The late, great Carrie Fisher once said: “Stay afraid, but do it anyway.” The Star Wars actress and best-selling author was an unapologetically fierce and formidable feminist icon, in an era that was hostile and resistant to women like her. She was one of the first female action heroines to appear on a big screen, as she played the widely popular Star Wars character, Princess Leia. In spite of all her remarkable accomplishments, her life was far from perfect.
Carrie Fisher struggled with bipolar disorder and decades of substance abuse. However, she never slowed down, and she definitely never stopped. She wrote several best-selling memoirs about her struggles, and 30 years since the first three Star Wars movies were released, she gracefully reprised her role as Princess Leia as the saga continued.
Carrie Fisher’s quote is one that I have been learning to live by daily, especially now. There have been a lot of changes in my life recently, and the fact that many of them happened during a global pandemic made them even more difficult to handle. One of such changes has been starting graduate school. I made the decision to study epidemiology in 2019 after I graduated from college because I am passionate about doing public health research that helps underserved communities. I then applied for master’s programs and I started my program this Fall.
In the first two weeks of school, I started to feel like I was already behind in almost every class. I was having trouble adapting to the sheer volume of work that is normal for a graduate degree and some of the concepts seemed extremely complex and advanced beyond what I thought I could digest. It was then that I started to question everything. “What am I doing here?” “Why did I apply at all?” “How come they accepted me?” “Should I be doing this?” “Can I do this?”
I began to feel inadequate and unprepared and so unqualified to be at this level. It didn’t matter that I was finally doing what I wanted to do. It didn’t matter that I was pursuing my dream of becoming an epidemiologist. It didn’t matter that I had worked hard enough to make it here. I just felt out of place. This feeling of inadequacy and self-doubt is a psychological phenomenon called imposter syndrome.
According to the American Psychological Association (APA), imposter syndrome is defined as “a pervasive feeling of self-doubt, insecurity and incompetence despite evidence that you are skilled and successful.” Even though it is not listed as a mental disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), it is widely accepted by psychologists as a legitimate psychological issue. This issue is most common in academics and graduate students, however, it can be experienced by anyone who is starting something new, life-altering, and/or challenging.
There was one main reason that was found to be the cause of imposter syndrome — the pressure to achieve. This pressure can be from family, society or the individuals themselves. As such, imposter syndrome was first discovered in women, and for a while was thought to be unique to them. Many high-achieving women were reporting feeling like a fraud or incompetent among peers or at work, regardless of how hard-working they are every day. As more and more people talked about this phenomenon, it was found that even though women were more likely to report feeling imposter syndrome, they were not the only ones struggling with it. Many people who are from families who put emphasis on high achievements, or had people in their lives who alternated between high praise and over-criticism of their work were at a greater risk of feeling fraudulent in the future.
The second thing to do is to celebrate your successes, no matter how small they might be. I am very guilty of not following this rule. Whenever something goes wrong, I’m always first to take the blame, but when it’s alright, I struggle to accept the credit and bask in the awesomeness of it. Each time you celebrate your successes you are lifting yourself up and slowly growing your confidence in yourself and recognizing your expertise. This can help you build a defense against any feelings of doubt that might want to steal your shine.
The third and final tip I have is to do it anyway. All the feelings of doubt and fraud and incompetence are valid, no question about that. It is not about how you feel, though, it’s about what you do about it. Regardless of the internal battle that you are fighting, just keep going. The confidence will come as you keep working and pushing through those feelings. I know this because I’ve been there. I’m now almost at the end of my first term in graduate school, and I’m happy to announce that it is going much better now. It took some time, but I was able to adapt and get a handle on the workload and level of complexity that I was dealing with, and I feel ready to take on the remaining year and a half of my master’s program.
