Episode 5 | Transcript
[0:00-0:17 | music intro]
[Jen Baker, Training Specialist]
0:18 | Hello, everybody, and welcome to playing well with others. I’m Jen Baker.
[Rochelle Stojnic, Professional Development Specialist]
0:22 | And I’m Michele Stojnic.
[Baker]
0:23 | And we’re so glad to have you back with us. We have taken a couple of months of a break, and we are back and it feels like a whole new world in [laughing] a lot of ways. So it’s a fun world to be a part of. Rochelle, what’s going on with you?
[Stojnic]
0:38 | I’ve been enjoying gardening.
[Baker]
0:43 | Yeah.
[Stojnic]
0:44 |And I’ve just been sort of thrown myself into trying to figure out what works best with this, like red clay soil, [laughing] the soil that we have. It’s a bit difficult to farm. Well, not “farm” because I’m not growing food because I would be terrible at that. [laughing]
[Baker]
0:56 | But I really, I really would like to see you in overalls, though. [Stojnic laughing] I think that “Farmer Rochelle” just sounds very fun.
[Stojnic]
1:05 | If we had enough land, I would have gotten like a tractor and everything. [laughing] But yeah. And it’s so relaxing. I had no idea. Like, I you know, I’m a city girl and I’ve always lived in cities all my life. And I didn’t try any house plants, which are the only plants that ever survived me were the ones that were in my office. But the pandemic has taken care of those plants, [laughing] unfortunately, which [Baker begins to interject] I left in my office.
[Baker]
1:31 | And oh no.
[Stojnic]
1:32 | Thinking that I will come back, you know, [continues speaking while Baker speaks] to clean up.
[Baker]
1:35 | After two weeks.
[Stojnic]
1:37 | Yeah, they’re yeah, they’re, they’re already composted by themselves. [laughing]
[Baker]
1:40 | Oh no! And to give you credit, though, that was, it was like a jungle in there.
[Stojnic]
1:47 | Yeah.
[Baker]
1:48 | Like you had a ton of plants.
[Stojnic]
1:49 | There is.
[Baker]
1:49 | And they’re all very healthy.
[Stojnic]
1:50 | Yeah. I think it was the fluorescent lighting. [Both laugh.] Like to be honest, they were just something—if anybody wants to know what kind of plants they were—they were like Porthos plants, which are like the most common and hard-to-kill house plants. And they would just like, keep growing. And these vines that I had to put up, like trellises from the pots. But there was something about those fluorescent lights that they just loved so much. So, but yeah, sorry plants. [laughing]
[Baker]
2:19 | Ah… Remember, I feel I feel very reminiscent of the 14 days to flatten the curve. [Both laugh.] When I say “reminiscent,” I also mean slightly traumatized.
[Stojnic, interjects while Baker continues speaking]
2:30 | Yes, yes here we are.
[Baker]
But here we are, and everything is opening up.
[Stojnic]
2:34 | Yes.
[Baker]
2:34 | And yeah, I know personally I am. I’ve gotten my vaccine
[Stojnic]
2:38 | Same.
[Baker, with affirmative interjections from Stojnic throughout]
2:38 | and I’m already inoculated now. It feels really good to be able to go out and see my other vaccinated friends and feel like there’s a lot more hope in the air.
[Stojnic]
2:48 | Certainly a more [laughing] hopeful time considering what we were feeling a year ago.
[Baker]
2:55 | Right.
[Stojnic, with affirmative interjections from Baker throughout]
2:55 | And I was so thankful. I don’t know, like, I just keep thinking about those medical professionals who are still fighting, you know, every day to keep people healthy and keep people alive. And I think, I think I feel like we sort of stopped talking about how amazing everybody, you know, in the medical industry is to keep supporting this entire world. But also, like, those risks. We don’t talk enough about the researchers who developed this vaccine for us. And I’m just like, wow, it’s like these are the superheroes I want to hear about every day. So yay! Shout-out to them. But yes, hopefully we’ll get back to normal soon. You know, now we have to readjust to not life before, but, I guess, life after. It’s a whole—I feel like it’s a whole new world either way.
[Baker]
3:43 | And that’s starting to lead us into today’s topic, too. When we have—when we’re faced with these rapid changes or even with changes come about, it often creates this feeling of, I don’t know if I could actually do this.
[Stojnic]
3:56 | Mm-hmm.
[Baker]
3:56 | I don’t know if I’m going to be successful at doing that. And we had been requested to talk about something called the imposter syndrome.
[Baker]
3:56 | If you’ve not heard about the imposter syndrome before, psychologists Pauline Rose Clance and Suzanne Imes developed the concept, and it was originally termed the imposter phenomenon. This was in 1978. So if you think about what the world was like in 1978, certainly a lot of social changes going on, and they focused their study on high-achieving women. And so they found that high-achieving women that even though they had already proven that they are able to accomplish something, they felt like they couldn’t.
So the imposter syndrome is really when even when you achieve something, even when you are proving that you can do something, you feel like there is something that people will discover about you, that you’re not—that you’re a fake, that you have not you’re not really able to do this, that you have something lacking. And it’s really you doubting your own abilities and feeling like a fraud.
[Stojnic]
5:05 | [inaudible]
[Baker]
5:05 | So go ahead.
[Stojnic, with affirmative interjections and laughter from Baker throughout]
5:06 | I just wanted to say that. Even though we call it imposter’s syndrome, imposter phenomena—the original naming—is probably more accurate. And this is not, like, an official disorder on the DSM for a psychological manual or anything like that. Your impostor syndrome can be something that you deal with on, you know, a situational basis or something that is just all-encompassing in whatever environment that you are in where you have it.
So it could be at work, it could be at home, it could be in your relationships, etcetera, etcetera. So how you deal with it depends on how strongly you feel it. And for some folks, even though it’s not in the DSM for manual, you might need, you know, a therapist to maybe walk you through some of this. So just bear in mind that it depends. And we’ll talk about ways to deal with it as well.
[Baker, with affirmative interjections from Stojnic throughout]
5:56 | Right. And something that I wanted to touch on, too, is that while the initial studies focused on women, it is not just something that women go through. It is really for everybody who has just—they’re concerned about their performance. And that really kind of is what it comes down to. It’s for folks that when you are worried about being able to do a great job and being able to perform in such a way that kind of earns you respect and earns—like shows that you’re capable of doing these things. Everybody goes through that.
