Impostor syndrome and being kind to yourself.
Hi there, Chatty friends! Today this post is dedicated to how I dealt with impostor syndrome.
In Twitter I am always attentive to other's struggles with mental health. Also, I hear stories around me and try to reflect and apply their take away to my own personal life. The problem is that as humans and as flawed as we are, we tend to be our hardest critics.
For the longest time, my inner voice played in repeat about how my experiences could have been managed better. I criticized myself harshly, which instantly often provoked self-doubt. The lack of identifying as worthy individual resurfaced my "impostor syndrome".
To battle my impostor syndrome, I recognized that in college, there are going to be plenty of moments of self-doubt. To eliminate the problem, I identified questions or demeanor that resurfaced the issue. A few examples of the questions that I started to asked:
Am I good enough for this scholarship? Should I be applying to this award? Are my grades good enough to get into graduate school? Is my academic record good enough to get into undergraduate research? Do I have enough experiences to get the job? Am I in the right career? OMG I do not know what I want, but look at so and so they have everything and do everything so perfect?
Then you start belittling yourself after going through the self-doubting questionnaire.
-"I am not worth it."
-"I am not smart enough."
-"I don't have what it takes."
-"I am a fake."
These often caused anxiety, self-doubt, stress, and so on.
After going through this mindset, I felt exhausted. I often compared myself to students around me. I knew my academic achievements were not stellar and I was ashamed of them.
After recognizing what mindset placed a burden and triggered the syndrome, I decided it was time for a change. It took persistence to realize that none-body is perfect and more than one circumstance can disturb your academics. Everyone goes through cycles of mistakes, self-doubt, failures, and negativity. I hate to be the chemist to tell you to be "Positive like a Proton". But it is true! All in life is balanced around opposites.
When I had a negative feeling or thoughts, the best way to water them away was to think the opposite or just something neutral. If I had thoughts of lacking behind in my lab work and falling behind my lab mates, I immediately thought of what I have done last week. If possible, updated my personal meeting and reflected in my achievements for the past few days and how much dedication it took to actually complete all of these tasks. Even if not all were job related.
For example, the other day I was struggling with my experiment being stuck. For some reason, this affected me and made me self-doubt my capabilities as a chemist. Sometimes, it just takes for you to retrace your steps. Bumping your head with the wall will only increase you head ache. So stop doing it and go back a few steps.
I also, took to heart the words my lab-mate said. I was telling him that my experiment was kind of stuck and that my mentor was starting to notice and that I felt really bad about it. Yet he confessed that even he made tons of mistakes. Just because the group meetings presentations were not showing the ground work and failures, does not mean they did not happen. I apologized to him for laughing at his failures and thanked him for reminding me that "not everyone is perfect".
During this pandemic, a lot of things have been chaotic and a lot of times all the wrong feelings come to surface. Yet, being kind to myself has become priority numero uno. The reason why, is because if you are not loving, appreciating who you are, how you got to where you are and reminding yourself constantly that yes life is not roses, then you are not making good to your promise of just getting through one more bump. Going through hills actually takes hard work and the only one who can do all those things is you. Then, we can all agree that being kind to yourself has never been more important for your mental health. Last thing chattyPhD friends, be strong, love yourself, and as soon as you are not feeling like yourself seek help.
Metal Health Resources:
These websites gives examples of different mental health related apps: https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/320557#Calm
American Chemical Society post: https://cen.acs.org/careers/graduate-school/How-to-combat-impostor-syndrome/97/i19
Make a video or in person section with your counseling center at local school.
The Center for Human Growth at Indiana University also provides counseling sections for the public at a lower cost. The counselors are psychology graduate student in training. Services are also provided in different languages. https://education.indiana.edu/chg/index.html
