Goats are perfect!
Photo by Max Stromfeld on Unsplash
“Convinced that we are not good enough, we never relax. We stay on guard, monitoring ourselves for shortcomings. When we inevitably find them, we feel even more insecure and undeserving. We have to try harder. The irony of all of this is … where do we think we are going anyway?”Radical Acceptance — Tara Brach Ph. D
The above quote sums up what it is like to always want things to be perfect. Imposter syndrome is detrimental to our ability to learn. Yet, it is in our feelings of inadequacy that we seek to be perfect in the first place. Learning to build a life around what fulfills us is difficult, but the little glimpse of respite gained from this feeling is liberating. It is a matter of changing our beliefs about who we are and how we measure ourselves. Again, difficult but not impossible.
Why is imposter syndrome so meeehhh?
Imposter syndrome is fed by the idea that who we are is not enough. That by being good at something or being useful to someone will somehow add to our value. That our value is something to be earned. We started believing our value starts at zero and somehow increases proportionally equal to the success-failure = value equation. Therefore, we must prove ourselves to others. And often, we end up hating the shit out of ourselves. We slap ourselves into mastery. Covered in bruises yet unseen.
I was super guilty for saying sorry when I ‘messed up’ a note or entrance to a song. I felt sorry and embarrassed when I made a mistake. It is actually really silly and stupid. This has robbed me of the mental resources needed to focus on getting better. Because of feeling inadequate, I decided to focus on how bad it feels to fail or mess up. And on and on, I stayed on my choo choo impostor syndrome train. Looking back, I find it very comical to attribute how well I do something to my worth.
Why would we need to prove ourselves to others?
We don’t! The problem lies in our failure to separate who we are from what we do. This is inherently difficult because of our environment. Social norms support the idea that we keep on pursuing and never settle. The issue with that then becomes apparent when we as a nation start seeing prescription drug use spike. We all feel alone in some way. We often turn to easy-to-control sources of reassurance, comfort, and ways to forget.
The spoken languages we speak affect how we see ourselves:
In English, we tend to use I am for many things. I am hungry. I am sad. This, in turn, makes it close to impossible to know that these transient sensations or feelings are not permanent. Instead, we attribute them to who we are. For instance:
I am a singer, instead of saying, I like to sing and this is just one part of my identity. I am a bad singer. But what you really mean is I really sucked at producing that high note; I should work on improving that. I am a software developer, short for — “I like to code and build awesome stuff, and this is just something that I like to do.” I am a bad software developer. But if we look closer, we mean, “I am struggling with this particular problem; what perspective have I not explored?” You get the point. We attribute what we do to who we are.
Why does attributing what we do to who we are cause imposter syndrome?
Here’s an idea. We live in a society where making it easy for others to identify us is required to be accepted. We’ve been trained to be hyper-aware of who or what someone or something is. If we have been branded as a bad something, we become paralyzed by feeling kicked out and not belonging. Thus, we stay in the I am a bad singer/developer mental loop. Thus, we always feel like we have something to prove. Thus, you feel that you need to prove something. And on and on the loop we go.
So now what?
As long as we do what needs doing to get what needs doing done, everything else is extra.
When I started asking myself the question, “Who am I?” I started feeling confused, anxious, and even frustrated. It is essentially a question that has a lot of answers: I am sad, a bad singer, a good teacher, and an average writer. Being aware of this has made that question less intimidating. Our identity evolves. It is not static.
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