Latest / College Is Fine, Everything's Fine / #46 Beating Imposterism with Dr. Jill Stoddard

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#46 Beating Imposterism with Dr. Jill Stoddard · College Is Fine, Everything's Fine

All right. Hello, college students. Um, we are bringing you a topic that you have told us for quite some time that you wanted us to talk about. I feel like people of all ages, all years have come to us in various ways and said, we need to talk about imposter syndrome. But we held off until we could get the author of a book called, go ahead, Jill.This is Dr. Jill Stoddard, and we have her here to talk about this topic you've been begging for. So,Yes. Hi everybody. Thank you for having me. The book is called Imposter No More, Overcome Self Doubt and Imposterism to Cultivate a Successful Career. And certainly career can start when you're still an undergrad, right? You're sort of putting together those building blocks for the, for the future.absolutely. And a lot of, I read your book and everything that you mentioned absolutely can, I think it would really resonate with our listeners, um, and can be applied to all sorts of different things, being in the classroom and, um, you know, being on campus for the first time or kind of navigating certain social situations, but you had mentioned a while to me in a conversation that you were writing this book and I thought, Oh my gosh, please, please, please, um, be a guest.So we're so thrilled. But we also know that. You're a clinical psychologist of many years, and you are a co host of a very, very popular podcast called Psychologists Off the Clock. So we didn't even have to give you like a to do list to be on today. You're, you're, uh, you're an old pro.I'm an old pro.So we're gonna give everyone in our show notes a lot of resources where, you know, your book, your practice, and your, your podcast, of course. But we thought we would talk about, you know, Impostor syndrome. Um. It's funny when you took, you mentioned in your book, feeling like an imposter in graduate school as you got in.And I laugh because I certainly did too. We happened to go to the same graduate school, although you were some years older than me. But a lot of the things you talked about in terms of like, wait, do I really belong here? I think would resonate for people who are going into college these days because it takes so much effort and time to get into school.And I work with a lot of people who Once they get there, you know, we've said we've had student athletes tell us, I don't know if I'm really supposed to, I'm not really smart enough to be here because I'm an athlete. We've had people say like, I think I got in because my parents were alum and maybe I had not really, you know, so there's all different reasons.I would love for you to talk a bit about your imposter syndrome. Um, and so we can, you know, make sure people understand this is a human thing that we all experience.Yeah, absolutely. I mean, so, you know, by definition, it is this feeling of typically intellectual phoniness, but it can show up even in other domains, like people can feel like imposters as parents or, or athletes, like you said. Um, but it's this feeling of phoniness, where A person questions their competence and worries that they're not actually as competent as other people think they are, and that any minute everyone's gonna reveal them for the fraud that they are.So it's like I'm, I'm faking it and harboring this secret, but it's gonna come out at any moment.And what do you think makes college a breeding ground? ForYeah. Yeah. You know, I think it, it, it is absolutely a breeding ground because to me, a lot of the stuff we struggle with when it comes to uncertainty or sorry, when it comes to anxiety or insecurity is because of uncertainty. And if you think about, you know, our lives up until the point that we're 18, it's kind of scripted, you know, our parents or guardians are telling us what we need to do.We're required by law to. And then, you know, all of a sudden there's all this pressure that college comes along and you're supposed to now know what you want to be when you grow up, what you want to major in. Um, you know, you're supposed to be like on this road to, you know, the path to the marriage and the buying the house and the mortgage and, and yet.You don't quite yet feel like you're grown up enough to know how to do that or how to do it well. Um, and there is so much expectation put on this time, right? Oh, it's supposed to be the absolute best time of your life, which really, I think minimizes what a pressured and uncertain kind of time it is. And so all of that taken together, I think just makes people more vulnerable to really questioning, you know, do I belong?Am I good enough? Um, and, and it's hard to know. And, and what's strange about what, and what made me really interested in imposterism is you would think that you could achieve your way out of it. Right, that like if I just get another award or another A, or some recognition, if I graduate cum laude, you know, then I'll finally know I'll have the data to show that I really do belong here.And what's odd