Episode 60: Imposter Syndrome

Introduction: 

Hey friend, the time has come to finish your dissertation, graduate and become doctor. Welcome to office hours with Dr. Lacy where we talk about how to finally master this time management thing so you can stay on top of it without losing your mind. Every Wednesday you can find a new episode wherever you listen to podcasts. Make sure you hit the subscribe button to make sure you never miss an episode. I'm Dr. Marvette Lacy, your dissertation writing strategist here to be with you along every step of the way and I would like to thank you for coming to today's office hours. Let's get started on today's episode. Hey, before we get in today's episode, I want to let you know about finish your dissertation. Do you know about it? It is my signature group designed to take you from being candidate to doctor. I'm talking about getting the structure you need in your dissertation process so that you can show up every week consistently and focused on achieving your dissertation goals. We meet on a weekly basis to really make sure that you're maximizing your time and that you know the exact activities you need to focus on to move your dissertation forward and best of all the community is the best thing out there. I mean, we're talking students who are dedicated, who are supportive, who will hold you accountable when you need it, crushing their dissertation goals . So if this sounds like anything that you would be interested in and you could use a little bit more focus and accountability in your dissertation process, then you need to come on over to Marvettelacy.com and learn more about the finish your dissertation group? Also, you can schedule your next step call while you're there so that we can have one on one time to talk and discuss skill your dissertation in your needs to make sure that finish your dissertation is going to be a good fit for you. Again, you can go over to Marvettelacy.com to learn more. Now let's get on to today's episode.

April Recap: 

Welcome back to today's episode. I'm so excited for today's topic. We are going to be talking all about imposter syndrome, but first before we even get there, I just want to say that how is it that we are already at the end of April? If you're listening to this in real time, it is April 29th and I don't know about you, but I feel like we have lived several years within this. One year, within these first four months of 2020 so much has happened. So much is going on. It's like on one hand I'm like, Oh, we still have like a whole what, eight months left to go and on the other hand I'm like, how are we about to be in may already eat anyway? I am just doing my best to keep my routines, to like take care of myself and move as much as possible because those are the only things that I can control. I can't control, a lot of things happen around me, but I can't control how I show up in how I am proactive and the steps I take to care for myself and to be there for those around me in one of those ways. I'm being there for those around me. It's talking about imposter syndrome. You may know that I have a signature program. It's called finish your dissertation and it is a group online experience for doctoral students who are in a doctoral program and working their way towards the dissertation and through the dissertation.

So it's not just for folks who are at the dissertation stage, but those who are ready to prepare for it. So you can be, I have some first year students, I have second year students, I have students who haven't even taken comps or they're about to take comps, have students working on their proposal. They're collecting data or even students who are at the end and they're finishing or wrapping up. The group is intentionally created to provide you the, the structure and the resources and the support you need to get through your doctoral program to finish that dissertation and to become doctor. And within that program we have a theme for every month. April's theme was all about relationships. We talked about relationships like the key or critical relationships you have that will get you through your doctoral program and how to continue to nurture those relationships and develop those relationships so that you can have the best experience that you can and for may we are shifting gears and we're going to be talking about imposter syndrome.

Imposter Syndrome 101:

Because I was noticing as clients are making their way through milestones, they are getting in their heads more and they think that something has gone wrong as a result of being in their heads more. But I know that imposter syndrome is natural part of the process and I started to like, as I was having conversations with them and coaching them, I started to realize that there's not, there's not many people who are talking about some of the realities of imposter syndrome and how it shows up, right? Like we have conversations about, you know, I'm not enough or I'm going to be found out and absolutely that is a huge part of it and it always doesn't present itself in that way in terms of I'm going to be found out or something like that. Sometimes your brain is very clever, efficient at its job and it knows the things to do, the signals to send to get the body to react in a certain way that is true for the thoughts that you have. And so imposter syndrome can show up in a myriad of ways and takes real awareness on our parts to recognize the ways in which imposter syndrome shows up for us as individuals.

Scenario A: 

But let's get into this conversation. I first though want to tell you about a little scenario. So just imagine, think back to, you know, the last time maybe you had a project or the last time you were writing your dissertation. I just want you to picture this with me as I go through this. So just imagine that you, you created a goal for yourself to write one page a week, right? Maybe with everything that's been going on, you're like, I cannot, I can't go hard in the pain like I normally do, but I can write one page a week. So that's the goal that you set for yourself, right? And say like, you did that all for the month of April and you felt really good about yourself, right? So say like you wrote, you were consistent every week. You had a page by the end of the week that you could show for all of your work, right?

