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15Jul

4 Ways to Help Stop Imposter Syndrome in its Tracks

Posted by: Jessi Andricks Categories: Burn Out Career Advice Perfectionism Stress Management
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Stop Imposter Syndrome

There is this thing that we SLPs experience regularly, in a huge amount, that likes to come calling when we are suddenly not 100% sure of a therapy protocol, if a session went differently than planned, when a parent asks us a question and catches us off guard, or when your supervisor says “are you sure?”. It’s that little voice, calling you from afar, like a creature luring you into a forbidden fairytale forest, only to trick you once you follow it.

And it is Imposter Syndrome. 

The feeling that you are a fraud. That you know nothing. That you are lucky you have made it this far, And that today might be the day when you are exposed and found out. 

I know I have experienced this as an SLP, as a yoga teacher, and as a writer, author, and coach here in this space. That sudden panic or thoughts that “oh no, I can’t be enough”.

I know I am not alone in these feelings, especially as an SLP. 

So many SLPs, maybe even you, head to work each day with their fingers-crossed, hoping that no one notices they have absolutely no clue what they are doing. Or, at least, it feels that way. That even though you have spent 6 or so years learning all of the ins and outs of the field and how to do therapy, and how to evaluate someone, and you are the expert in this, that, somehow, you are really just a fraud, disguised as the expert and the one who is knowledgeable about all of this stuff. 

Imposter Syndrome can be a huge block when it comes to letting go of stress, connecting to your work, and growing in it, even when challenges arise. It can come from perfectionism, and the competitiveness that is often in our field and in grad school. 

And it is really no wonder when you look at a few things about Imposter Syndrome. 

What is Imposter Syndrome?

According to the APA, “impostor phenomenon [also called Imposter Syndrome] occurs among high achievers who are unable to internalize and accept their success. They often attribute their accomplishments to luck rather than to ability, and fear that others will eventually unmask them as a fraud.”

This means that Imposter Syndrome happens to those who are used to striving for more, reaching high productivity levels and caseloads, and wanting to do the best, and do it “right” with no mistakes. It means feeling the need to be perfect and to do more than is expected, or more than is possible, to prove you are worthy of the position, of the work you do, and of being the SLP for these students or clients. 

And it sums up the realities of being an SLP better than any grad school flier or job recruiter ever could. 

Imposter Syndrome can happen when you are in grad school or in your CF year, or as a brand new CCC-SLP, but it can also happen when you are a “seasoned” SLP, who has been practicing in the same setting and building for decades. If you are leaning towards perfectionism or having to meet high expectations all the time, Imposter Syndrome is likely to hit and likely to keep you from reaching out for help. 

As WebMD puts it, professionally “If you  believe your career success is due to luck instead of your skills, you may be less likely to ask for a promotion or raise. You could also feel you need to overwork to meet the unrealistically high standard you’ve created for yourself.

Studies show that imposter syndrome can cause more burnout, lower job performance, and less job satisfaction.”

As an SLP, it is likely that you already know how hard burnout can hit in this field, and that chronic stress can lead to it. But you might not have realized that the perfectionist tendencies or doing more and doing the job *just right* might be leading to that same burnout and overwhelm, rather than helping with it. 

If you are facing Imposter Syndrome, here are a few things you can do.

4 Ways to Stop Imposter Syndrome in its Tracks

Bring in awareness: Where is it that you are currently struggling to do more or do perfectly? Where are you feeling that you are not enough, and possibly striving to prove you can do it?

Just observing this part of your day and your habits, brings awareness to it. In mindfulness, awareness is often the first step towards creating new habits or making a change. It is about seeing what is happening, so you can understand it better, without forcing it to be different or labeling it as “bad”, “wrong”, or “not good enough”.

Reflect on it: Ask yourself, what is the purpose here? What is not working and what is working?

You might be familiar with hearing people say “remember your why?”. So, when I say, “what is the purpose here”, this is not quite what I am talking about. Remembering your why can be helpful when you feel disconnected and have had a really tough day. But this is something a little different. 

Here, take a movement to pause and reflect on what the purpose of what you are doing, the Imposter Syndrome-inducing, perfectionist-driven things, and what the point of them is. If you are working really, really hard to do more and take on more, to prove you can do it, stop and ask yourself, “Why this action? What is the purpose?”. It can help you to take the awareness to the next level  – to move from noticing what is happening to understanding why it is happening and why this is what you are using to work with. 

Often, when you go back to the purpose of it all, you can see how the habits and strategies you are using, that are leading to Imposter Syndrome, are keeping you from reaching that purpose, rather than bringing you towards it. 

Take note of what is not working for you, and, in the next step, find some ways to help shift and move forward. 

Shift your focus: What is working and going well?