is that the opposite seems to happen, that imposter feelings, thoughts, and feelings are actually correlated with success. So the more you achieve, the more likely you are to feel this way. And we don't exactly know why, other than, you know, that my hypothesis is essentially the higher you go, the more you're expected to know.Mm hmm. MmAnd as Valerie Young is another psychologist who studies imposter syndrome, and she says, and now you have a reputation to defend. Right? There's more expected of you as you, as you continue toRight.I also was thinking about that in terms of You know why college can be I think the initial place you find it is because you mentioned scripted and it's also kind of a reshuffling You know you sort of probably knew and sort of figured out where you were and had years and years to sort of be okay with You know, whether you, you know, Oh, I'm the smartest or mid smartest or not, you've kind of labeled yourself in this way, or I'm athletic or not.And you sort of labeled yourself in that way. And then you go to college and it's like, whoosh, it's like the snowball, the snow globe is getting shaken up and you know, and things are starting to kind of filter in different ways. And I think it can lead people to have that uncertainty that you talked about.Sorry, Liz, IYeah, it's, you suddenly have to really be a grown up, you know? It's the most independent that you've ever been in your life, even if you don't feel like you're quite independent. Ready for that love, even if you're excited for it, but you're like, wait a minute. You know, I remember this is one of my parents favorite stories.It's totally embarrassing, but I'll tell you anyway. I was a senior in college, by the way, not even a freshman. And I called my parents and they weren't home. And I left a message saying, you know, where are you when I need you? I'm cooking corn and I don't know how to do it. And let me date myself here.This was like, you know, the internet had just come online. So we couldn't just Google it. And. My parents, of course, thought I meant corn on the cob. Cause how would you know how to make corn on the cob? And then the next thing I said in the message was, you know, you'd think that they would put directions on the can. And so, you know, I'm like 21, 22 years old, a senior in college, been living on my own for four years and like needed to call, needed to call my parents to help me figure out how to cook a can of corn, right? So there's like, there's this serious leveling up that happens when you get to college that, you know, your family may or may not have fully prepared you for.And it's, it's a lot of pressure and a lot of expectation.Well, can I just follow that up and then Liz, I promise I'll let you talk at some point, but I have to laugh at that story because a friend of mine, this is again pre internet, barely emailed in his existing days, but he wanted to bake Big Tato and he really couldn't get ahold of his mom, so he called 4 1 1.He called information? And he, he was like, Hi, I don't know if you'd happen to know this, Um, but this is information, right? Do you know how to bake a potato? And she did. Yeah, she did. She was like, Oh, honey, let me tell you. Yeah. SoOh, I can't wait to call my dad and tell himthat story. He will love that. I'll be like, I wasn't, I wasn't as bad as that. I didn't call 4 1 1.happen to know how to bake potato? no, um, I was going to say that you already, Jill, spoke to this idea of maybe redefining this term imposter syndrome as intellectual phoniness, um, and in a world where I really feel like there are more syndromes. that are created online and on TikTok that I find out about all the time, um, that college students are diagnosing themselves with, um, and maybe pathologizing really normative experiences that people are having.Um, I think that's kind of the sentiment and in your book you talk about and argue that the word syndrome is problematic. So from your perspective, why do you feel that way?Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's saying that something is a disease, a disorder, a pathology. And, you know, it's interesting. If you Google imposter syndrome, you get tens of millions, maybe even hundreds of millions of hits. But if you look at an academic database like PubMed, you get hundreds of hits. And so, there's not a lot of proof.Good rigorous science science around this phenomenon. Um, and the research that is there, if you look at prevalence, it varies widely, anywhere from like nine to 86%. But the great majority of studies show that around 40 to 70 percent of people at some point will experience these imposter thoughts and feelings.So if that means half of us experience this, It cannot be a disease or a disorder or a pathology. It's just normal, right? Like it's just sort of like a, a, uh, a normal worry. Um, And then in addition to that, again, this is an empirical question that I would love someone to answer. It has yet to really be answered,do it right now. We got this.we'll try.If anyone needs like a dissertation topic, it would be aRight. Oh, topic or a senior thesis or something, which is there are people, you