There are studies that show that women, people of color may be people that have been marginalized in other parts that are non-heteronormative, that they might suffer from it a little bit more. But it doesn’t mean that everybody doesn’t have this at some point of their life in their career.
[Stojnic]
6:52 | The thing that I find ironic about impostor syndrome is that it disproportionately affects high-achieving people. [laughs]
[Baker]
7:00 | Right. Right.
[Stojnic, with affirmative interjections from Baker throughout]
7:01 | So these are people that are perfectionists, high-achievers, who feel like frauds. And often it’s, you know, people who are in competitive environments or just, you know, people who are doctors, lawyers, academics, celebrities—you know, anybody.
So you might be looking at somebody on Instagram and thinking that their life is perfect and that they have all that confidence and self-efficacy, but actually inside they have that imposter syndrome. So…
[Baker]
7:30 | Yeah.
[Stojnic]
7:31 | It’s so interesting.
[Baker, with affirmative interjections from Stojnic throughout]
7:32 | And just as a little diversion there, you bring up the Instagram thing and there’s a show currently, I think it’s on Netflix that’s called Fake Famous. That is fascinating. And in fact, like the prevalence of social media has really been helping with the imposter syndrome because people are creating all of these kind of fake personas in a lot of ways of like, “Look at how great my life is.” But in fact, they’re faking it. Like, they literally are imposters in some ways.
But then you feel like, well, if I’m not as famous or if I don’t have as many followers or if I’m not putting up the coolest quotes and have all of this great information, there’s something wrong with me, that I’m not I’m not being a successful human.
[Stojnic, with affirmative interjections from Baker throughout]
8:17 | Right. With imposter syndrome, this, like, inability to internalize and accept to yourself that you have accomplished something is important. So there’s that saying that you often hear: Fake it ‘til you make it. Sometimes it’s necessary to just—and that’s, you know, kind of one of the ways to get over impostor syndrome is just to do it and pretend like you know what you’re doing. But at the end of it, when you’ve accomplished it, you should accept that, wow, I’ve actually done this thing that I set out to do and be proud of yourself and pat yourself on the back.
But folks with imposter syndrome don’t get to that point. They just, you know, do it and say, “Oh, I was just lucky” or “It’s not me; I had a lot of help.” Or, you know, they just cannot give themselves credit for the success that they’ve achieved.
[Baker]
9:05 | That brings to mind—there’s a quote by psychologist Audrey Urban, who says, “The imposter syndrome can apply to anyone who isn’t able to internalize and own their own successes.” So even if you are successful, like you said, you sort of just dismiss it, you sort of just pass it off as a fluke.
And, you know, if only somebody is going to really look behind the curtain and see that that wizard is actually just some person from Kansas that is just doing their best,trying to create a little magic, right?
[both laugh]
[Stojnic]
9:36 | Yeah, but definitely there’s this fear of being unmasked.
[Baker]
9:41 | Right.
[Stojnic, with affirmative interjections from Baker throughout]
9:42 | As if you are not who you actually are, which is an accomplished person. And no matter what form. So mostly we talk about work because this is, you know, a work podcast, but it can also be at home. And I know that a lot of mothers or fathers and parents felt this way during the start of the pandemic, where all of a sudden the change magnified all the responsibilities that they’re juggling. And all of a sudden they feel like they don’t know what they’re doing when dealing with their kids or maybe their relationship.
I know a lot of folks have gone into a relationship—and whether it’s a friendship or a romantic relationship or what have you—and you think there’s a point in the beginning where you think, oh, my gosh, you know how lucky am I to have gotten this person’s, you know, friendship or whatever, and they’re going to figure out that I’m not as cool as they think I am. [laughs]
[Baker]
10:37 | Right.
[Stojnic, laughing]
10:38 | Right? How do I keep being cool?
[Baker]
10:40 | I’m still working on that, Rochelle. [laughs]
[Stojnic]
10:44 | No, you’re cool, you’re the coolest, Jen. You just see Jen’s hair, everybody. She is, like, rockin’ the awesome colors and wonderful haircut. And here I am with two Mickey Mouse-like buns on my head.
[Baker]
10:57 | You’re super cool too. [laughs]
[Stojnic]
10:59 | [laughs] But I own it. Anyway, but yeah. So it’s, like, in different facets of your life. You know, there’s the idea of multiple selves, but sometimes it feels like that self is not you. And it’s unfortunate because that person is wonderful and accomplishing and a contributor and, you know, all of those things. So let’s take accountability, not only, you know, for all of our actions, including the positive things that were right.
[Baker, with affirmative interjections from Stojnic throughout]
11:26 | One of the ways that I felt the imposter syndrome—I hate that word syndrome—but I felt like an imposter often shows up when either I’m applying for a new job and then I get the job and all of a sudden I walk in and go, oh, no, they [laughs] they might see that my resume is different. It’s not—it just feels that way. Like, what if they had a different perception of what I’m bringing to the table?
Another way that it shows up for me is [laughs] because I teach presenting skills classes. And if ever you were concerned about the showing how you what you should be doing and that actually having to do it, is, could be really a tough thing to walk the line. So it’s always like, oh, maybe I’m not a good presenter. I’m not sure, maybe I’m teaching them how to ever be a presenter, and I’m not even that way. How about you?
[Stojnic, with affirmative interjections from Baker throughout]
12:20 | I totally feel the same way, especially about job interviews as well. And even for me, I’ll take a step back, even looking at a job availabl—I mean, at job postings. And when you decide which jobs you want to apply to and you discount—I discount myself very easily if I don’t fit every single box of the qualifications that aren’t even necessarily requirements. And I’ll just be like, oh, I’m not qualified for that.
And then I go into the interview, and I, there is anxiety from not only speaking to people, but having to prove yourself (because that’s the point of an interview) and then thinking that everybody around the table is an expert and perfect and [laughs] you’re just, you know, this lame-o coming in and trying to act like you’re one of the, you know, one of them.
And then when I start the job, it still feels that way until, for me, the only time it starts to lift is when actually I’m able to start doing something. And then—
[Baker, with affirmative interjections from Stojnic throughout]
13:23 | Almost that element of like, I will show you I can, which in fact it’s sort of like I’m showing myself I can.
