Maci L.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t remember the first time I felt inadequate. I can\u2019t pinpoint the exact moment when I decided that I was somehow inferior to everyone around me. It has become a part of me, of my everyday thoughts. You know what I\u2019m talking about \u2013 when you\u2019re sitting in class, looking around at everyone and thinking, \u201cThey all know what they\u2019re doing, and I don\u2019t. Someone is going to figure me out!\u201d Maybe it\u2019s your first day on the job \u2013 or your 300th<\/sup> day. The feeling that you aren\u2019t good enough \u2013 that you got where you are by sheer luck or mistake \u2013 is an all too common experience for some of us.<\/p>\n I felt it the first day I stepped into my high school classroom to teach. I was 22 years old, and fresh out of college. Those teenagers were going to see right through me! They would know that I had no idea what I was talking about, and that they were in the hands of a phony. At the end of every day, I took a deep sigh of relief that nobody had called me out on my fa\u00e7ade.<\/p>\n In fact, I would say that this gut feeling of being a fraud is what landed me in graduate school. I didn\u2019t feel like I actually knew<\/em> anything, and that I wasn\u2019t qualified to teach. I needed to know and understand more. One would assume that having two college degrees and a 4.0 GPA would inspire an air of confidence, but it doesn\u2019t work that way.<\/p>\n They call it \u201cImposter Syndrome.\u201d Pauline Clance and Suzanne Imes coined the name in 1978 (Weir, 2013). Apparently, it happens to high-achieving perfectionists. Lucky us, right?<\/p>\n We do it as writing tutors. We wonder if our tutees will ask us a question that we have no idea about, or we worry that we don\u2019t have the capabilities to help them at all. We think they will somehow leave their appointment worse than they were when they came in.<\/p>\n Our tutees do it the moment they walk in. \u201cI have terrible grammar\u201d and \u201cI probably didn\u2019t even do it right\u201d are statements we hear on a daily basis. Even though most of the students we see have an \u201cA\u201d average in college, they continually think they don\u2019t know how to write or that they don\u2019t know what they\u2019re doing.<\/p>\n So, what can we do to help it?<\/p>\n The American Psychological Association (Weir, 2013) recommends some tips for keeping that imposter syndrome in check. Whenever you feel that you\u2019re not good enough, or you see someone else feeling this way, offer these tips:<\/p>\n In our high-stakes, high-pressure world, it can be easy to feel inadequate. But just because you think something, doesn\u2019t make it true. Sometimes, our mind is our biggest obstacle \u2013 find a way to maneuver it.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Weir, K. (2013). \u201cFeel like a fraud?\u201d gradPSYCH<\/em>,11(4). http:\/\/www.apa.org\/gradpsych\/2013\/11\/fraud.aspx<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\n