Episode 62: Imposter Syndrome Part 2

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.

Today's Topic: Imposter Syndrome Part 2: 

Welcome back to this week's episode. I'm so excited like these episodes have been good if I do say so myself. Like let's see two weeks ago we talked about the first part of today's discussion all about imposter syndrome. We had an awesome interview in between that and now we're back for the second part of the imposter syndrome conversation and I know I sound really excited to talk about something that is so painful for a lot of people, but once you start to recognize it as a normal part of any process, any goal, then you can become friends with imposter syndrome. You, you can, you won't be so quick to avoid it and ignore it. That's my hope for you anyway, but to like recap the first episode, you know I talked to you about a common scenario that I see what other people and their writing right? We talked about going from the writing one page a month to not writing anything, when you increase your goal. If you don't know what I'm talking about, then you should definitely go listen to that episode because it's a great introduction to what we're going to be talking about today. So yeah, listen to that. I also talked about what imposter syndrome is, what it sounds like, what it feels like, what it looks like, and I ended that episode by saying imposter syndrome is normal and if you were not experiencing any form of it, then you're doing something wrong. Then you're not really in a goal or a situation where you're pushing yourself and that imposter syndrome is a clear indication that you are going to, you're going from someone who didn't, who didn't believe that you could do the goal.

So in this case you like if you're working on your dissertation, you're going from someone who didn't believe that the dissertation was possible to someone who knows, like you're starting to get really stronger in your commitment and you see that it is possible for you. That is when imposter syndrome shows up. Some people call it resistance, right? If you're in the woo woo space, they call it resistance, there's different names for it. Either way it's a, it's a good thing that is happening. That's what I want to talk about. I want to talk about the belief process, so the belief process last week I talked about beliefs are just thoughts that you have practiced over and over and over so much that your brain has consider it to be clearly something that is extremely important that should never go away and it has created an automatic system for you to continue to think those things and to see the world through the lens of those beliefs. Just like we can have beliefs about things we feel are positive and makes the world a better place. We also have beliefs that we may think are not so positive and actually prevent us from showing up in the ways that we want to and from accomplishing our goals such as finishing your dissertation. It works both ways essentially is what I'm trying to say. But either way I want to talk about the process of believing and why this is coming up in this conversation around imposter syndrome is because I want to frame it for you or maybe refrain is a better word so that you can start to see that imposter syndrome can be a positive sign that you're getting closer to finishing your goal.

Three Step Belief Process: 

And I put this in three steps because where I learned this from or like where I adapted this from is Brooke Castillo at the life coach school. If you are OG subscriber or follower, a longtime listener then you know that I love me some Brooke Castillo from the life coach school. Um, if you need a good podcast to listen to after you listened to this episode of course. But if you are all about mindset work and you want to Uplevel your mindset game, you definitely should go listen to that podcast. But I am adapted essentially what Brooke teaches to talk about the belief process here. And I wanted to adapt it to talk about it in the context of working on academic writing, dissertating, all the things. So there are three steps in the belief process.

Step 1: "Never in a Million Years": 

The first step is like never in a million years is what I call it. It's like never in a million years would that happen. Like it's like utter disbelief.

Step 2: "Chaos": 

Step two is chaos because I mean that's the best way to explain it too. It's like chaos. This is where imposter syndrome shows up. It is like, Oh we are here. Like you for real, for real about this goal: enter chaos.

Step 3: "Flow":

And then step three is flow. You get to a point where every, all the trains are running on time. You know what to expect. You got it going, right? Like if we go back to that first episode about how you were working on that one page a week and it was like easy. That's, that's flow. You're in flow.

I want to spend some time talking about these three stages, what they look like and how this helps you. So just take a step back. I believe that the results that we have in our life, so how much progress you're making on your writing, how people, how your relationships are, the state of them, the amount of money you make, anything all come from how you think they all come from the thoughts. And so if you want to change any of those things, then you should work on changing your thought process and then those things will change. Most people think that they should go to changing their behavior, but if change in our behavior was so easy or so simple than anyone can do, like anyone can like snap their fingers and achieve whatever goal that they want to, right? Or, I mean I'm sure you've had an experience or have you seen people or, I know myself, I used to say like I do all the things. I worked really hard, especially when it comes to writing. Like I'm spending all the hours writing. I hear my clients say this like I have been in my home office every day consistently five hours every day and I don't know why I don't have anything to show for it. I don't have no pages written. I'm not getting any close to finishing this dissertation, and it's because it doesn't matter the action if you don't believe that it's possible. You can spend all day long reading articles and taking notes, but if you don't believe that you are a good writer or if you don't believe that it's possible for you even to finish the dissertation, guess what's going to happen. 

