S3 Bonus 05: Reimagining Impostor Syndrome Part 1

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[00:00:00] Welcome to the Genius Womxn podcast. I'm your host, Yulia, Denisyuk, an award-winning travel photographer and writer with work in some incredible publications like National Geographic farm magazine and more. And this year you see my name in places like Conde Nast Traveler. I'm on a mission to help other women who wants to grow their trouble, storytelling, careers, go after their dreams while feeling supported, worthy, and bold. If you're ready to ditch your fear and doubts to the side, step into your brilliance and take action on your dreams. You're in the right place. Let's go. 

[00:00:38] We're halfway through our hiatus in preparation for our upcoming season four of the podcast. And in the meantime, I'm continuing to share with you some bonus episodes from the conversations we have in the circle, our membership for women, interested in growing their creative careers in the travel media space.

[00:00:58] In today's bonus episode, I'm sharing with you. Part of a workshop we did on imposter syndrome in the circle, this June, during our first ever creative retreat, this workshop was one of our member's favorites, and I'm excited to be able to share it with you today. We're going to look at some of the reasons why we experienced imposter syndrome and how it manifests itself.

[00:01:21] And in the next episode, we'll look at ways we can start re-imagining it. Enrollment to the circle is currently closed. As we're getting ready for a one year anniversary, the sex sober. If you want to know, when we opened the doors back up, visit geniuswomxn.co/circlewaitlist to get on the list.

[00:01:41] That's geniuswomxn.com/circlewaitlist. Okay, let's dive in.

[00:01:47] The second session of our time together here today. And, what I want to dedicate some time to is a subject that is one of my favorites, actually it's imposter syndrome, right. And probably imposter syndrome is the reason why genius women, as it is today. Because the impetus of creating this community and moving in, in this way and even naming it, what it is is that from conversations across the past year and before from conversation with many people, I see it again and again.

[00:02:28] And I experienced it myself too, that we are so incredible, so talented, so beautiful. So amazing. And yet we don't believe it. Many of us don't believe it, or we have notes or we feel like we don't have enough to offer, or that's something that we have to offer. Isn't interesting enough for the world and just so many different ballads and imposter syndrome is one of those doubts.

[00:02:54] Right. And one of those things that keeps showing up. For many people. Now, there are people that don't experience imposter syndrome, believe it or not, or at least don't experience it as, as much as others. so, you know, but, but for many people in our society, it's a very real thing. And what I'm learning actually in my own journey is that.

[00:03:15] It doesn't freaking go away. I would hope that it would go away by now, but Nope, it's still here. And I tell the story a lot, you know, I already have nothing to prove, basically. I've proven. All right. I've worked with national geographic. Some of you guys have come through the workshop that I did with.

[00:03:33] I've been published in all these amazing publications, like, okay. I don't have anything to prove. Okay. But still imposter syndrome is here. It didn't go away even though I've sort of made it. Right. So that was a realization. Number one for me and realization number two was that. You know, as I was starting to build genius women, I started researching imposter syndrome.

[00:03:56] And where does it come from and why is it here and why do I still have it even after all this time? And a lot of it is actually structural, structural, uh, structures that exist in our societies that may. Awesome feel this way. And we're going to get into it a little bit today, but we're not going to get a lot of the structural reasons behind imposter syndrome today.

[00:04:18] But if you're interested in, in that look into it because that's a really, for me, at least it was really interesting and liberating. So understand that my imposter syndrome is not my fault. Right? There's nothing wrong with me for feeling this way to which is sort of liberating. and just a really quick story.

[00:04:36] So when national geographic approached me sometime ago to do this workshop that some of you have have seen me, you know, they send me an email, Hey, we're doing this. Would you be interested in, of course I said, yes. Right, right away. Yes, of course. I'm interested. Thank you. And then they send me and I had no doubt, zero doubt at that moment.

[00:04:55] I said, yes. Amazing. Jump on the opportunity. And then they send me a presentation from last year, photographer that did it last year, just so that I see sort of how, you know, what they're thinking. And, oh my God, as soon as I saw that presentation, I'm like, who am I to do this? Do I even have this body of work to present, to talk about.

[00:05:15] You know, this photographer is so accomplished and a lot, a lot, a lot like, oh, I went down that spiral very quickly. Now the key here is that. So what I told you earlier, it's going to continue, right? It's going to keep, as you sort of move, forward in your career and opportunities are going to present themselves.

[00:05:34] The imposter syndrome is going to keep showing up and every time is going to be bigger and bigger because you're going to be pursuing bigger operations. So that doesn't go away. What changes, what changed for me was I quickly, I recognized it. I'm like, oh, wait a minute. That's your imposter syndrome.

[00:05:48] And so in that moment, was critical for me is I stopped. I didn't do anything. I realized that is happening. I'm going down the spiral, like, okay, step away from the computer, go take a walk, go, relax. Don't even come back to this topic. Right. I went to sleep that night. woke up the next morning.

[00:06:06] I said that in front of my computer, I looked at that presentation again. And I'm like, you got this, you absolutely gotten this. So it's almost like this wave that comes over you, you have to let it come, you know? and then you're fine the next morning and you move on and then you go on and do better and bigger and more, more beautiful.

[00:06:24] So that was a very recent experience. You guys, that was literally like a month and a half ago, so it's going to keep happening, but there are ways for us to deal with it. And so today in the second session, what I want to do is I want to share with you some thoughts on this topic. Okay. And I'm going to share with you a presentation, which I don't really like to do it usually, you know, presentation sense of war.

[00:06:49] But hopefully this one wants, just some fodder for us to think about. and as I'm sharing this with you, please do ask me your questions if you have them, as they go along, please, please let me know. . So reimagining our imposter syndrome and why, why I say reimagining is.