 If you are stuck in Imposter Syndrome, you are likely very hard on yourself and critical of the work you do each day. This means your focus is on what is not going well, what you are not doing “right” and what is not working, over and over and over again. If you start consciously shifting ot what is working, and train yourself to make this a habit and routine each day, it can help you to see all the things that you are doing well, give you motivation to do more of those, and connect you back to your work, without the need to prove you are worthy of it. 

Reach out for support. Find an SLP friend or mentor that you can reach out to and share your feelings of Imposter Syndrome with.

When I was a new SLP, especially in the school setting, I felt really alone with my struggles of feeling disconnected from my work. It seemed like everyone else LOVED their work, enjoyed coming in early and staying late, and lived to be an SLP with each and every breath. And I just didn’t. And that was ok. I just didn’t know it then. 

Having people who I can reach out to now, and seeing that others are going through similar things and other things, helps to know that we don’t need to be perfect to be an SLP. We just need to keep showing up. And we don’t know it all or won’t always to it *just right*. 

Social media can make this seem even worse, when you see people talking about how they would NEVER do therapy this way, or showcasing all the perfect and wonderful things in their day while leaving out the challenges, or judging others for not being perfect. It is NOT the reality of most things and is typically one-sided (another post for another day).

Finding a group of SLPs online that are kind (not judgmental or snarky) or a mentor you can reach out to when things are confusing or a friend you can go grab a coffee/wine or zoom call with, can help you to work through it and not feel like the only one who doesn’t know it all. 

If you are feeling that you are not good enough or in the wrong field or that you have no idea what you are doing, first know that you are not alone, and second, now that it is Imposter Syndrome calling you in. 

Stop, become aware of it, reflect on it, focusing on what is working for you, and find someone to connect to where you can share your feelings and frustrations or ask a question or twelve. 

When do you feel Imposter Syndrome the most? Share in the comments below!

For more resources, to help with Imposter Syndrome and Managing Stress, make sure to sign up for The Resilient SLP Toolbox. You’ll get access to online yoga classes, meditation audios, journal templates, guides and more. 

Enter your email below for immediate access. And, hey, did I mention it’s FREE!!

With Love and Light, 

Jessi

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21May

How Yoga Helps Me Work on My Perfectionism

Posted by: Jessi Andricks Categories: Mindful Movement Perfectionism Stress Management
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yoga helps me work on my perfectionism

Perfectionism is something that a LOT of SLPs deal with each day – sometimes as a result of being an SLP and going through the rigorous (often unrelenting) grad school process, and also, sometimes, it is what makes the field and training seem enticing. 

Perfectionism can seem like a great thing – always getting it done and doing it right, no room for nonsense or errors. It can seem powerful and strong, but it can also be really harmful. No mistakes allowed is not realistic. Constantly trying to do more and do better and do best is not sustainable. Always being strong and powerful, with no give and no flexibility, can cause you to break. Making an error or not knowing something leads to imposter syndrome and feeling like you are “not good enough”.

And all of these contribute to major stress, overwhelm and burnout.

I know, because I can relate and have dealt with this myself. 

My Mom recently told me, when I asked her what my biggest behavior challenge was growing up, “Nothing like that. We would just have to try to convince you to put down the [school] books and stop studying.”

Growing up, I was an overachiever without realizing it. I was really hard on myself for not getting the top scores on standardized tests, not winning the entire school spelling bee, not making it into the gifted program on the first try, or not being seen as cool enough by my peers. All of this and more before the age of 10. Ugh.

In later years, it became competitions with my best friend to see who could get the better grade or SAT score. And then, after a brief stint of having no expectations for myself in college, it kicked back up so I could get into my one choice of grad school. And when I got there, I realized, my perfectionism was not just an inner expectation, but an outer expectation from the school itself. But with juggling a LOT of life stuff at this point, my school work was not perfect (but it was absolutely great) and so I would forever feel the “not good enough”, “we expected more”, “ we thought you could do better” that followed me into my career as an SLP. 

And, unfortunately, after talking and working with 100s of SLPs about this, I know I am not alone. Perfectionism often drives us into our career choice, and serves us well early on, but it can also be the thing that leads straight into chronic stress, overwhelm, burnout and the feeling of not knowing, doing, or being good enough. 

yoga helps me work on my perfectionism

It took me a lot of time (5 years away from the field) to really work through this, and I still deal with it every day, at work and at home. I often have feelings of not being productive enough, not doing my share enough, and knowing I could have done more, if only. 

But there are also things that I know can help my work through my perfectionism, and my yoga practice has been #1 in helping me do this. Time after time, yoga helps me work on my perfectionism, among other things. I started practicing more and more as I went through grad school and into my career as an SLP, eventually training to teach yoga. When I feel stress and perfectionism creep in, it is my go to, and often something I had stopped doing in order to tighten up on being perfect in another area. 