You won't be a good writer and you won't finish the dissertation. When we began to shift our focus to becoming more aware of how we think and how that impacts what we do, then we can start to shift our thoughts and shift how we feel and shift how and what we do. And then you'll start to see your life shift and the direction that you want it to go into. Right? But if you don't, if you don't, if you think this is just fluff and you think it's just woo woo and you don't think it matters. Because I've had clients like that too who are like, who decided to stop to stop working with me because they're like, well, I came to you for you to tell me what to do, and we're talking about my thoughts. And then my responses is because I told you exactly what to do, but you're still not doing it, And you're not doing it because you don't believe that you can. So we're going to sit here and we're going to talk about your thoughts so that you can do the plan that I just gave you, I mean, I work with people and one of the steps of the process of working with me, and so that you have a very clear plan of what to do. Like you don't have a question, you're not, not leaving our sessions questioning what it is that you need to do you, it's very clear. It is. It is extremely clear. So when people say, I still don't know what to do, I then know it's because of what you're thinking is how you believe.

Finish Your Literature Review: 

So let's go through this process. These could be three episodes in themselves, but I am, I'm going to do my best to put them into one. Okay, so let's say you have the goal to finish your literature review in 30 days. That's a shameless plug that I absolutely have a program called finish your literature review and, and the goal of that program is for you to have a full draft of your, your literature review in 30 days. And if that sounds awesome, do you think you definitely should sign up for the waitlist. Because I'm going to be opening up another cohort because I only take 10 people at a time because the point of it is to keep it small because I'm giving so much feedback to students that I don't want this to be so large that people are not able to get questions answered and the quality feedback that they're looking for. So there's 10 spots available. We've had a wait list up to this point as of today of this episode that you should be able to schedule your dissertation session. We're gonna hop on a zoom call and we're going to talk and I'm going to ask you how are things going with your lit review. I'm going to ask you to tell me all the things that you've been doing and why they're not working for you. I will be there to answer any questions that you have about it and I've seen it change so many of my clients dissertation experiences and once they have been able to follow the process and get into like the groove and start believing that it's possible, it just take off and they make like they finish proposals, take the review process and finish it in less than a week.

So I went off on a, on a side tangent, but I did want to let you know that the doors are open and we will be starting at the end of this month. The goal is finishing literature review in 30 days.The moment that you hear me say that, if you heard yourself say that or you wrote that down. Your brain was like, that's, that's what you're doing, you know what I mean? Like your brain automatically just dismisses it. It's like 30 days? A literature review in 30 days? Like, girl I haven't read 10 articles and you're saying, I'm going write a whole draft of my literature review in 30 days. How sway? How? And you're not really asking the question cause you're looking for answer. You absolutely outright just don't believe it. You definitely don't believe it's possible for someone like you, right? Your brain can't even register the words. It's just like, I'm sorry, say whta? 30 days, mm mmm or your brain goes, fine, let's do it. It's going happening 30 days like you have no fears about it. You're not worried about it. You don't have no questions. You don't ask yourself, what if you like, yeah, let's do it. Sign me up. You just like ready to get started. Then you're brain doesn't register it as it being real.

How Chaos Happens: 

It's like, yeah, it sounds good and you're like, um, I'm ready for it. You just, you want to watch for both positions. But I'm saying not that you shouldn't be confident about it. It's like if it can make you uncomfortable it's not your goal. It's not a goal or you don't, it's so big of a goal that you don't even register how complicated it is. I kind of talk about this when students are just signing up for a doctoral program and they're like, Oh yeah, I'm gonna do two years of course work and then I'm gonna spend a year writing my dissertation and I'm going to be done. Right. And they say it so like matter of factly, they might be about what it means to be in a doctoral program. They're not nervous about their ability to get through classes, dissertation, especially dissertation. It's just like a longer paper paper, right? It's just I wrote my masters thesis, I can do this. It's no problem. And as they get through semester one, you start to see it chip away a little bit of, maybe it's not as simple as I thought and then by the time you would get to your exams and the dissertation, people are like, nope, I can't do it. It's because they really, they didn't do enough. They may be nervous. And that's where the false sense of confidence came from because you don't know enough yet. You think you have a quick picture because you've been looking from the outside in at other programs. You started to learn more about what's required of you. Now you have a more clear picture of what's expected and that's when your brain is like, Oh shit, I don't think we could do this. So whether you're going from not even registering the goal or being very like confident about it, the moment you go, Oh shit, that is when chaos happens.

