Impostor syndrome: Own your abilities

I’m super excited to now be sharing thoughts and advice on navigating academia via my monthly Office Hours column in Chemical & Engineering News! I’ll be posting unedited versions of my columns on delay here on my blog, and you can catch the best and latest versions (and contribute your questions!) at my C&EN Office Hours site. As always, comments welcome – these topics impact us all, and we should all be part of the dialogue!

How do you combat imposter syndrome during big transitions (undergrad to grad school, grad school to postdoc, postdoc to faculty, etc) and how do you prevent imposter syndrome from affecting your success? -Sara Dubbury

Our own thoughts can be our best friend and our worst enemy. They fuel the thrill of creativity and discovery, they encourage us to learn and grow, and they form the foundation for our connection to others. But, they are also the source of cruel insecurities that can discourage us from taking on a challenge or prevent us from being able to give it our best. Two types of insecurities that frequently plague us as scientists are self-doubt and impostor syndrome. Self-doubt is thinking that you’re not good enough to get somewhere that you want to be or achieve something that you want to do. Impostor syndrome is when you do get to that place or achieve that goal, and then your thoughts tell you that you don’t deserve it. Worse, they tell you that everyone around you knows that you don’t deserve it. Ouch.

So, are these thoughts accurate? Probably not. Our insecurities are usually based upon fallacies – deceptive thought patterns that our mind casts upon reality.  In the case of impostor syndrome, I’ve seen two main fallacies. The first is a “subjective” belief that you don’t belong where you are – you can’t quite put your finger on a specific way in which everyone is better than you, but you sense that they are perfect and you know that you are not. This is especially common during the transitions that you mention – you are joining a new lab or workplace with new people, and while you are struggling to get your bearings and figure out how to be successful there, everyone else seems to have it mastered.  The second type of fallacy is a seemingly “objective” one – it’s based on data, and as scientists, we all love data, right? This happens when you look around and recognize that you are an outlier compared to everyone else around you.  This happened to me recently at a symposium in which I was invited to participate. As I surveyed the list of speakers, it quickly became apparent that by all metrics – seniority, job title, awards – “one of these people was not like the others,” and that person was me.

How do we counter each of these? I often hear the advice to do something that builds up your confidence and helps you to convince yourself that you deserve to be there. But, I’ve always felt uncomfortable with this advice. First, that’s just a really challenging thing to do, especially in the face of data that might seem to suggest otherwise, such as the case with my symposium invite. Second, this creates a slippery slope toward entitlement – if I convince myself that I deserve to be somewhere, then I might think that I no longer have to work hard to excel. I might also convince myself that the people who didn’t make it to that place don’t in fact deserve to be there. That’s not a thought pattern that I want to spend time in.

My approach is to instead recognize that it really doesn’t matter where I deserve to be or not be, because I am there and I’m thankful for that and I want to make the most of it. It also helps to take a step back and change my perspective on the situation. In the case of starting out in a new lab or stage of your career, recognize that the people around you seem to know what they’re doing because they’ve been there for a while, and that they were once just like you – the new person feeling lost and struggling to figure everything out. They developed their knowledge and skills by working hard and improving each day, and you can do the same. In the case of an “objective” set of metrics that suggest you don’t belong, consider that you might be looking at the wrong metrics. Our thoughts can make us downplay the importance of areas where we excel, while magnifying the importance of areas where we struggle.

Importantly, fighting impostor syndrome is something that you don’t have to do alone. Enlist the help of friends, colleagues, and mentors to remind you that you’ve developed expertise and thrived in new situations before and can do that again, or to point out the unique set of skills and accomplishments that you have but might not recognize.  Finally, if all else fails, when your thoughts tell you that everyone around you has it all figured out, recognize that they probably also got it right when they chose to hire you or invite you.

Big goals: What would it look like to try?

“You should write a book.”

Over the past year, the frequency with which I’ve been told this has steadily increased. Until recently, my instant response had been “thanks, but I don’t think I’m cut out for that.” I enjoy writing, but pretty much all of that writing is limited to the scope of between 280 characters and a few thousand words…and, I kind of have this day job of being a faculty member.

