Throughout the entire Explorers Program, we had many interesting guest speakers come to visit and give talks, and we also visited and participated in lots of interesting labs, though there was one guest speaker who’s topic really stuck out to me, as a person who is ridiculously fascinated by psychology and also struggles with self-confidence. Alicia Morales came into our discussion room on Friday August 4th to talk to us about imposterism, or imposter syndrome.
A photo from Ms. Morales’s presentation describing imposter syndrome.
Through an article that she found on themuse.com, Ms. Morales separated imposter syndrome into five categories, labeling them as:
1. The Perfectionist—a person who wants everything to be absolutely perfect no matter what, and feels frustrated and immensely disappointed when it is not.
2. The Superwoman/Man—a person who feels they are worthless and a phony among everybody else, so they push themselves past their limit, sacrificing their relationships, they hobbies and their health in the process.
3. The Natural Genius—a person who is used to exceeding at most things they try on the first time, so it is a big shock to them whenever they find themselves struggling, leading them to believe they are just not cut out for whatever they were trying.
4. The Soloist—a person who feels that asking for help will reveal their phoniness, so they feel the need to accomplish things on their own in order to prove their self-worth.
5. The Expert—a person who measures their worth by how much they know or can do, feeling like they never have enough and always fearing that others will find out how “unknowledgeable” they actually are.
A photo of one of the slides from Dr. Morales’ presentation describing the different types of imposter syndrome.
Through this, I was able to recognize my own feelings and sort them into a category. I personally identified with the Soloist group, because a truth that will always be drilled into my mind is that I will never be on the same level as other kids my age, so I tend to stray away from other people so they don’t find out how unqualified and inexperienced I actually am.
Shortly after realizing how I felt, Ms. Morales went on to present the consequences, or the “symptoms” of imposter syndrome. She describes how someone experiencing imposter syndrome would behave, saying that it “instils self-doubt and low self-esteem, impedes career growth, hampers leadership and management, restricts innovation and risk-taking, [and also] affects mental health.”
A photo of one of the slides from Ms. Morales’ presentation describing the consequences of imposter syndrome and what it does to a person.
This slide really punched me in the gut, because it was all true. I experience almost all of these feelings on a day to day basis, even now.
Afterwards, Ms. Morales had all the Explorers participate in an activity together, where she instructed us to draw out what our imposterism felt like. She had all of us grab a piece of paper and told us to draw our representation of imposterism on the top half of the sheet of paper. Once we were done with our drawings, she had volunteers speak up to describe their drawings to the rest of the group, and how it made them feel to see it in front of them on a paper. It was kind of like a mini therapy session.
After that, Ms. Morales told us to try and think of solutions, or ways to deal with our imposterism on the bottom half of the paper, and then had volunteers share out to the rest of the group again. It was a very strong bonding experience and a very emotional moment for me, as someone who feels like they’ve had all kinds of self-doubt in their mind since elementary school. It also gave us great insight at how other people in the room felt, and made us realize how not alone we actually were. Any negative assumptions that I had built up about the other Explorers before that activity had completely vanished by the end of it.
By now I was totally ready to just run out of the room and cry for an hour from how emotional I got, but I was too invested to turn away.
After our emotional discussion together, Ms. Morales clicked to the next slide where a list of solutions was shown on how we can combat imposter syndrome. The list went like this:
* Break the silence
* Separate feelings from fact
* Recognize when you SHOULD (be expected to) feel fraudulent
* Accentuate the positive
* Develop a new response to failure and mistake making
* Right the rules
* Develop a new script
* Visualize success
* Reward yourself
* Fake it until you make it
A photo of the list on how to combat imposter syndrome from Dr. Morales’ presentation.
I agreed with this list because of some of my personal past experiences. Thinking positively and talking to others really helps a lot. One that really sits with me is the “fake it until you make it” solution. I think pretending to be something for a little while, but working hard behind the scenes until it becomes the truth is a very effective method, even if it may be painful. In my opinion, being a fraud is okay sometimes.
That was the end of Ms. Morales’ presentation, so we all said thank you and she left with a smile. I remember later in the day, walking out of the room for lunch in a sort of daze, astonished that I was able to talk about such an emotional topic, and to be able to share my feelings with such a large group of people for the first time.