[Stojnic]
13:31 | Yeah. I think for myself it’s that second thing where I, I show myself where I can, where I have to take my emotions out of the equation and just focus on doing a task. And if I don’t give myself room to think about how I’m, you know, I’m doubting myself and just fill my head up with the task itself by the end of it, you know, I’ll be like, oh, look at that: Magically, I have done this thing that I was supposed to. [laughing] I must be amazing!
[both laugh]
[Baker]
13:57 | And that’s feels so good. Right?
[Stojnic]
14:00 | Yeah, it does.
[Baker, with affirmative interjections from Stojnic throughout]
14:00 | Of being able to say, like, oh, I thought that I wasn’t really going to be able to do this. And then all of a sudden, oh, hey, wait a second. I actually can, and I did it pretty well. And I think that that part is acknowledging it and kind of calling attention to it and bringing it to light is a really helpful thing, but we’ll get a chance to talk a little bit about some other ways to mitigate this feeling.
[Stojnic]
14:22 | Or another example is any time I’m thrown into a project that I’m not sure how to navigate around it—for instance, starting this podcast with you.
[Baker]
14:30 | Yeah.
[Stojnic]
14:30 | And, you know, there were a lot of imposter feelings at first like, me? How could a person like me have a podcast even though everybody and their mother has a podcast. [laughs]
[Baker]
14:41 | Right!
[both laugh]
[Stojnic, with affirmative interjections from Baker throughout]
14:43 | But you know, at some point you just you just try. And if it doesn’t work out, it doesn’t work out. Right. But, you know, there are times where it’s an imposter moment. I read this term while I was doing research for this. You can have an imposter moment, but you just want to make sure that you don’t have an imposter life.
[Baker]
15:01 | Oh, that’s good.
[Stojnic]
15:03 |Where you’ve just totally separated yourself from your efforts and from your success. So I think that’s important too.
[Baker]
What do you think is the difference between kind of some healthy gut checks of like, is this something that I’m able to do versus the full imposter feeling?
[Stojnic]
15:22 | Hmm.
[Baker]
15:23 | Do you see a line there?
[Stojnic]
15:25 | Can you repeat the first part again?
[Baker, with affirmative interjections from Stojnic throughout]
15:26 | Yeah, just kind of normal, healthy doubt of like, oh, I’m checking in with myself to see is this something that I feel like I’m capable of doing or I’ve done something similar that I could be successful. Because I don’t see that’s there is—I don’t know, personally and don’t take this as professional advice whatsoever—but I don’t see that as being necessarily a bad thing. I think that’s self-reflective, and I think that that’s also—
[Stojnic]
And for some people it’s motivating.
[Baker]
15:54 | Yeah.
[Stojnic]
15:57 | Right, right. So that’s a good question. And it reminds me of something that I read as we were preparing for this episode. And the person said that the only difference between people who display, like, imposter syndrome or imposter’s phenomena and those that don’t is how you act on that self-doubt when it happens.
[Baker]
16:15 | Ooh.
[Stojnic]
16:17 | So folks who don’t have imposter phenomena will do that thing where they take stock of what’s going on, this is how I’m feeling and they decide how to move on from it. But those who do will let it bog them down. It disables them from acting effectively, and they will do things like procrastinate or overprepare, which is something that I do [laughs]
[Baker]
16:41 | Oh, I, if we had video going, I feel like there’d be, like, arrows just pointing to my head because that’s something that I have a tendency to do.
[Stojnic, with affirmative interjections from Baker throughout]
16:51 | Yeah. So folks who will try to prove to themselves by just doing too much. But the danger, of course, if you do too much, you burn yourself out. To get over it, there has to be that end point of you admitting that you’ve accomplished something. And folks with true, like, imposter phenomenon or imposter syndrome just can’t get to that, you know, self-owning [laughs] point at the end.
But I think you’re right. Everybody does feel some sense of anxiety or nervousness, especially when they’re interacting in a new environment or a new project or what have you, something that’s novel. But it’s just how do you get over—not get over, but even use it, that anxiety to spur you on to do whatever it is you need to do. So, yeah, for me I think that’s the, that’s the line.
So again, there’s that, like, imposter moment versus, you know, and how long that moment lasts, you know, depends. Right? Or why are you going to have just an imposter [laughs] life where… Yeah.
[Baker, with affirmative interjections from Baker throughout ]
17:57 | Right. I love that distinction because, you know, I’m reflecting on my own life and thinking about where are the times that I passed on potentially really great opportunities for whatever for, you know, challenging myself on a new project or taking, a taking on something that is maybe a new-to-me thing. And I passed on it because I felt like I wasn’t, that, that couldn’t be me. [laughs] Because you don’t know the magician behind the curtain here. And so maybe I passed on things. So that’s, that’s a really good way to reflect: What do I do with this feeling in the moment?
[Stojnic, with affirmative interjections from Baker throughout]
And also in the work space, prolonged imposter syndrome can lead to your performance dropping for a number of reasons. Because you’re just, you’re just avoiding or procrastinating dealing with that thing.
And if that happens, of course, it leads—you have a drop in job performance, and it can lead to a drop in job satisfaction because you may not feel like you belong.
[Baker]
18:58 |What a self-fulfilling prophecy there, too, right?
[Stojnic]
19:00 | Exactly, right?
[Baker, with affirmative interjections from Stojnic throughout]
19:01 | Where it just creates the cycle of you start to doubt yourself, so you don’t do something right, which makes your job performance down, which is then proving in your head like maybe you can’t do something. And it just keeps cycling out. Yikes.
[Stojnic, with affirmative interjections from Baker throughout]
19:16 | And then for those of us who are who deal with that with overpreparing, you burn yourself out. Because you keep preparing, but you’re afraid to show your results and then you just get burnt out.
[Baker]
19:27 | Right? Now, it’s very easy to think of, like, well, was that really impostor syndrome or is this something that is just a little gut check, like we were just talking about, the distinction there. And some common signs would include the feelings of self-doubt. And, you know, again, these are very normal things. I don’t think that this is anything atypical. I think if you’re any kind of reflective of your performance, you’re going to have some element of self-doubt.
But when it becomes so much so that it’s preventing you from doing something that really becomes a problem. And then it also ties in with an inability to realistically assess your competence and skills. So you might be dismissive of—you forget how awesome you really are at something and you just think, eh, everybody is that good. Might not be so. It might be if you really take the time to stop and look at, you know, how am I performing?