Yet, every time I heard the words “you should write a book,” something stirred in me at the thought of how cool it would be to do that and the fact that maybe I do have 80,000 words worth of things to say. But, it was such a big goal that I had no idea how to start, and so I just kept dismissing it as impossible. And, as I do with all of these big goals that I don’t think are possible, I continued to give the outward answer of “thanks, but I’m not interested” while simultaneously saying to myself “yes, I definitely want to do that – I just don’t think I can.”

A few weeks ago, I announced on twitter that I’m going to write a book. Yes, I’m still terrified. But, I’m also super excited. So, how did I get from “this feels impossible” to “this is happening”? The answer is: people and planning.

Your big goal may not be to write a book, but chances are that like me, you do have a big goal that you don’t want to admit, but really want to pursue. So, I’m writing this blog post to share my experience and outline what helped me move from dream to action, with the hope that this can help you design a process for tackling your big goal as well. Here goes:

Speaking it into reality. My friend and fellow faculty member Rigoberto Hernandez has talked about the impact it had when a mentor suggested that he should go to MIT and study engineering, two goals that sounded unattainable to him as a high school student, but “that simple statement opened my mind to think it was possible.” As I’ve ventured into my journey to learn about leadership and mentoring, I have always looked up to the authors of the books I am reading, and perhaps I had a nascent thought of how cool it would be to also write a book myself. But, the idea never really crystallized for me until about a year ago when Shayla Shorter, a postdoc in our lab, started saying “Jen, you should write a book.” And then, every time I dismissed the idea as something I wouldn’t be good at or didn’t have time for, she said “Okay, maybe you’re not writing it right now, but you are going to eventually. I can tell.” Maybe you already know what your big goal is. But, if you don’t, maybe you need to find a colleague, friend, or mentor who knows you well, and ask them to help you figure it out and speak it into reality for you.

“What would it look like to try?” In the first several months that I started considering this idea, I still viewed it as completely impossible. I was stuck staring at an extremely daunting goal, and not even knowing how or where to start. I was also stuck thinking about all of the reasons why it wasn’t possible. Primarily, my job already keeps me so busy that I have very little margin. When would I find time to write a book?!? The key turning point was to stop thinking “I could never do this” and start asking “what would it look like to try?” Not making a commitment to do anything. Just thinking about what it would take on a practical level to give it a try. For me, a key realization is that I do have more control over my schedule than I thought. I recognized that I travel a ton. This was necessary pre-tenure, and also this year as I consider going up for full professor in the somewhat foreseeable future. But, I don’t have to keep doing this. As I thought about what it might look like to try, I realized that if I could be disciplined enough to cut back from my current 2-3 trips per month to only 1 trip per month, that would free up a couple of days each month that I could instead use to write. I realized that my big goal wasn’t inherently impossible – I just had to ask what it would take to make it possible, and decide if that was something I was willing to do.

Support crew. Up until this point, I had not told a single person that I was actually giving serious consideration to this idea of writing a book. Then, a few glasses of wine into a date night with my husband, I told him about my idea. To say that he was excited for me and supportive of me would be an understatement. I realized that I had been so skeptical of my own abilities and that I was assuming other people would do the same. Thankfully, that was not the case. In fact, as I had thought about the writing time I would gain by maintaining a more reasonable travel schedule, I envisioned sitting on my couch at home (much like I am right now) and typing away. He is the one who said “you could totally disappear to a cabin in the mountains for a couple of days each month to write.” Brilliant! And, since we do have two young kids, this support was key. I slowly started telling a few people in my inner circle about my idea and building the support crew I knew I would need through the ups and downs of tackling this project.

Getting practical. At this point, I had started putting some ideas on the page, but I still didn’t know how to tackle this big of a project. Along came my 1-day personal retreat earlier this year. I had never done this before, but I found an empty day on my calendar, and decided to set it aside to think about what I want for my future and how to get there. I spent the day working on a variety of different activities that I had planned for myself, and thinking broadly about what I want in each aspect of my job – my research program, my teaching, my leadership, etc. I decided that publishing a book was definitely part of the “where I want to be in 5 years” and I had the chance to form a strategy around this. It wasn’t fancy, and I’m sure it will change, but it boiled down to realizing my schedule is crazy until the end of 2019, so all I’m going to commit to is adding ideas to my outline every now and then as I think of things. Then, when my more realistic travel schedule sets in next year, I can commit to taking a couple of days each month to write a chapter or two (a goal that I know is reasonable based on my typical writing speed and the fact that I’ll be starting from a really good outline). This would have me finishing in late 2020 to mid 2021. I could live with that. I had a plan!