How Imposter Syndrome Shows Up: 

And then imposter syndrome shows up, right? So let's say we're going back to our literature review example. In 30 days, say you're on day seven, right? You did the first week of the first and you were like, yeah, I got this, this, Oh, we're having so much fun. You go to the first session and you get your assignments and you're like, well, let me tell you, it's intense. It's intense on purpose. If you make it through the first week, everything will flow. Not only in just your literature review, but throughout your whole dissertation. You get to day seven and you might be like, okay, we went through, we had our first class, she gave us some things to do. I don't think I can do this. This is going to this, there is no way you can do it in one week. She must be out of her mind or she doesn't know my life. I got these kids, I've got all these things. I got to take care of my parents. I mean, I know she said it was only gonna take 10 hours and I give it actually give a schedule for you to follow this course. I'll give you a sense of like, do this on Monday, do this on Tuesday, 10 hours a week. But it's very dedicated time, right? So if you're at the point in your belief, you're going to come up, your brain will come up and throw up everything. Oh, we don't have enough time to do this. We don't have enough time to do this, or I need to talk to my chair and make sure this is okay and walk through with her or him or them like. Or my kids take up all of my energy and time or. 

This is where it's important to extremely aware how this shows up in your action because you're thinking that something is wrong. You're going to think that there's something wrong or something has gone wrong or because all these thoughts like, Oh, because your brain is throwing up all these things at you. I feel like I know it and all of these reasons as to why you aren't going to be able to achieve the goal. They're going to feel extremely real. You're going to have all the reasons as to why these thoughts are not just thoughts, they are real reasons. They're facts. You're not going to be able to finish this literature review in 30 days like you will be convinced that you need to stop the process and that you need to go do something else, right? This is how people get stuck in the spiral. Like going down Google rabbit holes or constantly talking to chair about the same things over and over doing the what ifs. This is why because you're convinced that something has gone wrong and this isn't supposed to be happening and that that must mean you're supposed to do something else. That's why you see people jumping from thing to thing to the thing, or for example would be a person who jumps from relationship to relationship after the magic is gone is because it gets real. Your brain is like, Oh, we're doing this. Like, Oh, you're going to be committed. Oh, well let's ignore your conscious part you've been thinking about that tells us otherwise that you'd be able to do this. 

You're not going to be able to finish this review, right, because nothing has gone wrong and if you can recognize it for what it is, continue to do the work of being aware of what you're thinking and how that influences how you feel and how it influences how you act. The more that you can, no matter how uncomfortable it is, even the word flow just feels good, right? Your shoulders drop, you stop clenching your jaw, you start to open up your chest in your body. You're in flow. 

Embrace The Flow:

On the other side of imposter syndrome, flow flow is when you hit your stride. You are following the plans provided to you. You're showing us the sessions, you're doing assignments, you're making progress, you're learning from your mistakes, right? Not every day is going to be perfect. Maybe you missed a day of writing, but it's alright you're like I'mma just show up for my next round and pick up where I left off. You wake up every morning fully believing that it's only a matter of time before you finish this literature review. It's only a matter of time. It's going to happen. You know that the work that you do in the everyday is contributing to the overall goal. Cause you know it's happening because you believe that like it's another thing happening. That's what it means to get to the other side of the imposter syndrome. But a lot of people don't experience that and they don't push through. So you hear that, um, I got a puppy and he won't let me be great. I got him last month and push through this episode that he's growling and fighting his pillow. But I'm going to wrap this one up. So that's what it means to be in the three stages of belief, right. Now, these things aren't necessarily linear and it doesn't mean that just because you went from one stage that you can't go backwards. Life Happen. Beliefs sometimes they're so deeply rooted that there they are there and they come back up in different ways. And so that's why it's important for us to constantly do the work of being aware and being aware of how we're feeling and being aware of our behaviors.

Remember, the most important thing that I want you to take away from this is to become aware and be honest with yourself about what stage your in. Because once you know that you know how to proceed, you know what the tell yourself, you know what to do. I'm going to come back with one more episode to talk about, okay, what do I do? How do I become more than my thoughts? How do I start to change that? What, How do I push pass that? I'm going to be talking about that in the third part of this series. Thank you for hanging out with me with all the ups and downs of today's episode. Really want to talk more about this. So if you could please come over to Instagram at Marvette Lacy, and let's start a conversation about the ways in which you may be experiencing imposter syndrome, how it's showing up in life, and the things that maybe you have some good tips that I could share with the audience too, but that's going to do it for this week. Make sure you do something. Show yourself some love. I'll 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.