know, myself included, who hypothesize that People who have had, who have experienced marginalization may be more vulnerable to having these kinds of thoughts and feelings.And this makes sense as it from like a, well, yeah, duh, kind of standpoint that if you have a history of being told you don't belong at all the tables, you're going to question whether you belong at those tables. And so, you know, something that comes from a place of marginalization and is so popular, so common, you know, it just can't be, it's not a syndrome.Um, Right? And I think it's fascinating. So when this phenomenon was first identified in the late seventies by Pauline Clance and Suzanne Imes, they called it the imposter phenomenon. And at the time, they thought it only occurred in high achieving women. And isn't it interesting that A normal experience that was happening in like badass high achieving women that culture suddenly decided it was a syndrome, you know To me, there's just sexism baked in to that because that's not what it was coined as when it first arrived on the scene but you know if the ladies are having some issues with their confidence, it must It's a a Syndrome, right?Yeah. So I call it imposter syndrome in the, like, first chapter of the book and kind of set up this argument and then for the rest of the time, you know, it's never referred to in that way. It's the imposter phenomenon or experiencer. I just like to shorten it to imposterism, which, you know, whenever I type it, I get the red wiggly line on my word document because it's not actually a word,We like to make up words, though, where other ones don't quite fit. I think that psychologists are really good at that.Yeah.I also, I'm laughing, it's like, we could think of it as what is some sort of old timey disease where you have like the fevers, you know, like the vapors, right? That's what I was thinking of, right?It's like the vapors. So, all right, so we're going to say that imposter syndrome is outdated and it's sort of like saying that we have the vapors, right?Right.And it might be kind of also glossing over some real cultural shifts we need to make in general for people who've been told they don't belong at the table.So let's not make it a syndrome. I love it. All right. What I love about your book is it gives some subtypes and I think that this hits a few different ways. What is it? I think actually helps people figure out a bit more about themselves and gives insight. But I also think it peaks to that part of us that wants to go online and take a personality quiz.And even though I know all of us who are sitting here are not really buying into that idea, I think this is a kind of highbrow way to figure out something about yourself. and help it be simplified. So you don't have to go into all of your subtypes. I know in your book you talk a lot about them in detail, but why do you think it's important for us to know which one we are?Yeah. Well, I mean, I think insight is always kind of the first step to any change. If you don't know what's going on with you, then you don't really even, you know, I always use the example of like, I'm not a nail biter, but once or twice a year I look down and all my nails are gone. And I'm like, what the, what, when did that happen?And I don't know if I bit them or picked them and, and I can't change it because I'm, it's so out of my awareness. Right. So I think, you know, awareness and understanding is always the first step of any kind of progress or change. Of course it's insufficient. It's only a first step and just knowing these things about you is not enough to change.But what the subtypes really are, and this comes from the work of Valerie Young, who I mentioned before. Is they are basically strategies that we tend to use to try to avoid coming up against these feelings of being a fraud or an imposter. Um, like compensatory strategies basically. And so, and I can just give like a one, two, three example.Sentence definition of all of them. Um, you know, the first is a perfectionist, which is pretty self explanatory, right? Like you do everything at the very highest, most perfect standard to try to prevent feeling like a fraud. But of course, nobody can ever reach those standards all the time. And so this backfires.And then when you make a mistake, it then sort of Quote unquote proves that you are a fraud after all. So that's how all of these subtypes work out is it's meant to protect me, but ultimately it backfires and ends up kind of creating, um, creating that reality that I'm trying to avoid. So that's the perfectionist.There's the natural genius. This is the person who believes like you, you either have it or you don't, that you should be able to learn things very easily. You should, you know, the first time you hear it, you should just know it, um, that, that if you were truly competent, you would just get everything naturally.And it's kind of like Carol Dweck's, um, fixed mindset versus,Growth mindset,mindset.Growth mindset. Exactly. Yeah. Growth mindset. There's the soloist. This is the person who believes you're only truly competent if you can do everything yourself. So if you have to ask for help, then