Committing. Now that I had a plan, all should have been great, right? Not so. Even with a plan, I still felt hesitant to commit. This is where having the right people around me became important again. A few months after my personal retreat, I was talking with Amanda Shaffer, who is my professional coach, and I said “well, if I do decide to write a book…” She stopped me right there and said something along the lines of “Let’s back up. Is that something that you’re really still deciding? It seems to me you’ve made the decision. You might not have decided when you’ll write your book. But, you’ve decided that you’re going to.” I needed to hear that. Even though I had a plan and I was going along with that plan and making progress, I was still giving myself an “out.” I still didn’t believe I could really do this. I needed to be challenged to commit. I needed to be told that I was ready to commit, and that took someone who could see what I could not.

The insecure part of my brain continues to tell me this is a ridiculous goal that I could never achieve. When this voice speaks up, I fight back with reality – I just sat down and wrote almost 1500 words in this blog post in a couple hours on a Saturday afternoon. I just need to keep doing that and I’ll get there. So, here I am. I’m writing a book!

What’s your big goal? Find the people in your life who can speak it into reality for you and support you in the process. Ask yourself what it would look like to try. Make a plan and commit.

Guilt: The growing gap

Hi friends, hopefully you’ll humor me as I try something new here - I have an idea I’m just beginning to toss around, and would love to open that up to dialogue.

I had never put words to this, but even when things are going well, I can find myself walking around with a gnawing sense of guilt and growing feeling that I’m just kind of failing at life. Anyone else?

Here’s my idea - what if this is caused by the accumulation of all of the gaps we create when we don’t get to do something as well as we wanted?

Let me explain...

We have so many things we’re responsible for, and so even if we work really hard and are getting everything done, we rarely get to spend all of the time we want on any particular thing (including hobbies and family). So, when we submit that manuscript that might have a typo or don’t fully read that committee report before a meeting or cut a workout short because we’re out of time, we create a gap between what we wanted to do and what we actually did. That gap means guilt and failure. That wouldn’t be so bad if it went away once the manuscript is accepted or the committee wraps up for the year or we hit our goal time at a race. But, if you’re like me, you carry these gaps around with you long after the task is complete. They accumulate and create that diffuse, yet palpable sense of dread. Like somehow we’ll pay for it later.

Am I alone in this?

Okay, if that’s the problem, what do we do about it? I wonder if recognizing this growing gap is half the battle. Now that we know we’re carrying all of this around, what if we made it a daily, weekly, or monthly habit to consciously jettison the gap guilt. Or, what if we did that every time we wrap up a task or project?  Manuscript published, time to let go of any worry over whether it could have been better. It’s published, and that’s better than better.

Okay, your turn - tell me what you think! Is this just my crazy way of processing the busyness of academic life? If this is a shared experience, what can we do to overcome it? How can we support each other in banishing the feelings of guilt and failure? What would it look like if we could do that? Comment below or join the conversation on the twitter thread here.

3/10/19 - Addendum
I love word pictures, and this morning I realized a good one to describe the "gap" accumulation - my dry erase board. I frequently use my dry erase board in conversations with lab members and colleagues, and when the conversation is done, I erase what was written to make space for the next conversation. However, using the eraser only gets rid of about 90% of the ink. There is always a faint shadow left. Over time, these accumulate, and it becomes almost impossible to read what is written on the board because there is so much background. I finally give in, pull out the cleaning solution, and...voila! beautiful completely-wiped-clean surface. It's always surprising just how good it feels to look at a perfectly clean dry erase board. An even better example to follow is my friend Troy, who completely cleans the dry erase board in his office after every single meeting so that the next conversation can start with a fresh slate. What if I learned to do this with my guilt?