And that could be conversations with managers, with your peers, even with people that report to you of just trying to get a sense for that. Right now, we’re in the middle of doing performance appraisals. So maybe this is a really great time to really get in touch with how are you performing? What is your competence and skills? What might you need to improve upon or what happens to be something that is just extraordinary?
[Stojnic]
20:50 | Yeah, and there’s something called—it’s been a while since I had this in psychology, so I don’t know if I’m getting this one hundred percent correct or at all correct—but there goes my imposter syndrome talking through myself. [laughs]
[Baker]
21:00 | Aw.
[both laugh]
[Stojnic, with affirmative interjections from Baker throughout]
21:03 | But essentially there is something called an attribution error where you attribute differently the reasons for somebody’s success or something’s success. Right. So you may look at other people and say, wow, you know, Jen really did great on this podcast because she’s so educated or she’s such an expert in her field.
And then I might say, you know, the only reason that I did well in this podcast is because Jen was working on me or because I got lucky that day or, you know, et cetera, et cetera. So you are more, you know, you don’t give yourself credit—the same credit that you would give someone else. And I think that’s important to watch out for, especially when you’re assessing how good you are. [laughs] Yeah, and not just how good. But just, like, you know, giving yourself credit.
[Baker]
21:53 | Seeing yourself clearly rather through kind of that of veil of negative self-talk or self-image. That leads into another sign that is attributing to your own success to external factors. So it’s almost like an internal, an internal bias there of like, well, no, I was just in the right time—right-place, right-time kind of thing.
[Stojnic]
22:14 | I was lucky. They were just being polite. [laughs]
[Baker]
22:17 | Right. Right, right, right. They didn’t really mean it.
[Stojnic]
22:21 | Yeah. All those compliments they didn’t mean it. This award that I have and the gift card—they didn’t mean to give it to me. They just felt bad for me.
[both laugh]
[Stojnic]
22:31 | Some people take it to a new level.
[Baker]
22:33 | Yeah. Sometimes I’m kind of wondering, I wouldn’t mind that very much.
[both laugh]
[Stojnic]
22:39 | Petty cash gifts.
[Baker]
22:40 | Exactly. I might be OK with that. Berating your performance is another thing.
[Stojnic]
22:47 | Oh yeah.
[Baker, with affirmative interjections from Stojnic throughout]
22:48 | Just not even seeing that what you might have done was really just wonderful. And you, in fact, you get on your case about, about every little minute thing that might not have been perfect. We’ve kind of danced around the perfection issue quite a bit, and when you put so much pressure on yourself to be absolutely perfect without any error, then any little error is going to be the only thing that you focus on. And that’s what you start really kind of just harping on in your own head.
And of course, you can’t own the success because all you see is the imperfection. Well, there’s so much beauty in imperfection and there’s so much humanity in imperfection, that we forget that part and or we don’t think that that’s available to us. It’s for everybody else, but not for me. I still have to be perfect.
[Stojnic, with affirmative interjections from Baker throughout]
23:40 | It’s a matter of fact, like I feel like such a hypocrite saying some of these things [laughs] I’m going to try my best. But certainly, you know, for perfectionists like Jen and I, I think are—
[Baker]
23:50 | Yes!
[Stojnic, with affirmative interjections from Baker throughout]
23:50 | We would consider ourselves perfectionsits. Any small mistake—this is going to negate whatever success you think you should feel from what you accomplished. And that’s ridiculous. If you’re a perfectionist, know that you are probably susceptible to this impostor feeling and you need to call it out when that happens.
[Baker]
24:08 | Yup.
[Stojnic, with affirmative interjections from Baker throughout]
24:09 | I wanted to mention that there are also some of us who are considered—and I saw this as a term—soloists, right?, in accomplishing a task. And this is true for myself, where I often feel like if I need help or if I feel like I need to ask for help, that means I’m a failure or a fraud. So I try to go it alone, and I know my manager, Mark, listening to this will know this is true about me. [laughs] And you know, and but I know it’s true about me.
And I think that’s always Step One to any problem, that you’re trying to solve. Just admit that there is a problem. But certainly I will have the tendency to avoid asking for help because I because I know how my self-talk becomes negative if I feel like, you know, I was weak or—because I needed help.
[Baker, with affirmative interjections from Stojnic throughout]
25:06 | Can I just tell you, I so appreciate your honesty and your reflection of that. [Stojnic laughs] Is that, it just, it’s a really hard thing to own. And I think, like you said, that calling it out for yourself and just, you know, you could even tell your coworkers—and I’m raising my hand here—like, hey, this is something that I tend to do. I know this about myself. Help me. Help—help me with this. And when you’re aware of this behavior in your own self, that if you are vulnerable enough to call it out for me around here, as I feel like I do every day in my life. If you’re vulnerable enough to be willing to admit that, like, it’s amazing the amount of support that you could get for that too.
[Stojnic]
25:49 | and for something like that, I don’t even know because—OK, so if I admit that I need help, more people or teammates like you will be more likely to ask me if I need help, right? Which is exactly what I needed. Because even if I admit to myself that I need help, it doesn’t mean I’m necessarily ready to take the next step to ask for help.
[Baker]
26:10 | Right.
[Stojnic]
26:11 | So just the admission and being able to be vulnerable and admit that to other people is probably what’s going to best alleviate that stress for me.
[Baker]
26:10 | Right. The next common sign is also a fear that you won’t live up to expectations, and those expectations could be external or they could be internal. So it could be your own expectations for yourself—and I think that that does tie into perfectionism. But I’m thinking this one—it resonates for me—for people that might have just graduated from school and they’re starting a new career or they’re just starting a new career, that maybe parents or partners have different expectations, that they think, well, you were a great student—you’re expected to be a great worker. And that puts all of these, these other pressures on you. Like, what if I’m not a good worker? What if I am not able to perform this thing that I just studied in school and I did well studying, and then all of a sudden I get out there and I’m not so great at this.
[Stojnic, with affirmative interjections from Baker throughout]
27:15 | This ties into the concept of something called a natural genius, where people feel like it has to come naturally to them—whatever it is that they’re trying to accomplish, because everybody else is naturally a genius at this. There’s also folks who—I think the term that I read in the article was—consider, they want to be supermen or superwomen. And they, they’re afraid that they won’t live up to this expectation of having it all. Right? So not only be good and perfect at work, but also at home, in the romantic relationships, with their kids, with, you know, their parents, with participating in social activities, and whatever other organizations you’re part of.