[00:07:06] Actually, there's a, quite an interesting way to look at it, which hopefully you will find interesting and surprising as well. So, you know, not going to go into this a lot of detail, but all of this right feeling in that. Overworking or trying to over-deliver on your projects, getting your work to perfection before sending it out.

[00:07:27] That one is very familiar to me. Painstakingly thinking about every single pitch that I send out, because if it's not perfect, it has to be perfect because otherwise, I'm not good enough. just absolutely has to be perfect or, you know, needing the swamp publication, accreditation, et cetera.

[00:07:44] Needs some sort of outside approval, then I won't be an expert feeling like you don't belong in some of these spaces. All of that is what we're talking about here today. And of course all these other thoughts that also show up, I don't have anything special to offer. It's too late for me. That one is huge.

[00:08:02] Like that one, I hear it so much. And I, I feel it myself. Right. all of these thoughts come to me as well. Who am I to do this? Who am I to charge this much for my work and I don't deserve my success. All of those thoughts are you Buster syndrome? So what we're going to do in this session is we're going to break down some parts of what imposter syndrome is.

[00:08:24] We're going to reimagine what it could be. And then we're going to do a guided activity to help us think about it a little bit different. So imposter syndrome is this persistent belief in one's life, often salvage and skill or competence. And persistent is the key here because, you know, if once in your life you experienced something like this.

[00:08:43] Okay. You know, maybe you just had a moment of that, if it's something that keeps coming back again and again, when you're about to do something outside of your comfort zone, then that's, is a foster syndrome. And. The imposter syndrome is also shows up in different ways in different people.

[00:09:01] But on average studies show that it's harsher in minorities and it's not limited to women only, but it manifests slightly differently in men. and you know, there's also some research and studies on this that you, if you want to look into. but it's definitely not limited to one gender only. And according to some research, it affects 70% of them population.

[00:09:26] So a lot of us are feeling it and we don't talk about it enough, although it starting to change. I see it in a lot of different places and spaces, even in corporations that used to never talk about this stuff are talking about it now, which is good. The science for change. But I, I still think that we are not speaking about it enough openly, publicly discussing ways we can deal with it.

[00:09:48] so I think we need to do more of that. And that's one of the reasons why this session is on the schedule for us today. So there's many different ways in which imposter syndrome manifests itself. And I'm just gonna quickly go through these steps. And the reason why is that sometimes we don't even recognize.

[00:10:05] So what's happening is imposter syndrome, right? We think something else is going on, but to recognize it for what it is, is powerful, because then again, it liberates us, When we can name something , we can work with that something. Okay. So the first one we're undercharging for products or services.

[00:10:22] This is a big one. A lot of people I talk to have this issue myself included by them. Especially this one stat women are more likely to offer discounts before their clients or customers even ask for one. That's just always blows my mind. We're less likely to speak up in the meeting or an email exchange or any other public setting up to a third of women feel this way.

[00:10:44] According to some studies, we're procrastinating because we're not sure we can do this. Raise your hand. If you've ever felt this way. I'm a master procrastinator, but part of it is because of that, right. We're procrastinating because we want to like prolong the inevitable, that realization that we're going to fail because we're not good enough.

[00:11:02] We're changing the way we present ourselves to the world because we're not sure our true self is worthy of being seen. This one is a big one for me. We're overbearing. We're over-delivering we check all the boxes before we go for it, because we're so afraid of being imperfect. And this stat is always just, again, blows my mind.

[00:11:23] Women wait until they fulfill 110% of a jobs requirement. If not more, before they consider applying, while men are comfortable going forward, if they only need 50 or 75. So think about opportunities that you may have not acted upon because of this one. Right? Because you saw it, you weren't ready, you weren't qualified, you weren't checking all the boxes.

[00:11:47] How many things could you have done if that wasn't limiting you? that one is always very incredible for me to see we're downplaying our expertise. Yeah. And this one is, about how we communicate on email. Also, by the way, I started noticing this about myself in the past year or so always saying, sorry, in emails, always saying so many things you know, always being extra, extra, extra everything.

[00:12:13] Why, why is it? We know that, that's an interesting one to keep note of. We're constantly working on new certifications, trainings, licenses, classes, although classes are fine, nothing wrong with classes, but it's to prove, right. It's somebody else needs to give us proof that we are enough using our time using our energy to really shore up what we have to say.

[00:12:35] So again, to over-prepare over deliver rather than just putting ourselves out there and seeing what happens and trusting that we are in there. We're also not pursuing big opportunities or doing anything that would make us stand out, in our space or in our industry. And that's also imposter syndrome and we're constantly feeling we're not smart.

[00:12:54] We're not skilled and experienced or qualified. So just some of the ways, right? These are not, all of the ways there are many more, but these are sort of the more, common ones that I keep seeing again and again, again, in myself and in others. And that's a lot of stuff, right. may sort of now feel like, okay, what the hell?

[00:13:13] Right. What do I do? That's the purpose of today's session here? Because actually. We can reimagine it and we can absolutely start looking at imposter syndrome in a different way. And I think the first part to that is really awareness right. And realization that it's happening. And then again, like I was talking earlier, letting that wave fast when it comes, because it's going to keep going.

[00:13:37] But you don't let it affect what you do in the real world. You let it come, you let it blow over you. And then you go forward anyway, which is sort of key. 

[00:13:46] Thanks again for listening to our imposter syndrome bonus episode today, I hope you found it helpful if you're looking for support opportunities and community in the travel media space. Consider joining us in the circle. Enrollments of the circle is currently closed. As we're getting ready for a one-year anniversary, this October.