Optional- Part 3- The Imposter Syndrome and Dealing with Procrastination, Interview with Dr. Richard Felder and Dr. Rebecca Brent

Okay, You’ve written a little bit about something called the Imposter Syndrome.

What is the Imposter Syndrome?

And how can students overcome it?

Okay.

The Imposter Syndrome is like a tape that plays inside people’s heads.

Not just students a lot of people.

And, and the tape, let’s do it in a student context, though. The tape is like this.

So the student is sitting in class, looking around and thinking, boy, these people are really good.

They get this stuff.

They can ask, answer the teacher’s questions. They can do the homework.

You know, they can do fine on the test. But I, the tape inside the head continues, I’m really not.

I, they all, I managed to fool them all over the years, the tape goes, my friends, my family, my teachers, into thinking that I’m this real hotshot who belongs at this first class university, taking engineering, taking science, taking economics, whatever i’m taking.

But I know better, and the tape continues.

The very next tough question I get in class, the very next hard test that I have to take, that’s what’s going to finally, once and for all, reveal me as the fraud, the phony, the imposter, that I know I am.

And then, and then, what happens then, is usually too horrifying to contemplate.

And so, at that point, the imposter usually stops the tape, rewinds it.

Gets it going again.

And the interesting thing about that phenomenon is how utterly common it is. But every student playing that tape imagines that he or she is the only one who’s doing it.

And the idea that a lot of people are doing it, and that hot shot in the front row with the 4.0 average, the tape is playing louder than it is in anyone else’s head.

It comes as a surprise to them.

And the reason that I’m so sure about how common this phenomenon is, is that I’ve given this talk many times to students.

So I’m in an auditorium full of students that i’m giving this talk to.

And when I get to the part about, they all think I belong here, but I know better, it’s like I plucked a guitar string.

There’s a quiver that goes over the entire audience, you know, and, and eyes dilated and jaws go slack.

You know?

And then they kind of start checking each other out.

And there’s this tangible relaxation that goes over the entire room, as they realize, this is just a scam I’m playing on myself.

And it is a scam, you know?

If a student managed to do everything needed to get into this college, to pass all of the entrance requirements, maybe to get through that difficult first year then, obviously, they have the ability to do it because they did it.

And so when I make that speech, as I say, it relaxes a lot of students.

And once you’re familiar with that phenomenon, what happens is, imposters keep showing up. I, in my office not a week goes by that I don’t see two or three imposters coming into my office.

And as soon as they start talking about the problems that they’re having I, okay, here’s another imposter.

And I reach into the left middle drawer of my desk in, in a file folder there, I pull out a little copy of a little column that I wrote on the imposter phenomenon, and I say here check this out, you might find it intriguing.

And so this imposter in my office reads his or her biography. And it’s high drama, you know?

I get tears from male and female imposters. I get, you know, practically screaming. I had one one woman student accuse me of stealing her diary.

And so, it, it’s a really good thing for teachers to know about, and it’s a very, very good thing for students to know about, because we’re all playing it.

It may surprise you to know that a lot of us have that imposter feeling often. And that’s something that each of us has, has struggled with in our whole adult lives as well as when we were students. And the, the power, I think, is in naming it. It’s the imposter. And once you realize that that’s what you’re doing, then it, it diffuses a lot of the power.

You can just remind yourself, okay, I know how to do this, I can, this may be something new, but I’ve met challenges before, I’ll meet this one. I can do it. And, and go ahead and, and push on. And you’ll find that, as you get into whatever the task may be, that you settle down and you realize you really can do it. And you have resources if you have trouble.

Right. So, now let’s turn to something a little different. What do you both do to avoid procrastination when it comes to something you’d really rather not be doing? Do you ever struggle with this? It’s hard to think that do these,.

Let me get, let me get to you later on that.

Yeah.

We, when, when we figure it out, we’ll let you know.

Now, we definitely both struggle with it, as I’m sure you, you knew when you asked that question.

And we found some strategies for each of us that work. But it is still something we, we struggle with. I like to, to try to schedule myself if I got a big task schedule a small amount of time everyday to work on it, to do just a little bit.

Mm-hm.

Not try to do everything all at once but to bite off a small, a small chunk. I’ve also found it to be really helpful where I keep a to-do list on my phone. And I, if I break the task down into smaller pieces, what’s the very next thing that I need to do that’s manageable then that makes it less overwhelming. And I’m able to, to get going on it. And once you get started, it’s easier to keep going.

Oh, absolutely.

the, this is one area where Rebecca and I are exactly on the same page because I use the same strategies.

There were two points in the strategy that she mentioned, which I’ll just reiterate, one is breaking it up into small pieces, you know?

If I think I’ve got to write the book, or I’ve got to write the dissertation, or I’ve got to write the 25-page proposal, it’s Mount Everest.

And it’s very hard to get myself to take that first step. But if I say, I’ve got to write the first two pages of the introduction to this thing that I can do. That’s not that formidable. And so if I just break it up into small pieces and set easy targets for myself, then I can keep marching. And then the other suggestion that she made, which I would agree with is make appointments with yourself.

So if if I work well in the morning, I’m a morning person I, I think well, I’m clear headed then, then 10 o’clock to 10:30 every morning on my calendar, I make an appointment with myself. I’m going to work on that proposal, for that half hour. Then, I’ll stop and I’ll go back to the rest of my life.

Next day, 10:00, assuming I don’t have other, other obligations at 10:00, I’ll do another half hour on it. And it’s incredible how stuff gets done when you can do things on a regular basis.

And the ones that you’re most reluctant to do, that you’re putting off because I don’t want to do that, those are the ones that you got to schedule appointments with yourself.

What a lot of people do is they work on the block of time theory and a time to work on the proposal now or the term paper now.

But as soon as it’s the weekend, as soon as it’s fall break, or anything like that, that’s when I’ll really get it done. And it doesn’t work, among other things, as soon as you get this block of time, other things rush into fill it.

And also, it can be so long since the last time you worked on it, you forgot what you were doing. And by the time you figure it out and get your momentum back up, the block of time may be over.

But the steady appointment to just do the next chunk for half an hour, it’ll get done.

Some people find some form of accountability is helpful. A chart where they’re checking off the steps or a friend who, who will check in with them regularly.

How, how is it going on that project? Are you making progress?

But those kinds of things can be good strategies, too.

Absolutely. Well, I’m a big believer in the half hour chunk.

That time frame seems to work really well for me for something that I’m having difficulty completing.

And I would like to thank you ever so much for your incredible responses that I think people will find enormously helpful.

For great pleasure.

Thank you.