Episode 142 - Listen To This If….You Feel Like an Imposter

Transcript

Jen (00:00:10)

Hello everybody. A very warm welcome to another episode of Listen to This If from your team at Let's Talk SciComm. So that's me Jen and my fabulous friend and colleague Dr. Michael Wheeler. And in these episodes, we challenge ourselves to try and stick to only five minutes and to give you our top one piece of advice for a particular challenge that you might be grappling with right now.

And today Michael, our topic is what do you do if you feel like an imposter? Which, let's face it, we all feel like imposters at least some of the time.

Michael (00:00:42)

Oh, I know. And I don't even feel qualified in giving advice because I haven't managed to tackle my imposter syndrome. So there you go. It's very meta, isn't it?

Jen (00:00:52)

It really is. And maybe that's the first thing to say to everybody is join the club. You know, I think it's a good sign if you feel like an imposter. It means you're challenging yourself to do new, potentially tricky things. And maybe that's what life is all about.

Michael (00:01:07)

I think that's a really good point that it's not necessarily all bad, right? I actually think that there is a healthy amount of self-doubt that we can have which is a good thing because it allows us to question our assumptions. And I think that's just a really good practice for self-improvement, not always doing things the same time.

Now, of course, you know, there's a healthy level of self-doubt and then it can move into the realm of imposter syndrome where you just really feel like you don't belong in a certain place or in a certain field. And that is no fun. You know, it's...

Jen (00:01:49)

No, it is not.

Michael (00:01:52)

It's a barrier, isn't it? It's a barrier to doing things, to putting effort into things. Look, I think my main piece of advice here is we're all familiar with the imposter syndrome. And, you know, there's a number of reasons why we experience this.

But my main piece of advice is... I think it comes down to comparing ourselves to other people and really thinking, Wow, you know, those other people know so much more stuff that I don't know. And I like to remember that, Well actually, there's probably some stuff that I know that other people don't know.

And a better comparison to make is rather than comparing yourself to other people, compare yourself to yourself. Am I learning? Am I growing? Because you don't know what's going on in other people's lives. Everyone's kind of on their own individual paths.

And yeah, I don't know if that's helpful. Sometimes it helps me. But yeah, I don't know. Jen, what do you think?

Jen (00:02:59)

Well, I mean, I've got a couple of thoughts. I think the first thing to point out is that the researchers who originally coined the phrase the imposter syndrome came back later and said they wish they called it the imposter experience because syndrome makes it sound like it's a problem, there's something wrong with you.

Whereas the imposter experience highlights that we all feel it. And, you know, like Michael, these days I am a bit more senior in my career. I've been doing what I'm doing now for kind of 20 years. I still feel like an imposter, absolutely. There are definitely times when I feel like I'm not good enough, not smart enough, don't know enough. I'm not qualified enough.

I look at other people and think How did you get the memo to know how to adult properly? Like I don't know how to handle this meeting or this situation? But I guess the thing that I come back to is I try and separate feelings from facts, because feeling underqualified can be the result of a whole lot of things like how tired am I? How overwhelmed am I at the moment? What interaction have I had recently that left me feeling a bit inadequate? You know, it can be quite... Feelings can come and go quite quickly. Whereas I think facts can be a little bit more reliable.

So, you know, if you're a student right now, you're not meant to know it all. By definition, you should have a million things you feel unsure about and that you know, you're not an expert in yet. And those facts tell you that this is your phase of learning and asking questions.

And I think really talking about it with others would be my other piece of advice, recognising that if you are having this crippling sense of not belonging or feeling inadequate or just feeling like you can't progress things because you're so anxious about not being good enough, talk about it. Talk about it with your friends, your colleagues, your family. If you can, your supervisors. You know, whoever.

And just realise how normal this is and how important a sign it is that actually you are challenging yourself in the best possible ways and this is the trajectory you want to be on. But talking about it with people can really help take away that sense of just crippling inability to do anything, I think.

So that's my advice. Talk to others and try and be aware that feelings come and go. But I'm sure there is evidence at your disposal to show that you are absolutely on the right path and doing great stuff.

Michael (00:05:15)

Yeah, I mean, if you are feeling the imposter experience, you're probably putting yourself outside your comfort zone.

Jen (00:05:23)

Exactly.

Michael (00:05:23)

... And that probably means you're learning as well. I really like that advice.

It's like the goal isn't to get rid of imposter, the imposter experience. It's just to get used to acting, even though you feel the imposter experience on the inside, because your actions are more important than how you feel.

Jen (00:05:41)

Yep, 100%. So hang in there. Please pay attention to the fact that you are doing great things by even putting yourself in a situation where you do feel like an imposter and we are here cheering you on.

Michael (00:05:53)

You can do it.

Michael (00:06:00)

Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed the episode, we'd love you to tell a friend about the podcast or leave us a review. And you can reach out to us on social media.

And we're very excited to announce that we're launching a new newsletter called the ChitChat. Check out the link in the show notes or our posts on Instagram.

And also a big thank you to our production team, Steven Tang and Madeleine Kelly.