So folks who feel like they need to always be juggling all of those things with a smile and never drop the ball, right? Or never, yeah, lose the rhythm.
[Baker, with affirmative interjections from Stojnic throughout]
28:11 | I bet I heard that from my friends who are parents so much during kind of the pandemic year of, I should be able to do this. I should be able to parent and work and try to actually get some sleep. I should be able to do this. Why am I unable to do this? And it just starts to weigh you down constantly because you feel like, I can’t do anything right.
[Stojnic]
28:36 | Also reminding yourself that those are separate parts in your life is important. You know, I find that when people are stressed at work, and they allow it to bleed into other areas of their life, like their home life, you know, they start getting stressed about home life too. Or if there’s something in your personal life that’s distracting, it will distract you from work too—if you let it. So I think recognizing that those are separate things. So I guess that’s related to the next thing, which is overachieving. Right, Jen? Do you know something about overachievement, Jen? [laughs]
[Baker, with affirmative interjections from Stojnic throughout]
29:13 | Right. [laughs] Well, you were talking earlier about the feeling that you have to just keep doing more and more and more and be perfect at doing more. And even then that you feel like no matter what you do, because you’re not only your success, so you just keep achieving, but you can’t—you’re not actually stopping and taking the time to say, oh, wow, I really do that. And you just kind of keep plowing along. So it’s so easy to get to burnout and not to, not to love—
[Stojnic, with affirmative interjections from Baker throughout]
29:42 | And I think a lot of people, you know, use overachievement as a, as a way to prove themselves to others, but they don’t use it as a way to prove it to themselves, right? [laughs] Like…looking for certifications that you, like, may not need. That was like an example that I read. Like, people just want to keep listing certifications that they have or, you know, to improve their skills. But what has that? It hasn’t really proved anything to themselves. They’re just wanting to collect, you know, proof for other people, but not necessarily themselves.
[Baker]
30:17 | The last two are very interesting to me because there’s elements that you could start to see the— you’re really becoming your own worst enemy at this point. And the first one is sabotaging your own success. And this could look like many different things. It could look like not going out for a new project or not thinking that you’re eligible for a promotion in another department—just things that you don’t think that— You start buying into feeling fake, and so you’re going to prove it now—that you’re not able to do it. And you were talking, Rochelle, about your performance starts going down. And I think that that’s where it starts to come in—of not only am I going to show that I am a fake, but I also and I’m not going to perform like I could.
[Stojnic, with affirmative interjection from Baker]
31:10 | So like we mentioned before, if you have imposter syndrome, you tend to do negative self-talk. You miss opportunities because you feel like you’re not, you know, you’re not worthy. So like Jen said, you might not think you’re a fit for a promotion or a raise, so you don’t even ask. Like you don’t even take the opportunity to see whether it’s even a possibility.
And for, you know, we also talk about job performance and job satisfaction. And the thing that people also don’t think about is that the effects are not only for you, but for everybody else around you. So if you are not performing well, then the part of your team, then that part of your team is also not performing well.
[Baker]
31:52 | [laughing] And the last sign is to set incredibly challenging goals. And then when you can’t meet them, then it’s sort of, again, it’s that, it’s that cycle where you set these very high goals—too high—that are impossible to meet. And then when you don’t meet them, you’re like, “See, I told you, I’m an imposter.” And so it just, it creates this feeling of lack of success.
[Stojnic, with affirmative interjection from Baker]
32:17 | Yeah. And I think that’s. It has to do with just knowing yourself and knowing what you’re, what you’re capable of and being realistic, and that’s something that I that I struggle with in terms of time, like I always think— Because some things I do very quickly, and some things take me longer than I think it would take me. And I’ve had to learn to give myself, like, double the time that I think it’s going to it’s going to take because it’s better to give yourself that buffer than to just fall short and then feel terrible about yourself because you fell short.
[Baker, with affirmative interjections from Stonjnic throughout]
32:52 | Well and then you forget life happens. You know, I think, in fact, that was something that when we were recording, we— When we— OK, little real talk here, right? When we first started the podcast, we’re like, we’re going to record every week. And we completely forgot that not only do we have work things that we need to accomplish, but we also have lives. And there’s a lot of work that goes into researching and getting ready to record.
So having, setting those unrealistic goals—and we had to learn and adjust—and, you know, hopefully it didn’t, it wasn’t one of those things that fed into like, oh, gosh, can I actually really do this podcast? But it was a good reflection of, OK, well, we tried this out, and this was— it was too much that we weren’t able to do it in such a way that that made us feel comfortable or not totally stressed out. So adapting to what goes on in life is— [laughs] You have to understand you’re a human first, and you’re going to have things that happen.
[Stojnic, with affirmative interjections from Baker throughout]
33:52 | Let’s say you do falls short of your of your goal. Then what? Do you, like, wallow and say, oh, I’m a failure? No, because you still have to get it done. Cut yourself some slack. Inform anybody who needs to know that you’ve fallen short—if anybody does need to know—maybe it’s just an internal thin—and just keep going. Adjust and keep going. Right?
[Baker]
34:12 | Right.
[Stojnic, with affirmative interjections from Baker throughout]
34:12 | So let’s talk about why. Just very briefly, let’s talk about why it even happens. Like, why is there imposter syndrome? In general, people, you know, psychologists have thought that it’s maybe related to some personality traits like neuroticism or, you know, how prone you are to feeling anxiety in a situation. Right? So how anxious you become when you’re in a situation that is new or uncomfortable or has some conflict.
And, of course, like everybody, if you have something that you’re struggling with as an adult, it often stems from something that happened [laughs] growing up, right, in your childhood. So some experience that may have happened. So, for instance, I think it’s common for people to want to please their parents and when they were kids. So you internalize this wanting to please an authority figure when you’re, when you’re grown up and wanting to be loved or loveable and to achieve to make them proud of you. And you carry this through adulthood to, of course, you just transfer that feeling from your parents to everybody else [laughs] that matters to you: friends or your boss or etcetera, etcetera. And, you know, it becomes sort of like a self-perpetuating cycle. Like you just keep needing that approval. Right and—
[Baker, with affirmative interjections from Stojnic throughout]
35:32 | I can see, I can see that that could be prevalent in some cultures more than others, too, of like the stress on performing, even for very small children. I can understand how, like, that, that could be a very big cultural thing. And then also the definition of what success looks like is going to change, too, depending on culture and family and all of that.
