Overcoming Academic Impostor Syndrome

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Impostor syndrome is almost a staple of academia, probably because of the delayed gratification and lack of direct, actionable feedback that accompanies most research projects. In this post, I attempt to give some advice for overcoming this feeling or, at the very least, learning to live better with it. I shall try not to dish out the usual bromides of ‘Everyone feels that way sometimes’ or ‘You will get over it,’ but instead will focus on potential root causes and actionable advice, in the form of a list of steps.

1. Understanding: Understand that negative feelings are not necessarily a reflection of objective reality. Often, our fears are born out of fatigue, not having slept well, not having eaten, or a myriad of other things that affect our body. Thus, drink some water, have a snack, and take a deep breath before believing everything you think.

2. Taking stock: Now that you are a little bit more rational, let us perform an analysis of the problem. Accepting the possibility that you are an impostor for a second, let us see what the evidence says. You have come this far, which means that you were able to fool everyone up until this point. Fair enough. However, at some point, being a true Bayesian, the observed evidence, viz. you getting that far, should swamp your prior assumptions. You thus have to concede that the overall probability of you being an impostor given the fact that you have come this far is not very high. In this stage of your fight, it can be helpful to write down some things you achieved, some milestone you reached, or just some good feedback that you got. Even by taking into account that people, generally, like to give nice feedback,¹ they cannot all be wrong.

3. Keeping tabs: Since there is a problem with delayed gratification and feedback in academia, I keep tabs on some of the good events that happened to me. This can be anything, from getting useful feedback from a collaborator to receiving a positive paper notification. Every once in a while, rifling through these things can serve as a reminder of positivity. To get more critical feedback, I also have an account on Admonymous, in which people can write me anonymous messages for feedback. So far, this has given me some food for thought, but the signal-to-noise ratio is much lower than for some other media, to be frank.

4. Trust: Of course, rationality, Bayesian calculations, and keeping tabs will only get you so far, so let me share a secret about me: I only ever hire people that I am super excited about. People who I believe can thrive and grow in our collaborative efforts. If you are working with me, I am 100% convinced that have what it takes! If you are not working with me, I am pretty sure your adviser had their reasons for hiring you.² Interestingly, in many cases we value the opinion of others much more highly than our own—but I think in the particular case of impostor syndrome, reminding you of the fact that someone thinks highly of you might not be super helpful, because they could be wrong, right? Now, I could be wrong about a particular hiring decision or collaboration, but so far, this has not happened. A little trust in the network of relationships you are embedded in seems warranted.

5. Showing up is worth a lot: If my appeal to Bayesian calculations and my appeal to authority did not work out, here is another angle that might be helpful: Fundamentally, you showing up and trying to become better at things is already good enough. I really like the quote ‘Ninety percent of success in life is just showing up.’ I can tell you from personal experience that the people that did not do well academically³ just stopped caring at some point—for whatever reason. If you show up to meetings, engage in discussions, try your best to do good research, there is absolutely no reason to be worried. You are only an impostor if you pretend to work.

6. It’s about the journey: You also need to understand that everyone’s journey is different. In highly-competitive academic environments, you will not find a lot of fools.⁴ Everyone is good at what they do. Read that again but with a different emphasis: Everyone is good at what they do. This implies that you have to be good at what you do. Sometimes this can be a specific skill or field, sometimes it can be a combination of them. Günter Ziegler, in a student interview that I had the honour of conducting, once said something memorable to me: ‘Yes, there are people with a stronger knowledge in discrete mathematics or geometry or topology, respectively, but I can bring these fields together and talk to all of them.’ To this day, I believe that this is the proper way to view oneself: As a unique combination of different skills, a smorgasbord, if you will. You do not have to bring everything to the table as long as you bring something.⁵ As a side-note, I believe that these types of social comparisons are not that helpful. You will always find people that appear to be better than you—making you depressed—or worse than you—making you feel superior. I try to avoid this, since I know the allure of that all too well.⁶

7. It’s your life: Finally, try to internalise that it is your life and your interests we are talking about. If you like your work and want to continue doing it, just do it. Do not let your feelings stop you. As long as no one is actively confronting you about your performance, you are doing fine. Do not be your own worst enemy.

I hope this list helps! In addition to all the steps, I encourage you to ask questions, be open about your struggle(s), and request feedback from everyone—I am utterly convinced that this will help you in the end. If you are on the other end of such a request for feedback, please take the time to actually provide a good answer rather than escaping into worthless platitudes. Let us try to uplift each other—together.

Acknowledgements: Thanks to Emily Simons for giving great feedback on the first version of this article and reminding me about ‘keeping tabs.’