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Should you praise effort or achievement or both? Here's how to get students really motivated.

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Power Point on Imposter Syndrome ..identify and overcome

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Power Point on Imposter Syndrome ..identify and overcome

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You don't even want to try

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It's easy to assume that our brightest students are confident and capable, bursting with self-esteem. However, high self-expectations and surprising insecurities cast a long shadow over their accomplishments.

Television news anchor, Donna Draves, remembers telling her mother she wanted to quit dance lessons because they were becoming boring. She revealed to the research interviewer that... her reason for quitting was actually that she was no longer the best dancer in the class.

From Duke TIP (emphasis mine)
Impostor's Syndrome

Donna's story is surprisingly common. High achievers believe that somehow, they have "tricked" everyone into thinking they are great. They think no one else is aware of their limitations. Success becomes attributed to luck, not ability.

Kids think things like:

I only won the science fair because [some other student] didn't enter this year.

I did well in middle school, but only because the teachers liked me.

You think I'm good at the piano, but that's only because I chose easy songs.

While attempting to maintain the illusion of perfection, they avoid situations that they might not be the best at. This is Impostor's Syndrome.

Case Study: Me

When I learned about Impostor's Syndrome, I was shocked: it described me perfectly.

I attended UC Irvine on a full academic scholarship, joined the school's honors program, majored in Computer Science, and graduated with great grades.

After graduating, I was afraid that if I tried to start a real career, I'd finally reveal myself as a fraud. I dodged interviews and potential employers. With a university diploma in hand, I worked easy, part-time jobs.

I was too afraid to even try to get a "real job." I thought that once I sat down for an interview, the illusion would vanish. The interviewer would see through me and realize I skated through school without learning anything. They'd laugh me out of the interview.

The Beginnings

In elementary school, I was confident and self-assured. I tried out for lead parts in class plays. I welcomed being team captain in PE. I sought leadership positions.

The transition to middle school and high school began the feelings of fraud.

I avoided answering questions and dodged discussions with my teachers. These on-the-spot moments were dangerous because I was unprepared. I might slip up, destroying the illusion. And the distance between myself and my teachers increased. Rather than 30 or so students, each teacher had over 100, and they only saw me once a day.

It became quite easy to hide.

I continued to do well on classwork because I could prepare, spending as much time as possible on my responses at home. But each time I succeeded, I felt like I had to hide more, because my deception was getting deeper and deeper.
My successes actually made the impostor syndrome worse!
Increased Distance, Decreased Confidence

As I moved on to college, these feelings intensified. I see now that as the distance between my teachers and I increased, the worse these feelings became.

In elementary school, my teachers knew my interests, strengths, and weaknesses. By college, they didn't even know my face. I felt more and more like I was sneaking past their overloaded plates.

These feelings are consistent with others:

[Impostor syndrome is] a shared learned behaviour common to high achievers - people are left on their own, competition is intense, and there's not much of a mentor system. From Feeling Like A Fraud

What To Do?

Ten years later, I understand the situation better. I needed:

A mentor. For me, student teaching was a wonderful experience because (for the first time) I was under constant observation by a caring expert.

Feedback I could trust. My master teacher's feedback was based on my unedited (and often terrible) performance, not an essay I spent hours getting just right before showing her.

To know that my feelings had a name. Simply knowing that others experienced the same thing somehow makes it more manageable.

Teachers, stay close to your students. Don't let the brightest kids just work on their own. This increases the feelings of being an impostor. Give caring, honest feedback of how your best students can improve. Never give the impression that you think they've perfectly mastered a topic. They know they haven't, and then they'll stop trusting your praise.

Parents, connect your students with experts in their interests so they can get feedback and guidance from a master (whether that's guitar playing, LEGO building, or acting). And don't feel bad that your kids don't trust your opinions! Encourage risk and accept mistakes. Don't let the expectations of perfection cloud your students' judgements.

Most of all, make your students aware of Impostor Syndrome, especially as they move along in their educational careers.

Further Reading

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They believe that only they are aware of their limitations, near misses, and potential for error. They attribute their success to luck, not ability. In an attempt to maintain an illusion of perfection, they avoid situations in which they might not be the best. This is called Impostor's Syndrome.

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NY Times Article

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On paper, your investments in stocks, real estate or even cash may look like your greatest assets. While all those things are superimportant, you have something else that's even more valuable. It's the investment called you.