[Stojnic]
35:58 | That’s right. And I’m glad you brought that up. So let’s see, another thing, of course, is, that will affect it is if you are thrust into a new situation—it’s unfamiliar, it’s stressful—maybe something like, I don’t know, a pandemic?
[Both laugh]
[Baker]
36:13 | Go figure.
[Stojnic, with affirmative interjections from Baker throughout]
36:14 | Why magnify that imposter syndrome? And especially for, like, you know, our pandemic, what happened right now. Something that helps to mitigate the effects of imposter syndrome is interacting with other people. Because when you interact with other people and you talk with other people, you see that most people are in the same boat as you.
So us being so isolated in this pandemic would absolutely make your [laughs] imposter syndrome worse. And the other thing that I think really bears mentioning is that there are systemic factors as well. I read this wonderful article from Harvard Business Review in preparation for this, and I was telling Jen about how when I read, I had to step back [laughs] and question everything I knew about imposter phenomenon or imposter syndrome because I think that lots of people mislabel a feeling of not belonging or feeling like they’re fish out of water as imposter syndrome when it’s actually the effects of systemic problems that have to do with things like racism or xenophobia or homophobia or etcetera, etcetera.
So we need to question the environment that we’re in and sort of put a magnifying glass on it to figure out is there any institutionalized discrimination that could be affecting or spurring on these feelings of being an impostor. Because for as—and Jen knows this, too, and she mentioned this in the beginning—that imposter syndrome of— the effects of it are especially felt by peop— by women, women of color, and any folks who belong in a minority group like LGBTQ or, you know, just like a racial minority ethnic group.
And one of the reasons that happens is because we as humans gain confidence when we see people that are like us, when we feel like we are part of a group. So if we don’t feel represented, if you don’t feel— if you don’t see representation, whether it’s in real life or maybe like, you know, growing up while you’re watching movies or TV, reading books—if you don’t see that representation of somebody that’s like you, when you get into that real-life arena, you’re going to feel like a fish out of water. And you’re not going to have the same confidence, than, you know, somebody who would belong in a majority group would feel.
So I think it’s very important to figure out what is the difference [laughs] between feeling imposter syndrome and just feeling part of a marginalized group and not getting the support that you need in that, you know, in that environment.
[Baker, with affirmative interjections from Stojnic throughout]
39:03 |That’s so powerful, and it’s so powerful just as coworkers to check in with your coworkers, right, your other coworkers. And really just being open and honest and clear with expectations. Because maybe if—in your head—you have an expectation that, of how it’s supposed to be, and that’s how-it’s-supposed-to-be was set by people that were different from you. And how is that going to be a realistic expectation for yourself? And if you don’t meet that, is that a reflection on you or the system that set it up?
[Stojnic, with affirmative interjections from Baker throughout]
39:42 | Yeah, and especially for the folks who are— the people who are leading a team, right? It is your responsibility to make sure that we’re addressing these things so that we’re not making it worse. [laughs] We’re not creating situations that will spur on imposter feelings or bring self-doubt to these folks who are, you know, very accomplished, but have that self-doubt because they’re part of a minority group. It’s so important for us to take a look and figure out, is this imposter syndrome or is this systemic?
[Baker]
40:19 | Right.
[Stojnic, with affirmative interjections from Baker throughout]
40:19 | And we can have both. We can help to affect both. OK, so let’s talk about— [laughs]
[Baker, with affirmative interjections and laughter from Stojnic throughout]
40:25 | What the heck do we do about this now? [laughs] All of it. There’s it’s so much and, you know, it can— And that’s the thing is when you’re when you’re having a moment where you’re feeling this feeling, it can feel overwhelming.
And it’s important to know that there are things that we can do about it on a small level and also on a big level. So I think one of the most important things is to remind ourselves that this feeling is normal. It’s OK to have this periodically in your life. I think it was Seth Godin—I had seen him at a conference a couple of years ago, and he said basically you would be a sociopath if you did not have at some point moments of feeling like an imposter. And I just I loved that quote.
Seth Godin is just— he’s a fabulous speaker and writer, really kind of management of the absurd, I think, is one of his specialties and just that feeling of like, yeah, you should have this feeling. This is— people— Everybody has this feeling. And that’s the thing about feeling like an imposter is you think nobody else has this hidden secret like I have, and everybody is feeling the same thing at the same time. So…
[Stojnic]
41:39 | Yeah. And I think I—
[Baker]
41:41 | Another thing. Yeah.
[Stojnic, with affirmative interjections from Baker throughout]
41: 41 | I’m sorry. I just want to mention I think I read that there— I read two statistics: One was 70 percent of people feel it, and the other statistic I read was—so that was from the international journal Behavioral Science—but in another medical journal, they, it went all the way up to 82 percent [laughs] of people who experienced imposter-type feelings.
So it’s absolutely normal. And as Jen mentioned at the beginning of this podcast, it affects everybody, right? Women, men, you know, professionals, stay-at-home parents, everybody. It affects everybody. Famous people, not-famous people. Of all—
[Baker, with affirmative interjections and laughter from Stojnic throughout]
Right. And you think you think that people who are kind of, like, on the top of their game, they’re high-level executives—I can guarantee you that it’s probably those people— like Jeff Bezos probably has this feeling all of the time. Well, maybe not Jeff Bezos. But it could happen! Even though you’re really at the top, that you have proven success, but there’s still that feeling of, this could all topple down when somebody discovers that I am not this person. [laughs]
[Stojnic, with affirmative interjections from Baker throughout]
42:48 | Oh, and also I wanted to mention this feeling is normal. And I wanted to mention, especially for our male listeners out there, I read that it manifests differently for men and women because men have a harder time acknowledging that it is imposter phenomenon because men tend to be—and I’m hoping that, you know, we’re having a cultural shift away from this—but men tend to be not encouraged or even discouraged to express their emotions. So they won’t acknowledge it. Right. So I think, men, if you’re feeling doubtful, is this imposter phenomenon or, you know, so it’s to see that. What’s next?