You did that for all of April and it was working out well for you. You're feeling good, you're proud of yourself, right? Like, yes, yes, I can do this. Right? Your confidence started to increase that you can actually finish this dissertation. You're like, it could actually happen. And so you were feeling so good that you decided, you know what, I am going to go from one page a week to two pages a week because I got this down. I'm in a routine. I got my system going. Absolutely. I can do two pages a week. Right? And so say you, that's your goal for me. You're going to do two pages a week. Well, the first week of may comes and you're like, Oh, it was super busy. Classes were ending. We were wrapping up the semester. I was, you know, doing some other things to prepare for my summer courses.

I didn't get to any writing, but it's all right. It was just a transitional week. Right. And you say, I'm gonna make it up the next week. But then you realize you're like look up and you realize that it's the end of May. Cause you know, time sometimes just flies on by, right? You wake up and you realize it's the end of may and you haven't written anything at all over the entire month of may. And so you start to think about like how could a whole month have gone by and you haven't done anything when an April you were consistent with that one page a week. So then maybe you conclude like maybe I was doing too much. Maybe I tried to bite off too much too quickly and maybe I should just go back to what was working, which was writing one page a week.

And so say that's your goal for June. You're like new month, new mood, new me. I'm gonna go back to what was working. I'm gonna do the one page a week. You get to the first week of June, right? You feeling good cause you know you did this already. You're confident that you can do the one page a week cause you, you did it all for April and May was just a, we don't know. It's just a random occurrence. Right. And you notice that when you sit down to write during that first week of June, it is extremely difficult for you to write one page and you're so confused because in April you were just doing it. No problem. You didn't have any drama about it. It didn't impede on your schedule, your energy. You were able to crank out that one page. But for some reason you're not able to do that for this first week in June.

And so you like, you know what? Forget it. Maybe I'm just tired. It's been a long semester. I'm just going to take a break and come back to this. Right? Forget it. I'm not going to do anything for general. I'm gonna do that. The next time you look up and you're like, Oh, maybe I should go work on my dissertation. Imagine it's September, right? Three months have gone by and you haven't written anything cause you took a break, right. And all you have to show for it are the four pages that you written. You wrote in April and then you start to go down this whole spiral, like this whole shame spiral. Like, Oh, why did I do this? I should have known better. I obviously don't care about it. Clearly I can't do this. This is stupid. Why would anybody go get a, you know, a like a doctoral degree.

I don't need this stress in my life, but I should be able to write this. It's just a paper. Like you go down this whole spiral, right, of like all these thoughts about what you should be doing. You could have been doing and you just are like talking down to yourself because you feel bad that you know essentially what five months have gone by, right? April, May, June, July, August, six months, September. Cause we're in September, like five or six months have gone by and you have four pages. What was something you were extremely proud of in April, now in September, seems like you might as well have done nothing cause what? Four pages? It's nothing. That's what you conclude to yourself, right? And then you say, you know what? I'm going to do it. I'm a recommit. I'm seeing people you know defend their dissertations.

I'm seeing people do all the things I'm ready to. I'm ready to be done with this program and get on with my life. And you recommit and you set the goal again to right. You set a goal, but instead of one page, you're like, you're going to start off small because you going to do it smart, your going to do it the right way, right? You're going to do it in bite size pieces and you say, I would just write one paragraph a week. That should be doable. I could do that. And guess what? Friends were at the end of another month. You didn't do that. You didn't write a page, you didn't write a paragraph, you didn't write anything. And so the question becomes why does that happen? How can you, from feeling good, feeling confident, being consistent in writing one page a week to writing absolutely nothing. And even when you do all the things to recommit yourself and get your motivation back, there's still nothing happening. And I want to tell you the answer is simple.

Your Beliefs Matter: 

It goes to your beliefs, your beliefs, your thoughts are preventing you from showing up and writing. You don't believe that you can finish your dissertation is what it simply comes down to. And how I define a belief, a belief is a thought that you have practiced over and over. It's just a thought that you've told yourself over and over again until it has become so deeply rooted that it's now a belief is something that's very strong in your brain. And so maybe you haven't noticed or maybe you are not aware of the very subtle ways and also overt ways that you have told yourself that it's not possible for someone like you to finish a dissertation that you don't have what it takes to finish the dissertation, that you don't know enough, that your program didn't prepare you well enough, that you don't have the support and the resources like other people.

And why does it have to be so hard for me? Like all of those thoughts you have bear repeating to yourself over and over. And when you repeat things like, like any thought really over and over, your brain goes, Oh clearly they like thinking that. And so we should take that from the conscious part of the brain and put it into the unconscious part of the brain because we don't need to spend our precious energy trying to remember consciously to, to repeat those thoughts. We could just put that on autopilot back in the unconscious part of the brain. Right? And so you're going through your day and you're constantly repeating those things to yourself, but you're not aware of it. Because it's been moved to the unconscious part of the brain in the name of efficiency because you're praying loves to be efficient. That is what it is.

