Liar Liar

Imposter Syndrome is defined by Josh Rose as a habit that makes you doubt your own talents and abilities. Often, even when you receive recognition for those things, you still doubt them, and you may even worry about being exposed as a fraud.

It is a lot more complicated than the definition makes it seem. I know this because I live with it. It is much more than having a few doubts here and there, it is a constant struggle within the mind.

While researching this topic for the upcoming “Solve for X” event, I came across the symptoms and what I found just cemented what I have been feeling for years. I think I started having these feelings sometime in high school. I can’t pinpoint when exactly.

From a young age I had been told about how smart and creative I am. And when I found instances where I was not always smart and creative, I really beat myself over it and from then on constantly questioned whether I was just lying to everyone around me.

I thought to maybe bring up some examples that are ingrained in my brain because of how significant the situation was for me. The first that I can always think of is when I had recently gone to a market and met one of the organisers who found out that I studied marketing management in university and asked for my opinion on how to better the market. I came up blank and rambled a couple of things I remembered from a textbook. Needless to say, he didn’t look very impressed, and I didn’t feel as creative as I thought I was. The other thought that also was running around in my head was if my studies of three years were all for nothing because I couldn’t remember critical things or even give mind-blowing ideas. This just took my doubt to a whole new low. This really dampened my mood, and I couldn’t enjoy the market further. One thing to also note about me is that I’m heavily self-critical and I constantly beat myself up over small things.

For the second incident I had just taken on a new role in the Tedx society at my university as the Head of Marketing and when it was time to come up with creative strategies, I felt like they were not good enough and that my so-called creativity just vanished. I had the constant feeling that anyone could do the work better than me and that I was not putting in enough effort even though I spent hours of my day dedicated to the society.

The symptoms mentioned in all the articles I read mentioned Imposter Syndrome as either showing up as wanting everything to be perfect, not doing anything at all because of the fear of failure and a couple of other things. I am a perfectionist and one of my biggest fears is failing at anything and everything. I have stopped learning my parents’ languages in fear of being laughed at or the embarrassment of being corrected because I expect myself to be perfect at everything and if I don’t get it right the first time then I get so demoted that I drop it and never pick it up again. What I find funny is that I find it perfectly okay for anyone else to make mistakes, but I personally cannot make mistakes, so I have been trying to be more compassionate with myself, although it is not easy to always do so.

I think I will be revisiting those articles to learn how to properly deal with these feelings that I refused to learn in the therapy sessions I used to go to. I suggest you do the same and to attend STA NextGen’s upcoming event where they will be discussing this topic in more depth.

Lolo.