Finding ways to increase your value while doing the things you love may be the most important thing you do. Maybe you pursue more training to qualify for a raise. Maybe you find a way to sell the photography you did as a hobby. Maybe you find a way to turn your freelance writing into full-time work.

They all involve doing something new for you, but when you head down this path, you are probably going to run into this thing, this fear that you're bumping up against the limits of your ability. Then, the voice inside your head may start saying things like:

■ "Who gave you permission to do that?"

■ "Do you have a license to be an artist?"

■ "Who said you could draw on cardstock with a Sharpie in Park City, Utah, and send those sketches to The New York Times?"

I think you get the idea. It's at the moment when you're most vulnerable that all your doubts come crashing in around you. When I first heard that voice in my own head, I didn't know what to make of it. The fear was paralyzing. Every time I sent a sketch or something else into the world, I worried the world would say, "You're a fraud."

During a session with a business coach, I shared my fear. I was shocked when she told me this thing had a name. As you've tried new things or done anything outside of your comfort zone, you've probably felt that fear, too. The first step to dealing with this fear is knowing what to call it.

Two American psychologists, Pauline Clance and Suzanne Imes, gave it a name in 1978: the impostor syndrome. They described it as a feeling of "phoniness in people who believe that they are not intelligent, capable or creative despite evidence of high achievement." While these people "are highly motivated to achieve," they also "live in fear of being 'found out' or exposed as frauds." Sound familiar?

Once we know what to call this fear, the second step that I've found really valuable is knowing we're not alone. Once I learned this thing had a name, I was curious to learn who else suffered from it. One of my favorite discoveries involved the amazing American author and poet Maya Angelou. She shared that, "I have written 11 books, but each time I think, 'Uh oh, they're going to find out now. I've run a game on everybody, and they're going to find me out.'"

Think about that for a minute. Despite winning three Grammys and being nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and a Tony Award, this huge talent still questioned her success.

I'm also a big fan of the marketing expert Seth Godin, and even after publishing a dozen best sellers, he wrote in "The Icarus Deception" that he still feels like a fraud. I've heard that American presidents can feel this thing, too. The first time they find themselves alone in the Oval Office, they think to themselves, "I hope nobody finds out I'm in here."

So now that we know its name and that other people deal with it too, our third step is to understand why we feel this way. I think part of the impostor syndrome comes from a natural sense of humility about our work. That's healthy, but it can easily cross the line into paralyzing fear. When we have a skill or talent that has come naturally we tend to discount its value.

Why is that? Well, we often hesitate to believe that what's natural, maybe even easy for us, can offer any value to the world. In fact, the very act of being really good at something can lead us to discount its value. But after spending a lot of time fine-tuning our ability, isn't it sort of the point for our skill to look and feel natural?

All of this leads to the final and most important step: learning how to live with the impostor syndrome. I recently listened to Tim Ferriss interview the clinical psychologist and author Tara Brach. In her book "Radical Acceptance," she shared a really cool story about Buddha and the demon Mara.

One day, Buddha was teaching a large group, and Mara was moving around the edges, looking for a way into the group. I envision Mara rushing frantically back and forth in the bushes and trees, making plans to wreak havoc. One of Buddha's attendants saw Mara, ran to Buddha and warned him of Mara's presence. Hearing his attendant's frantic warning, the Buddha simply replied, "Oh good, invite her in for tea."

This story captures beautifully how we should respond to the impostor syndrome. We know what the feeling is called. We know others suffer from it. We know a little bit about why we feel this way. And we now know how to handle it: Invite it in and remind ourselves why it's here and what it means.

For me, even after six years of sharing these simple sketches with the world and speaking all over the world, you think I'd be used to it. In fact, the impostor syndrome has not gone away, but I've learned to think of it as a friend. So now when I start to hear that voice in my head, I take a deep breath, pause for a minute, put a smile on my face and say, "Welcome back old friend. I'm glad you're here. Now, let's get to work."

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Learning to Deal With the Impostor Syndrome

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On paper, your investments in stocks, real estate or even cash may look like your greatest assets. While all those things are superimportant, you have something else that's even more valuable. It's the investment called you. Finding ways to increase your value while doing the things you love may be the most important thing you do.

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Emma Watson and feelings of "being found as a fruad"