It is very efficient and if you're doing something repeatedly, it sends the signal that clearly that's what we're supposed to be doing. So let me like make a system for that or something and it puts it back in the unconscious part. So let me, let me say this, I want to like make sure that we're all on the same page, that the reason why you can go from writing one page consistently to not writing anything that all is because of the thoughts that you've been telling yourself over and over. Even the ones that you're not aware of. That's the core of why it's happening. The role that imposter syndrome plays in this part is that, um, in this process, is that you were confident that you could do one page a week, right? Cause you were doing it. But the moment you told yourself, okay, let's push ourselves and go to two pages a week, the imposter syndrome kicks in and your brain goes, Whoa, wait a minute.

That's not what we're used to doing. We can't do that, and it takes the, you know, you're not good enough. You don't have enough. You're going to be found out type thoughts. It takes it from the unconscious conscious part of the brain and puts it into the conscious part of the brain as a way to get you to stop doing the thing that you are doing because what you have done and you introduce something new, and not only is it new, but it's scary because you have, you've had all these thoughts around writing about how you can't do it or how you're not a good writer or all these thoughts about your program and about the faculty of the program and about how you feel about the dissertation because you haven't even been aware of those and have addressed those. Those thoughts will come back up even stronger when you're trying to do something new.

The brain was able to keep them quiet while you were doing the one page a week because while it may have stretched you, it wasn't necessarily so big of a goal that it made you uncomfortable, you felt you believed that you could do one page a week, something about going from one page to two pages made you question your belief in yourself, which then sent the signal to the brain of like cue the thoughts. So we are always saying when we don't believe in ourselves and make those conscious because this is the time that we're going to do that. Let me know if you're following me, let me know. I would love to know, come over to the Instagram @Marvette Lacy and let me know if you're following me. Okay. I want to talk more about this process when you go from when you're in a state of disbelief, how imposter syndrome comes up.

What Does Imposter Syndrome Look and Feel like?: 

I'm going to talk more about that in the episode, the next solo episode, which will happen two weeks from now, but I wanted to put that in your mind so that you were prepared not only for the rest of what I'm going to talk about for this episode, but for the following one that's going to come up. But I don't want to stay here right now in imposter syndrome and I want to make sure that we're on the same page about how it, how imposter syndrome sells, how it feels, how it looks. So we can have a very clear picture before we get into talking about beliefs and how that influences how we show up. Okay, so some ways that I like to describe imposter syndrome, I like to describe it like it sounds like, Oh, I didn't do this, I got lucky, or I tricked other people and to believe in that I'm smarter than I really am. I'm not really supposed to be in this program. Like I don't understand why so many people believe in me. They're going to be disappointed when they realize that I can't deliver on what they think I can. Right. And you may even say like, I don't even know how I made it through courses or even my exams or my comps. I even know how I got to the dissertation phase or I don't even know how I graduated. I just, I'm just here but I'm going to be found out. Right. Those are some of the thoughts that are on a loop in your brain. So when I say that's what imposter syndrome sounds like it's what's happening in your brain cause you normally, like most people wouldn't go to another person and say these things unless it's like someone you really trust. But most people are thinking these things on the inside and they think they're the only ones who feel this way.

So they definitely don't say anything. Right. If you relay, come on, let me know. Imposters syndrome feels like you feel a panicked cause you're panicked that you're going to be found out or maybe you're overwhelmed, right? Because in your quest to not feel like to feel like you are enough and to confirm that you belong in your program or you belong in your position, you start to do a lot of researching, a lot of Googling, a lot of talking to people, trying to get the best strategies to do or like the best practices and you begin to overwhelm yourself with all of the information that you've read and research. Maybe you feel constricted. This can be like related to panic. You feel constricted like tightness. I wish you can see me right now, but you feel tightness maybe in your chest, maybe in your shoulders, maybe in your neck or you feel constricted because your brain keeps coming up with all the what ifs. Like what if this happened? What if I'm found out? What if I don't know enough? What if I get to the defense and someone asks me a question and I can't answer it? Like what if I write this whole proposal and I give it to my chair and they tell me to rewrite it all over again? Right? You go into like what are like the more what have, what ifs you come up with the more constricted your body becomes and then you may start to feel desperate because you want to figure this thing out. You want to figure out what to do next. You want to figure out how, how to be enough. All of this is, it feels like it's fear really. Maybe you really feel fear around making the wrong decision. You feel fear about making, you don't want to make the wrong decision.

Maybe you have some shame in there because maybe you're not like going from that example from earlier then like you're not following through, feeling like you should know better, you should be doing better. You should have it together. You should be more organized. You should, should, should, should equals shame. Right, and then that can create guilt because you're like, I'm not enough. I did something wrong because I'm not writing consistently. I'm not doing what I said I was going to do. Right. All of that is involved in imposter syndrome and then it looks like, right, so we talked about how it sounds in your brain, we talked about how it feels in your body. Now I'm going to talk about what it looks like and how you behave as a person. And these are not all encompassing. These are just things that I noticed with clients, right?

