposter Syndrome for what it is and don’t let it prevent you from doing what you are called and gifted to do.  And I’ll do my best to not feel like a fraud every time I write one of these.  

Link to podcast:  https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=zdoggmd+imposter+syndrome