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One evening, I was talking to a good friend about work and our successes. I’ve had some important accomplishments recently, and I was telling her how I felt undeserving of the recognition.
I feared that soon, someone would point out how I didn’t know what I was doing. She said, look up impostor syndrome.
Great, I thought. There is a word to explain how I feel, but why do I feel this way? As I began looking into this, I’ve learned more about the syndrome and myself.
Impostor syndrome was introduced in a 1978 research paper by Pauline Rose Clance and Suzanne Ament Imes titled “The Impostor Phenomenon in High Achieving Women.” From the abstract:
“Certain early family dynamics and later introjection of societal sex-role stereotyping appear to contribute significantly to the development of the impostor phenomenon. Despite outstanding academic and professional accomplishments, women who experience the impostor phenomenon persist in believing that they are really not bright and have fooled anyone who thinks otherwise.”
Clance and Imes aimed their research at how the syndrome affects women, yet further studies have since shown that many men also suffer from the phenomenon. Why do so many of us feel this way?
I believe that part of it, for me, is confidence and insecurity. I understand deep down that I know what I am doing, but there’s that subconscious nagging jerk tapping me on the shoulder saying “But you don’t really understand this thing. Everyone else understands it and will figure out soon enough that you don’t.”
When you get positive feedback you think, that must have just been luck. And of course, there can be negative comments from people jealous of your successes that help crush you even further.
I try to push myself through these moments of insecurity by doing the things that feel uncomfortable. Writing these blogs, for instance, is not a comfortable thing for me. No matter how well I write a blog, someone is going to point out a mistake and figure out that I don’t actually know what I’m talking about. And why would anyone want to read what I have to say, anyways? I persist because positive feedback fuels my confidence in my knowledge, and negative feedback fuels my pursuit of knowledge and growth even further.
If this subject interests you as well, I encourage you to check out Valerie Young. She has some great resources in her blog that may help you understand and work with your impostor syndrome. (I found this one particularly helpful).
Another great article by SoundGirls: The Good & The Bad of Balancing Work and Parenting
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The mission of SoundGirls.org is to inspire and empower the next generation of women in audio. Our mission is to create a supportive community for women in audio and music production, providing the tools, knowledge, and support to further their careers. SoundGirls.Org was formed in 2013 by veteran live sound engineers Karrie Keyes and Michelle Sabolchick Pettinato and operates under the Fiscal Sponsorship of The California Women’s Music Festival, a 501(c)3 non-profit organization. In 2012, Karrie and Michelle participated in the “Women of Professional Concert Sound” panel at the AES Conference in San Francisco. The panel was hosted by the Women’s Audio Mission (WAM) and moderated by WAM founder Terri Winston. Terri brought together five women working in live and broadcast audio. The groundbreaking panel (which also included Jeri Palumbo, Claudia Engelhart and Deanne Franklin), provided young women and men a glimpse into life on the road, tips and advice, and a Q & A with the panelists. More importantly though, was how incredibly powerful the experience was for the panelists. We had all been in the business for 20 years or more, yet most of us had never met before that day and within minutes we bonded like long-lost sisters. We were struck by how similar our experiences, work ethics, and passions were and wondered why our paths had never crossed and how our careers would have been different had we been there to support each other through the years. Each of us are strong on our own, but together we were even stronger and a powerful force. We were empowered. Each of us had been asked hundreds of times in our careers: Are there other women doing sound? How did you get into sound? How would a young woman go about getting into sound? Through creating SoundGirls.Org, we hope to establish a place for women working in professional audio to come for support and advice, to share our success and failures, our joys and frustrations, and for empowerment and inspiration.
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