IMPOSTER SYNDROME and BALANCE
What do these two seemingly at-odds concepts have in common? Neither one is real.
With so-called Imposter Syndrome, we’re (and by we, I mean women, as it feels like this is something that is pinned to our collective lapel more often that it is to men’s) led to believe that this is a rampant and contagious disease we have, some sort of horrific affliction, an incurable malady.
Don’t get me wrong: it FEELS real - we all have moments - or days or weeks - of insecurity or fear. Like just this morning, when I had a business coaching session with another (different type of) coach, and worried beforehand that she would see right through me, someone who has been a professional coach in a few capacities for over a decade, and suss out my lack of bona fides, naming me as a fraud in front of all the powers that be.
(Incidentally, she emailed me after the session saying, “I LOVED connecting. You are the real deal. Thank you.” Crisis averted, sickness cured).
But I know Imposter Syndrome isn’t real because it’s something we can talk ourselves out of just as easily as we - or society, or the patriarchy - can talk ourselves into. A few simple ways to do that:
Bolster your own confidence through tons of preparation, especially in professional settings
Forcibly change your thoughts, shoo-ing that negative self-talk away (“Not today, Satan”) or putting your hands over your ears, screaming “lalala” until you drive yourself crazy enough to be distracted
Know that this feeling of insecurity too shall pass
Put one foot in front of the other until it does
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On the other side of this imaginary see-saw is the idea of “balance.”
Balance is bullshit.
It’s yet another way for the patriarchy-at-large to make women feel “less than”: Achieve balance, they say, by buying this product or service, or taking on something else in order to “even things out” in your life!
It’s not that we can’t “have it all”; it’s that we can’t juggle “it all” perfectly in the air all at the same time without occasionally dropping, bruising, or breaking something.
Nothing is perfect: that’s life.
Literally. Though it may not appear to be the case, nature didn’t ever intend for us to be balanced: Our bodies are asymmetrical! Physical balance owes itself to our tiny inner ear! Even Pollyanna must’ve felt gut-churning anxiety or the dark cloud of depression at least once in a while!
I think fundamentally balance is baloney because things in our lives don’t exist at opposite poles - they’re all on the same side of the aisle, mixing and matching and working together (in some capacity or another).
It’s less about striking some elusive balance and simply accepting the fact that no matter how hard we try or how perfect we appear, we’re not ever really going to have all our ducks in a row.
On a given day, my sister’s kids eat Goldfish for dinner instead of a veggie-heavy, healthy meal. On a given day, I eat Goldfish for dinner, for god’s sake. On another day, I might be slammed with work and have to skip my workout, but the next day, I might mostly play hooky from work (blocked calendars and Slack statuses have their important uses) and stare out the window, work out two times, or run ten errands that have been on my to-do list for two months.
More broadly, I’m 45 years old and still working on financial security, solidifying my professional path, navigating the scrum of loving yet overly-involved friends and family (as I chart a new life path on the west coast) and finding my forever partner. None of these areas are close to being in that elusive state of “balance” - and as a whole, none of them balance any of the others out, either. There’s a constant push-and-pull, back-and-forth, cup-half-full (or emptying one cup into another) kind of thing going on.
So while my life might look like - or be - some paper-clip-and-gum cobble job of all of the above, I’m actually very content and low-anxiety these days.
And that’s because I’ve let go of having to have it all be carefully parceled out, lest one nudge of the Jenga block sends everything tumbling down around me, and have come to accept that living in the moment is messy, and fun, and right where I need to be.