this sort of quote unquote proves that you're a fraud.Um, there's the expert and this is what I am. And I think a lot of people who go to school for a long time are probably experts. This is the person that feels like they need one more class, one more podcast, one more book, one more degree, and then I'll finally feel like I know enough. And I always get this image of a, like pouring water into a cup, but the cup has a hole in the bottom, so it never gets fully topped off.Um, and then there is the.super human.Superhuman. Yep, the superhuman. She, she uses more gendered language in her books. I'm like, wait, I changed it. So the, so the superhuman, and this is the, this is the person I, I get this picture. I often think in images and metaphors and I picture a person like on a unicycle juggling, flaming.pins of some kind, you know, with a big smile on their face, totally unruffled. Like this is the person who feels like they should absolutely be able to do it all unruffled with a smile on their face. And of course, at some point, you're going to be juggling one too many pins and one's going to come crashing down.And this proves that you're a fraud. And that person really thinks, you know, if I really had it together, if I was really competent, then I should be able to have a stick spinning plates on my nose in addition to doing. all of these other things. You have a quiz on your website, which is so fun. I haven't taken it yet. I kind of want toOh, yeah, take it. Yeah, people can just go. It's just my name. It's jillstoddard. com slash quizzes and there's and you can find out what your subtype is there and it used to be that it would just give you your subtype with a paragraph explanation and we managed to fix it so that you get percentages because most people will see themselves in more than one of these but there's usually one that's kind of primary.So you'll see, oh, I'm, you know, 80 percent perfectionist, 10% natural genius, you know, that kind of thing. So it's kind of fun. And then once you know, then you can be on the lookout. Like, oh, am I doing that thing where I'm trying to juggle all the balls? Oh, am I doing that thing where I'm refusing to ask for help?And is that problematic? Is that really getting in the way of me being able to be the person I want to be and live the life that I want to live?take it, um, and inter IYou did?So but interestingly, I think like, just in terms of my identity now, versus I'm so interested if I would've took it in grad school. Um, because I scored highest on the superhuman. Which I'm not surprised in terms of, You And just even thinking reinforcement that I get from my environment for that, that aspect, probably of myself, like it's oftentimes we'll be like, I don't know how you do it all.Like you're exercising, you have three kids, you have a podcast and practice and whatever, you know, like people, um,yeah. Liz, I think we're learning that this podcast is a symptom of imposterism.be my last podcast.We're learning in real time.Um,Brought to you by Sarah and Liz's Imposterism.my identity, I think, has kind of changed a little in terms of like, it's just interesting like thinking about moments I had, um, in other parts of my career or personal life in terms of like what maybe helped me build resiliency in not eliminating, but kind of managing maybe some of the other subtypes, um, and maybe where I have some work now at this stage of my life to kind of work on.Very interesting.Well, and we, and we live in a culture that really rewards busyness, right? There was a study, I might get the details wrong, it was a long time ago, but you know, someone did like a linguistic study of some sort where they were kind of overhearing conversations in social situations and the word that was said the most often in the States was busy.Right? Like when we're making small talk and being so, Oh, how are you? Busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy. And you know, there's this, like our inability to rest and relax. We feel guilty if we like sit on a sofa and watch a show. And so I think there's, there's a cultural element to that too.Well, we have students we'll talk to, they call it flop time. They're like, we have to schedule in flop time, like just not doing anything. It's scheduled. You know, like, well I'm I love that. We should all schedulein flop time. It's important. and find a way in which, like, I mean, we can talk about this. I think it might lead into the next question, but why it's not like cognitively as reinforcing to us, right? Like, why do we, why do personally we not value this or feel as reinforced by engaging in some of those relaxing activities, um, as we do when we're, you know, overscheduled?But, um, so I think that leads into the question of, like, so let's end with your advice on one of the things you say in your book, which I just loved, which is living life full size, not fun size. Now you kind of already alluded a little bit to this, but I just love it.So I would love for you to kind of paint a picture of a college student who might not be living full size, kind of their living fun size, and what it might look like if they