What Is Impostor Syndrome?
Impostor syndrome is
when you're an undergraduate and you
keep waiting for your professors to
realize your exam results were a fluke. It's being a master student and sitting
on the post-grad common room getting
anxiety because you feel unworthy of the
free tea. It's starting your Ph.D. and
thinking that any moment now someone is
gonna tap you on the shoulder and say
there's been a terrible mistake. Essentially it's feeling like an
impostor even after you've proved
yourself time and time again to be
capable and belonging and it's
especially rife in high achieving
individuals who struggle to recognize
their accomplishments and constantly
fear being exposed as a fraud. Evidence
of your success is dismissed as a look
or because you've conned people into
thinking you're more intelligent than
you actually are you should not be here.
It's a really horrible phenomenon. I feel it all the time those examples at the start from my own experiences but here's the thing it's not just you who feels that way. Some studies estimate as much as 70% of people will experience impostor syndrome over their lives. This is expressed differently for everyone but common symptoms include perfectionism fear of failing to undermine your achievements dismissing praise and overworking.
When I started my course at Oxford in 2016 one the conversation that stands out in my mind was when several of us started sharing the reasons we felt we've gotten in without deserving - it was only because that fieldwork sounded better than it was, only because I knew the chapel around the impressive internship because my supervisor helped me write my the personal statement asked me nicely and I might tell you mine it quickly emerged that almost everyone had them. I shouldn't be here story and to be honest the ones who were confident they'd get in are arrogant bars. So in that sense impostor syndrome keeps you humble, keeps you modest keeps you from being an idiot, but don't let it grow so fierce than it keeps you from holding yourself in the regard you deserve we're very good at judging other people but really bad at judging ourselves by those same standards and I certainly need to work on this, myself but here are two phrases that I come to often to keep me calm first one is you don't have to be perfect you just have to get through it. If you're doing a PhD you're probably either very passionate or very good at what you do meaning the thought of doing less than your best might fill you with horror but you're not getting percentages or grades anymore a Ph.D. is pass or fail we all have that paper in science and an interview on BBC news but at the end of the day all you have to do is conduct original research of a standard acceptable to the scientific community.
I'm not saying lower your standards. I'm saying lower your expectations of yourself to something more manageable and my second phrase is this; you are not a superlative. A superlative refers to the highest quality of something, so best or the worst most useless least intelligent. You are not any of these you're probably incredibly average just like the rest of us you will probably never be the best at any one thing but equally, you'll never be the worst one final thing to consider when you next feel like everyone is staring at you and knows you're a fraud they're probably thinking the exact same thing about themselves and do not have time to pick apart your own life and if they are sat there feeling highly accomplished and important so be honest they probably do have a quick punch to the face.
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| what is impostor syndrome |
It's a really horrible phenomenon. I feel it all the time those examples at the start from my own experiences but here's the thing it's not just you who feels that way. Some studies estimate as much as 70% of people will experience impostor syndrome over their lives. This is expressed differently for everyone but common symptoms include perfectionism fear of failing to undermine your achievements dismissing praise and overworking.
When I started my course at Oxford in 2016 one the conversation that stands out in my mind was when several of us started sharing the reasons we felt we've gotten in without deserving - it was only because that fieldwork sounded better than it was, only because I knew the chapel around the impressive internship because my supervisor helped me write my the personal statement asked me nicely and I might tell you mine it quickly emerged that almost everyone had them. I shouldn't be here story and to be honest the ones who were confident they'd get in are arrogant bars. So in that sense impostor syndrome keeps you humble, keeps you modest keeps you from being an idiot, but don't let it grow so fierce than it keeps you from holding yourself in the regard you deserve we're very good at judging other people but really bad at judging ourselves by those same standards and I certainly need to work on this, myself but here are two phrases that I come to often to keep me calm first one is you don't have to be perfect you just have to get through it. If you're doing a PhD you're probably either very passionate or very good at what you do meaning the thought of doing less than your best might fill you with horror but you're not getting percentages or grades anymore a Ph.D. is pass or fail we all have that paper in science and an interview on BBC news but at the end of the day all you have to do is conduct original research of a standard acceptable to the scientific community.
I'm not saying lower your standards. I'm saying lower your expectations of yourself to something more manageable and my second phrase is this; you are not a superlative. A superlative refers to the highest quality of something, so best or the worst most useless least intelligent. You are not any of these you're probably incredibly average just like the rest of us you will probably never be the best at any one thing but equally, you'll never be the worst one final thing to consider when you next feel like everyone is staring at you and knows you're a fraud they're probably thinking the exact same thing about themselves and do not have time to pick apart your own life and if they are sat there feeling highly accomplished and important so be honest they probably do have a quick punch to the face.
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