It’s normal to feel self-doubt and unsure of yourself as you start a new career or begin something new. Feelings of fear and questioning yourself start to creep up, even though you know your skills and experience make you right for the job. We call this imposter syndrome. It’s important to know how to face it head on, so in today’s episode, I’m covering how to confront imposter syndrome.

Although you may not ever overcome imposter syndrome, you should confront it, question it, and work through it. In order to do that, I provide steps to take and things to consider doing that make you start to believe in yourself. I encourage you to take a look at all your skills and experiences that are valuable in moving towards working beyond the classroom.

Throughout the episode, I am your hype woman to tell you that you’re so much more than “just a teacher”. You have an expertise that needs to be embraced if wanting to confront imposter syndrome. Remember to not let feelings of self doubt stop you, for action in the best medicine! 

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Today, we're going to be talking about something that pretty much everyone has had to deal with in some capacity or another. I'm talking about impostor syndrome. More specifically, we're going to be talking about how to confront impostor syndrome, knowing it's not something we can really totally get over it's just something we have to deal with.

But it's important to learn how to confront it, question it, deal with it, so that you can really embrace yourself as the education expert that you are. And when you think about moving beyond the classroom, it's normal for all sorts of feelings to come up. Often considering jobs other than teaching can feel totally overwhelming.

We think, do we have the right experience enough experience, and we can fall back on the thinking that we're quote, unquote, just teachers. But we're not we are so much more than just, I'm doing air quotes here, teachers. But to find success, you have to confront this thinking and reframe it.

As teachers, our experience is unique and valuable. But we're told over and over again, that all we can do is teach. It's not true, I promise you, there are so many things that we already do. So many skills and experiences that we already have, and so many more things that we can do in the future.

So let's just start by thinking about some of the things that classroom teachers do every day. I could make a day long podcast listing all the things that teachers do. I'm not going to spend their time doing that. But I'm gonna give us a few ideas so you can think for you.

What are all the things that you do in a day of teaching? Even making a list so you can see it in front of you. So for example, we differentiate instruction, create curriculum, we gather data, we assess students understandings, we support students emotional needs, we collaborate with colleagues, we communicate with families, keep track of multiple, multiple projects, we personalized lessons to meet individual students needs, and we research and we apply what we learned through that research.

Again, not an exhaustive list here, but really can start getting you thinking about all the many things you do every single day as a classroom teacher. I guarantee you it's not quote unquote, just teaching.

And even if you think about what just teaching means, it means so many things, when we are teaching, if you think about it as like delivering instruction, we're also differentiating, we're doing classroom management, we're checking the time, we're managing multiple students understandings and multiple projects. We're doing so much, even in those moments where we're in front of a class.

And I want you to think about how even doing all these things in a classroom, you're way more than just a teacher, again, air quotes here. You are an education expert. Truly, this can feel like a difficult reframe and often many teachers struggle with embracing this. So start by thinking about what feelings come up when you think about yourself as an expert.

And I challenge you to think about how as teachers, we've been told over and over and over again, that we're not enough, and that other people have to make instructional decisions. And whole systems are built on not valuing what teachers know. So it's no wonder that we struggle with embracing our expertise.

But you are truly an education expert, you know, way more about education than most people. And part of embracing our expertise involves confronting impostor syndrome. So let's get down to it.

Impostor syndrome. It involves doubting your abilities and feeling like a fraud. Think about times where you might have felt this, where you're like, oh, maybe I don't have enough experience, or all I've ever done is teach. All of those are examples of imposter syndrome feeling like a fraud when we've already listed out all this evidence of your amazing skills and experiences.

So the first step to confronting impostor syndrome is realizing that everyone experiences it at one time or another. As I said, at the beginning of this podcast, it's not necessarily something I can guarantee we're going to overcome, because it might just be part of our lives. It's part of a human experience.

So we're gonna confront, we're going to question impostor syndrome, and we're gonna work through it. When I say that everyone deals with imposter syndrome at one point or another, I mean, everyone. Listen to these quotes from some celebrities.

First one, I'm not gonna tell you who it is at the beginning, but I'll tell you after I read the quote. "Each time I write a book, every time they face that yellow pad, the challenge is so great. I've written 11 books, but each time I think, Uh oh, they're gonna find out now, I've run a game on everyone and they're gonna find me out." This was Maya Angelou.

Maya Angelou said this, that she thinks that people are gonna find her out as a fraud. And now we on the outside can obviously say that's not true. She's an amazing writer and amazing artists and amazing creative thinker. And he or she is thinking that we're gonna find her out as a fraud. So when I say that everyone experiences impostor syndrome, really the choice is, are you going to let it stop you? Or are you going to move through it?