So imposter syndrome looks like maybe you start to spend more time in the outlining and researching phase of whatever your writing or your dissertation, right? You're like, no, I need to make sure my outline is clear before I start writing. Or maybe it looks like you talking nonstop to your friends or your chair about the what ifs of your dissertation without actually committing to a decision. What if I do this? Or what if I have this methodology or what if I do these methods or what if I do this population? Or what if I just changed? Like you do this over and over and you like think it's like, well, I'm supposed to do that. I'm supposed to be able to flush it out and process it and I want to make sure I have it all together before I started typing because I want to work smarter, not harder, and I want to save time.

Reading As A Procrastination Tool: 

This is what people tell me and they say, if I do it all in my head then and I got that straight in my head, then I'll be able to go sit down and I'll be able to write and it'll be no problem. Right. That's an example of imposter syndrome at play. Another thing is like reading and rereading articles, books, blogs, websites, watching videos again, so it's a similar version of talking to your friends nonstop or, or spending more time outlining, right? You are reading and rereading and researching on your topic because you keep, you keep having this feeling of I don't know enough, and you think that if you keep doing this research and you keep reading that eventually you'll get to a place where you know enough and you'll feel confident to write, but your confidence is not going to come from you reading. It's going to come from writing. I don't want to get too much in the solution part of this because I want to save that for the next episode, but this is a big one that I see with people is especially when we're talking about the literature review, I'm like, please stop reading. Put it down. You will come back to it. I'm not saying you don't read at all. I'm saying and hear me clearly. Stop using reading as a procrastination tool. Don't do that. Put it down.

Pitfalls In Asking for Advice: 

Start writing, asking for advice. Right? A lot of people say, well, I went to my chair and I went to my mentors and my femtors or I went to students who just, you know, friends of mine who just finished their programs and I asked them for their advice, but I'm frustrated because I feel like no one has given me a clear thing to do. I feel like I'm getting all this information and everybody does it differently and I just wish someone would just tell me what to do. But the funny part about that is they aren't everyone that you're asking, they're telling you what to do. You know what? What's not happening. You're not following anyone's advice or you're trying to follow all of their advice and you're overwhelmed. I mean if you're going to ask someone what to do, you should try it before you make a decision that is not going to work and then go ask someone else. But when you are constantly asking for advice from multiple people, you're going to get multiple responses and you're going to be back where you were in the beginning. Still confused about what you should do because you have conflicting information. But it makes us feel good to do the research. It makes us feel good to ask for advice.

Final Thoughts: 

It makes us feel good to read, read and read and read. It makes us feel good to outline and outline again like cause we, we, we, we are more confident in doing that. We like we've done that before in other classes and other things. So we like, we know we got that part and you know, people tell you to do the easy part first and then go to the hard thing. But in this it just ends up you not making progress on your writing. And then this last one is you're productive quote unquote in everything else, but your dissertation like you, you're, you're on top of your work emails probably for the first time in a long time. You're on top of your work emails or the cleaning like your house. It looks beautiful. It looks something off of an Instagram feed. You done called all your family members, right? You done decluttered every closet in corner, everything you've started taking up different hobbies and classes. Right? And you feel good because you get to scratch things off your to do list cause you're doing that. You know what, you're not scratching off your to do list though?. You're writing, your dissertation. And you're avoiding it because of the voice of imposter syndrome. So that is what it sounds like. That's what it feels like. That's what it looks like. And I just want to end this episode by saying imposter syndrome is normal. It's a normal part of the process. It is supposed to happen. It is how you know that you are going from someone who is kind of committed to someone who is getting more committed and serious about their decision.

I know you're probably like, wait, nothing you described says that person is committed. That's, that sounds like someone who's not committed and I would, I would beg to differ and that is where I'm going to pick up on the next episode in two weeks to talk about why I believe that if you're not going through imposter syndrome, you're doing it wrong and it is whatever you're working on, you're writing the new goal. This, I mean, you know, imposter syndrome goes beyond the writing and a dissertation process. It's anytime we're trying to do something new that pushes us out of our comfort zone, I would be extremely, I'm extremely curious to know what did you think of today's episode? Can you relate to any of these? Have you done any of these things? Are you doing these things right now? Let me know. Come on over to Instagram and MarvetteLacy.com and let's continue the conversation over there. As always. I hope you have a great week. I hope that you do something to care for yourself and show yourself some love. I will talk with you next week. Bye for now. Thank you for joining in for today's office hours. Make sure you come on Instagram and tag me at Marvette Lacy, let me know what your thoughts were on today's episode. Until next time, do something to show yourself some love. I'll talk to you next week. Bye for now.