embrace some of the strategies we've talked about today and are living at fun size.Yeah, so fun sizes, so the reference is like to the candy bars at Halloween, right? The fun size are the little teeny tiny small ones. And like everyone knows the one house that gives out that full size candy bar, right? It's like exciting and it's a little forbidden and, um, andthen the rumors spread, they're like, That's the one with the big candy! Yeah, so, we all know we want, we want the big size,want full size, not fun size. Exactly. Right. Um, and so, yeah, I think it's, it's, it really goes back to what I essentially just said, which is figuring out who and how you want to be in the world and being willing to take steps in that direction. Even when it's hard, even when your mind tells you, you have no business doing it.Even when you're afraid that you might. Even when you're feeling anxious, scared, insecure, can you be willing to take those steps forward? And that doesn't mean you have to go from I've never spoken in front of three people to I'm gonna go do a TED Talk, right? Like, I like to think of the comfort zone, you know, if you kind of picture a circle, everybody can imagine like a circle of a comfort zone.And that there's a woman named Maho Malfino, who I had on the podcast, she calls this the vulnerability edge and that you just have to step up to that because if you dive too far out of it, you're going to come screaming right back to the center, right? We don't want people to fail, but if you're willing to go up to that vulnerability edge, like just tiptoe a little bit out of your comfort zone, and then that circle is going to get bigger.And if you keep doing that, it'll get bigger and it will get bigger. And, um, and you know, the more we. are willing to, to get comfortable being uncomfortable, the more opportunities open up to us, you know, I, was asked to give a talk to some, like late high school students, but I only had, you know, they wanted me to like change their mental health, improve their mental health and reduce their vulnerability to suicide.And I only had 30 minutes and I was like, uh,okay.Um, but, but then I only thought about it for a minute. I'm like, you know, if I could teach every human only one thing that I honestly think would dramatically improve their lives, it would be getting comfortable being uncomfortable because think about how many choices we make because we're not willing to feel certain things.Think of the hard conversations we would have and how much that would improve our relationships, right? You know, think about all of the opportunities that we would take on the challenges that we would try out. I mean, there's just so many. So much that would change if we were willing to get comfortable being uncomfortable and that's something you can practice.Like I can show you guys, this is, I have in my drawer, I do this with all of my clients. Do you, do you guys knowOh, I, don't worry.The Bean Boozled. She's showing us Bean Boozled.Boozled Jelly Beans. Oh, Liz has them too! See? And this is like the most fun, benign way. So these are jelly beans that, you know, like you've got, let's say you spin your spinner and you're supposed to have the hot pink one and it's either going to be, uh, pomegranate or dirty bandage or something like that.And it, so this is a way that, like, with clients, I practice. It's getting comfortable being uncomfortable, but it's benign. It's just a jelly bean, right? And there are just loads and loads of different ways that people can start practicing that. You know, I like my money to all face the same direction and be in denomination order.And guess what? You'll never find it like that. I always shove it in the wrong way, fold it in half because I'm consistently practicing doing things that are uncomfortable. And then it makes it easier to do a TED talk or something else thatRight. Something bigger, right? Like higher stakes. And I,Exactly.um, we, we have a relationship to Sadie Sutton. She does the She Persisted podcast. So I'm going to, she actually said this, not me. I'm going to give her credit. She said, you know, college is kind of a breeding ground for avoidance. You can stay in your dorm.You can skip class. You can always say no to school. There's not a lot you're required to do, not a lot, to your point, is scripted. So I love this idea of practicing feeling some anxiety or a little distress or some frustration or dread because it also means that you're taking full advantage of a place that isn't going to push you out and into that comfort zone yourself.So you're, you know, kind of finding your why. And, and basing it on that, sort of your hero, and kind of imagining who that person would be. Um, well Jill, I am so happy that you said yes to us!Of course! Well, this is, I love nerding out about this stuff.Oh yeah, I know, I So thank you for having me.We have, it's so good to see you again, um, and we will certainly love to have you back, maybe especially for your next book.I'm sure you haveThe hopper.of, well,no pressure, right? You're Marinating I can imagine some marination. So we'll have you backThanks so much, Jill.Thanks, you guys.