My practice has been a true light for me. It started as a fun physical activity, and has become a foundation for how I live my life. 

Here are some (honest) ways yoga helps me work on my perfectionism:

  • My practice is rarely perfect
    • I’ve been teaching for 10 years, and practicing for about 5 more. But it does not mean it is always pretty or that every pose is perfect. In fact, a lot of the time the practice rarely is. 
    • I wobble. I fall. Some days I am strong and others I am weak. Somedays I am flexible and others I feel like I might snap. 
    • I have one pose I have been working on for almost 15 YEARS. And I finally feel like I am making some progress. That is a far cry from perfectionism and it feels damn good. 
  • It challenges me to try new things
    • I never would have tried some of the poses or stood on my head or known I could balance on my arms (sometimes) if my practice had never challenged me to do so. 
    • It helps me to jump into something that I may not be perfect at, to explore it as something new, and to know that, because it is new and a challenge, that it might take time (15 years or so) to achieve it – and then there is always more to do. 
  • It challenges me to grow and expand what I think I know – new ways of doing things
    • It is really easy to get stuck in thinking that my way of doing things is the best way (we all feel this way at times, sometimes pretty often). Yoga helps me see that there are a LOT of different ways to do something. YOu can do the same pose day after day and feel it differently or get to it a different way each time, and you end up with a totally different experience. You can go into a pose from so many different angles or poses and it changes it too. 
    • As a teacher, I get to see how each student and each class varies, and how things can work or backfire differently for each one. 
    • Yoga has helped me see there is no “perfect” way to do something, and that different approaches work at different times. 
  • Sit with the uncomfortable
    • Being perfect is often used to ward off any feelings and thoughts that are uncomfortable. If I (you) am (are) perfect, then there will be no bad feelings, no backlash, nothing uncomfortable to sit with. And of course, this backfires and creates a ton of uncomfortable feelings (like stress) and these continue to feed the control of perfectionism. 
    • Yoga helps me to sit with the uncomfortable, in my body and my thoughts. While taking a meditation, I sit with what shows up, which can sometimes be tension in my body or unkind thoughts. The practice teaches me to just breathe, sit with them, explore them, and remain less attached to them. 
    • During the physical practice, things are NOT always comfortable. But I am cued (by my teacher or myself) to stick with it, focus on breathing, and see what shows up, what shifts, and what I can learn from that discomfort (sharp shooting pains, always move out of the pose, FYI). 
  • There are days when I feel like I nailed it, and others when I think it went all wrong.
    • This is so true, especially for meditation. Some days I feel like I conquered the practice. I was perfect, went beyond what was asked and really enjoyed it. And other days I struggle with the basics, am asked to do something that I haven;t yet mastered (and am therefore far from perfect), or my mind wanders all the way through my guided meditation audio and I realized I heard nothing they dais beyond “take a seat”. 
    • These days are hard, but remind me that it is a practice. It is not meant to be perfect. And life is the same way. 
  • Some days are really, really, unpredictably difficult
    • After practicing, and doing physically demanding classes (and things like running), I expect (aha, perfectionism alert) that my class will be easy. But there are many, many times that a simple, basic class is unpredictably difficult. I feel tight, tired and stiff, my breath feels tuck instead of flowing, and my mind is anything but focused. 
    • It teaches me that, even with training and planning, things happen. Being human happens. Life happens. And we can either get mad at it, or go with it, learn from it and keep on moving. 
  • It is never ending and there is no “perfect”
    • Even with the poses that I have learned, or with a style I am familiar with, there is no perfect. It is a practice. It never ends. Once you learn a pose and can do it without difficulty, there are still ways to deepen, to do more and learn more and take it further. Forever and ever and ever. There is no real perfect, only the process. 

All of these things, and many more, I have grown and worked through with the help of my yoga practice. It remains, after many years, a constant (even when my practice looks very different over the years) in helping me work through perfectionism, and manage my stress and overwhelm overall. 

If you would like to try out a practice, to help you work through some perfectionism, make sure to sign up for the SLP Toolbox for FREE yoga practice audios. You can subscribe below. (Already a member? Click here to access).

You can also download the “Mindful Movement Weekly Planner” available in the SLP Stress Management Shop, to help you start your journey and see how it helps you when you are practicing regularly. The Planner includes a journal and printable planner pages (or use in a digital pdf app), guiding you through what types of yoga (mindful movement) you want to try and when. The planner part takes you through the week, from creating your plan, keeping track of what you are doing and when, and then reviewing how it went and what your next steps are.

It is now currently 50% off (along with the entire SLP Stress Management Shop) for Better Hearing and Speech Month.

Do you practice yoga? How has it helped you with perfectionism, or how do you imagine it might help you? Leave in the comments below!

Much Love, 

Jessi

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