[Baker, with affirmative interjections from Stojnic throughout]
42:30 | Next up is remember what you do well, and even if this is, like, making a list. Here are things that I do well, and I’m such a fan of anything regarding strengths-based, just, performance, right? Where I’m thinking of Marcus Buckingham and Now, Discover Your Strengths, where you focus on here’s what I’m really good at. Because there are sometimes that you are doing things that you might not actually be good at and you probably don’t even like them. So to remind yourself, well, I might not love this, but here’s what I am really good at. And sometimes you actually are good at things that you don’t enjoy, but you’re still good at them. So give yourself credit for that.
[Stojnic, with affirmative interjections from Baker throughout]
44:09 | I was listening to a podcast that had Susan Imes, who is, who originated this research, and she said she also likes to make a list, Jen, and she does a three-column list.
So the first list are things that you could admit to yourself, with no guilt, that you’re not so good at that. Right? [laughs] The next column will include things that you’re pretty good at, you’re medium-good at, and the last column will be things that you’re very good at.
And it helps to just in those moments where you’re having self-doubt to return to that list and just know what are your strengths and what are some things that may not be strengths, but, you know, you’re OK with that. You’ve admitted to it.
And it also helps to have a list of things that you’ve accomplished or that you’re very good at, so that in times when you’re feeling doubtful about yourself, you can go back to it and read it and feel better. [laughs] And there is your proof that you ha— that you are actually accomplished and you did that and that’s great. And you can accomplish other things moving forward as well. You don’t have to get stalled in the moment.
[Baker, with affirmative interjections from Stojnic throughout]
45:13 | Yeah, I love that. I’m actually going to do that one. [laughs] I don’t know, I like that one. There’s something— I don’t know. I’m just a big fan of making lists anyhow. If I could have columns with lists—I’m good with that. [laughs] And I think that’s something I hope that managers are going to be receptive and not to punish your folks for.
Maybe this is an opportunity actually to look at your team and things that people are really good at and then arrange tasks in such a way that you get the people working on tasks that they’re really good at, that they enjoy doing, and then you’re going to, you’ll find balance in there.
[Stojnic]
45:51 | Mm-hmm. And, you know, there’s like two schools of thought, I think, with dealing with strengths and weaknesses. I mean, rather with weaknesses. Like do you just focus on your strengths or do you try to work on your weaknesses?
[Baker]
46:04 | Right. I have opinions on that, but that’s going to have to wait for another episode.
[Stojnic laughs]
46:09 | I’m so curious now. I’m sure listeners are curious too. We’re going to have to do a—Yeah, go ahead.
[Baker]
46:15 | The short— Right. The moral of the story is that you’re always going to be more successful when you focus on your strengths rather than try to kind of beat the weaknesses out of you. You’re not going to. No matter the training, no matter the time, you just won’t. And so you have to shift your focus.
[Stojnic, with affirmative interjections from Baker throughout]
46:31 | And it’s OK, right? Again, you don’t have to be perfect in everything. You don’t have to know everything. Yeah.
[Baker]
46:36 | Which is, which is the third— [laughs]
[Stojnic]
46:41 | Oh wonderful! [laughs]
[Baker]
46:43 | —what-to-do-about-it. Nobody is perfect. Even if you try to be perfect, nobody is perfect, and you are going to be more successful when you admit that and you allow other people to step in and help you out. When you admit, “Hey, I’m not perfect at this,” somebody can say, “Well, I would like to support you on that and let me see how I could help you out” or they’re going to forgive you and say, “Well, finally, somebody admitted that they’re not perfect.”
You and I could not be perfect. It’s always that, like, we’re hiding behind things, and if we’re willing to just open up and say, “Hey, you know what? I mess up and it happens, and I can still live my life and I can still be successful.
[Stojnic, with affirmative interjections from Baker throughout]
47:21 | Yeah, it’s no wonder that everyone else seems confident because, just like you, they’re hiding their doubt, too, right? It’s not natural for us to just reveal our doubts or what we consider our weaknesses. It’s not. Unless you have a conversation with somebody about that.
So, and I read a quote that I just love, and they said, “You don’t have to be perfect. It’s OK to just be good.” Or maybe even not good at something. You don’t have to be perfect. And that’s OK because it’s unattainable. Impossible. Next is…to change your thinking about what is realistic. Right? And I think we touched upon this a little bit before, right?
And that you honestly just have to reframe sometimes [laughs] and reassess where you’re at and what can you accomplish and whether you can accomplish it, whether you need help or whether you need, you know, whatever else.
[Baker]
48:22 | One of my favorite coaching questions is what, what would success look like? And success doesn’t have to be gold standard. Sometimes success is— Success would mean me getting through this podcast without crying, whatever it is. [laughs] Just what, what does success look like? And sometimes it’s just that: good enough—going back to your quote of like, this is good. This accomplishes my task. It doesn’t have to be perfect.
[Stojnic]
48:50 | That’s right. OK, next one is.. —Where am I? I lost my list.
[Baker]
48:56 |It is OK not to know what you’re doing.
[Stojnic]
48:58 | Which is exactly what just happened right now. [laughs] I don’t know what I’m doing. [laughs]
[Baker, with laughter and long sigh from Stojnic]
49:05 | You were like, wait, are you giving me advice right now or is this…? Oh no. That’s what to do about it.
[Stojnic, with affirmative interjections from Baker throughout]
49:10 | So yes, remember that it’s OK not to know what you’re doing, and I think what’s important is that you just take it as a learning opportunity. And you say, “Yeah, I don’t know what I’m doing, but I’m going to learn and I’m going to figure it out.” And then we move on from there. Let’s see. What’s next?
Look at your self-talk in ways in which you turn any— you can turn around any negative self-talk. Again, Suzanne Imes, who piloted this research, one of her things is to just to deal with imposter syndrome is to have self-compassion and to be kind to yourself. And, you know, to ask, does this thinking, is it helping me or is it, you know, keeping me or hindering me from doing what I, what I need to do?
You know, I think about—I don’t know if you’ve read this before, but I often read this as a, as a meme or a post online where people say that you should talk to yourself in a way that you talk, you would talk to a friend if you were giving them advice or giving them feedback.
And it makes me realize that the way that I talk to myself, the way that I berate myself is so violent. Like it’s like an abusive relationship sometimes. [laughs]
[Baker]
50:27 | Have you ever written down your negative self-talk?
[Stojnic]
50:31 | I couldn’t! Like people would be, like, what the…?
