Getting through your imposter syndrome

What is imposter syndrome?

In simple terms, I would define imposter syndrome as the feeling of inadequacy and believing that you are a fraud, even though there is nothing to prove that.

I am of the belief that, it mostly rises out of fear. Fear of what people will say, fear of failure to name but a few.

Many of us have battled and still battle this “disease”. And there’s nothing as terryfying as believing that you don’t have what it takes to be where you are. This feelings of inadequacy gnaw at your existence slowly and if you are not careful. It may become your new identity.

This fear will make you take a pass on opportunities where you would succeed effortlessly, on the mere fact that, in your mind you already see yourself failing at it. At this stage, your anxiety begins to kick in and before you know it, you are prone to panic attacks. And your mental health begins to take a nose dive.

I have battled imposter syndrome, I still face it sometimes and it’s a shitty place to be(forgive my French 😊). For a long time I wanted to participate in co-curricular activities in campus, but fear always got the best part of me and I would back out at the last minute.

In 4th year, a friend of mine suggested that I should try and participate at the Capital Markets Universities challenge. I agreed and was hopeful that one of my friends would also participate, just so that I can have a familiar face there. But as fate would have it, I was the only one who took up the challenge. And so the preparations began and I did a good job researching and coming up with a workable module. Now, my biggest challenge was that I was competing with students who’s majors were in finance and business, so this concepts came easily to them. While here I was, with the constitution as my shield and defender, but I wasn’t sure what it would shield me from 😂. Was it from being intimidated by people majoring in finance or was it from my jilted lover mathematics, with whom I had severed all ties seeing as we had irreconcilable differences? 😁 Well, I was about to find out.

So we went into the boardroom to present, and our judges were from the Capital Markets Authority 😬. My anxiety kicked in and I almost failed to register myself. But I didn’t. I had the opportunity to watch the other participants present and was able to identify my strengths. So if the constitution wasn’t going to help me then my brain had to work extra to ensure that I got the slot to represent my school at the Semi Finals. To cut the long story short, I was the first runners up and I couldn’t hide the joy. Turns out, I only needed to believe in myself a little more and give it my best.

Moral of the story is, Do it afraid. Someone once told me not to say what if I fail, but rather what if I fly?

Until next time bye 😘

smart