Let's read some other quotes. This one's from Bill Hader, the actor on dealing with anxiety when performing. He said, "What helped me was learning that it doesn't really go away, you manage it. Again, we're not looking for it to go away. If we wait for a time when we don't feel like we're some kind of a fraud, or we feel completely 100% sure in our abilities, we might be waiting forever."

So again, your choices, do you let it stop you? Or do you find a way to manage it? Do you find a way to move through it?

And this one is from Michelle Obama. She says, "I had to overcome the question, Am I good enough? It's dogged me for most of my life. Many women and young girls walk around with that question in their minds. I overcame that question the same way I do everything with hard work. I decided to put my head down and let my work speak for itself."

So again, it's not easy to move past these feelings. But it's possible. It takes work, but it's worth it.

And one last quote, before we move on, this one's from Billy Eilish, she says, "Still to this day, I don't really think of myself as a singer. I don't know why. Maybe it's imposter syndrome." So if Billy Eilish super famous popular singer is out here thinking that she might not be a singer, and Maya Angelou, one of the great writers of our time, is out here thinking she might not be a writer, then what are we gonna do with this?

We're gonna learn that these people still had these feelings, but they went forward, they still put in the work to get better at their craft, they still move forward. So even if we can't really fully get rid of impostor syndrome, we can learn to make peace with it.

And the most important thing is to not let it stop you from taking action. When we embrace these feelings, we disrupt perfectionism and are able to take risks necessary to get closer to our dreams. Perfectionism can often be a form of procrastination. I know I felt this before being like, Oh, well, I'm just gonna spend some more time tinkering on my resume, making it perfect, instead of actually applying for jobs.

But no, that's actually procrastinating, we want to take some imperfect action and learn through doing it. Don't let perfectionism or anything stop you. When you feel anxious or scared or like an imposter as you take those risks you need to take to achieve your goals, remember you're not alone.

To get through imposter syndrome, you'll also need to find strategies that work for you. And of course, we're all different. And the things that work for me might not work for you. And the things that work for you might not work for me.

But some examples include feeling all your feelings, we want to recognize that it's hard, and it's scary, and we have feelings that come up. So allow yourself to feel them and then move through them. You can write down your feelings for some of us writing our feelings down or talking to people about our feelings can help us process them and move on.

You could think about reading affirmations to remind you of all the amazing skills that you have, you can go back to that list of things that you do as a teacher, you can remind yourself that everyone experiences self doubt, but only some decide to not let it stop them. Be one of those people be one of those people who feels the feelings and then still does the thing.

You can read a list of your accomplishments kind of along the same line of affirmations here. You can just disrupt perfectionism. That is enough. Like think about when am I being a perfectionist? When am I letting perfectionism stop me and try to move past it.

Try to take a messy risk and see how it feels, then you can try to find a community of support. This is a really, really key being around folks who can cheer you on as you take these risks as you confront imposter syndrome as you own your education expertise. And you can do this by connecting with an accountability buddy or being part of a supportive community.

Above all, I've said it before, but I'm gonna say it again, do not let feelings of self doubt stop you from moving forward. Action is the best medicine. Sometimes you need to just pretend to be the most confident version of yourself. If you're like, I just don't know how to move forward. Think about who you want to be in the future.

Like maybe you're in the classroom right now feeling like you just want to have a flexible life and be there with your children or be able to travel, and really have people coming to you for your education expertise. Imagine what that would feel like, and be that person now.

You don't have to wait until you get these external things to be the person you want to be in the future. If you want flexibility now, maybe you can't quit your teaching job right now. But are there ways we could add in a little bit more of that flexibility? See if you can try to be that person now. How would that future you act right now?

When you're faced with an uncomfortable step forward, consider how you would act if you showed up as your most unstoppable self. What risks would you take? What would you not be afraid of? As teachers we're really motivated by helping others. So you can also try thinking of the impact you could make if you played big. If you really put yourself out there and did the things you want to do, I guarantee you probably those things involve helping people.

So think about what impact could you make if you play big? Or flip it. What impact are you not making by playing small? And as you move forward, reflect on the following questions. How will you use your skills to make a difference in the world? What would you change about the education system? And what impact do you want to make?

Recently I read a powerful article written by Pamela Kanter, the founder of Turnaround for Children, which is a great organization. The article was called The Power of Belonging and it shared three main points.

The first, stress has the power to frighten us to shut us down and to induce impostor syndrome. The second point, trust is the antidote to stress. And the third, belonging is the most powerful antidote to impostor syndrome.

Let me reiterate that last one again, belonging is the most powerful antidote to impostor syndrome. To really embrace our expertise, we need to be part of communities that encourage us to see our skills and a new light, push us to play big and empower us to stand up for what we believe in.

At Educator Forever we strive to create a community where all educators are empowered to embrace their expertise so they can make a big difference in education without sacrificing their well being. And we are here to support you and always cheer you on.