[Baker, with affirmative interjections from Stojnic throughout]
50:32 | Well, first of all, it’s just for yourself. I’ve done this before, and it is the most vile, hateful things that I would never in a million years tell another human being. And that’s going on in my head and it is terrifying of what it can be. And if you take the time to stop it, of being aware of, like, what is the story that I’m telling myself right now?
Oh, I’m telling myself that I’m a failure, that I’m this, that I’m that. And then say, well, what else could it be? What are some other stories that are different stories that you could tell yourself? It does— It starts to prevent some of that immediacy. Because that’s the thing—it’s in your head, so it’s like— [laughs] it’s automatically programmed in there. And if you just take the time to learn how to stop, it does make a big difference.
And the compassion thing that you’re talking about? That is something that my therapist constantly is saying: “Well, Jen, what could you do to be a little bit more compassionate in this thought?” And it really does stop you because you see how cool you could be to yourself.
[Stojnic]
51:37 | I mean, sometimes for me, sometimes I have to, like, almost create a separate character for myself.
[Baker]
51:44 | Oh, that’s good.
[Stojnic, with affirmative interjections from Baker throughout]
51:45 | You know, as if, like, I’m my own friend because I would never talk to Jen like this or I wouldn’t talk to my husband or my kid like this. Like, why do I talk to myself? So I have to talk to myself in the third-person sometimes. Especially when I’m having, like, super-dark days where I’m just, like, you know, imposter’s syndrome full-on or just doubting myself, I not only try to talk to myself in the third-person to talk myself down, but I try to talk to myself as— I’m puffing myself up. So I’ll say, like, “Ooh, Rochelle, you’re so cool.” [laughs]
[Baker]
52:20 | Yup. Yeah.
[Stojnic]
52:21 | So stupid saying it out loud.
[Baker, with interjections from Stonjic throughout]
52:23 | No, hey. Number One: Don’t berate yourself. It is not— And it helps.
[Stojnic]
52:23 | Yes, OK. I don’t want to use “stupid.” I meant “silly.” It sounds silly, but it— It does help. But yeah. So I’ll say something like, “Rochelle, you cooked an amazing dinner.”
[Baker]
52:38 | I love that.
[Stojnic, with affirmative interjections from Baker throughout]
52:40 | So I feel like I have this cheerleader inside myself rather than the person who’s, like, should never be allowed to talk to the public because— [laughs]
[Baker, with affirmative interjections from Stojnic throughout]
52:50 | They should be locked up in some, in some place and never, like, just the— kind of masked up when they can’t talk.
One of the things I love about this particular part of our conversation is that it’s leading into the next one, which is being vulnerable—that it is OK to admit that you’re unsure because, if anything, you are opening up a doorway for somebody else to say, oh, yeah, you too? I’m feeling that same way.
And it’s so hard to be the person who starts with the vulnerability because it feels unsafe, and it doesn’t feel like you are, you’re going to be supported, but most often, you’re going to be. So if you were— if you honestly say I’m really not sure I’m going to be able to do this thing, and then ask for help, then it might open up the door for everybody else to not only support you, but also to admit, hey, I’m feeling the same way.
[Stojnic, with affirmative interjections from Baker throughout]
53:47 | It goes back also to the idea that, like, you know, if you’re feeling like an imposter—if feel like you’re hiding something, if you brought it out in the open, you’re not hiding it anymore. And you’re going to feel better when you talk to somebody and they’re going to say, oh, yeah, me too.
Remember, like that medical journal said, that 82 percent of people have felt this at some point or the other. And who knows what the rest of the percentage population does not qualify as sociopathic? [laughs, with Baker laughing too]
Anyway, but opening up to others and being OK with asking for help—even asking for help itself is a way out of imposter syndrome. And of course, this is especially important for the folks who are in, you know, those underrepresented groups, who don’t see others as easily as going through the same thing, to get support from folks who are like you or your community to help make you feel stabilized and grounded in that situation.
And I also wanted to mention, if somebody comes to you and says, “Hey, I’m feeling imposter syndrome,” it’s not really helpful to say something like, “Oh, well, you’re great, you’ll be fine.”
[Baker]
55:06 | Ugh. Yes!
[Stojnic]
55:06 | Because it’s very dismissive.
[Baker, with affirmative interjections from Stojnic throughout]
55:09 | You and I are so on— We’re on the same page right now.
[Stojnic, with affirmative interjections from Baker throughout]
55:11 | You’re not even acknowledging that they feel that way or that imposter syndrome is the thing. You’re just dismissing it, and it’s not helpful whatsoever. So if somebody does come to you and say, I’m struggling with imposter syndrome today, the best you can do is, you know, thank you for sharing that with me. I’m here to support you in whatever way you need. You know, let me know if I can help. That’s it.
[Baker, with affirmative interjections from Stojnic throughout]
55:38 | Yeah, yeah. Just hear it. You don’t have to do anything with it, but please treat it—This was something that was just going through my head before you said it was, if somebody is willing to be vulnerable with you, treat it like one of the biggest treasures you’ve ever gotten because, you know, as a person how hard that is. And if somebody is willing to do that—particularly at work where there’s, you know, it’s high stakes—your livelihood is on the line here, right? Just treat it as the honor that it is, and you just please support that person in whatever that they’re telling you and be open and honest with them too.
[Stojnic]
56:15 | Mm-hmm. Excellent.
[Baker]
This reminds me, a couple of weeks ago we were describing our podcast, Rochelle, if you remember this, and I said, “It’s like therapy without the qualifications.” [Both laugh.] It’s just reminding me of this.
[Stojnic]
56:27 | Totally. [Both continue laughing.] We’re unqualified, and we say that not because imposter syndrome but because we don’t have the degrees or the licenses to give folks advice.
[Both laugh.]
[Baker, with affirmative interjections from Stojnic throughout]
56:35 | Please consult your professionals. But also we listen to our professionals as well.
[Stojnic, with affirmative interjections from Baker throughout]
56:46 | That’s right. Oh, and you know that, that’s a perfect segue and that, you know, friends and family and people who listen to you—absolutely, they are your go-tos, right? Your first go-tos. But if you feel like this is a deeper problem for you that’s really affecting your life, please go see a professional psychologist or a therapist. And that’s OK. They can help navigate you through how to unpack, you know, your issues or, you know, how to strategize a little bit more target it in a way that specific to you. So please get— seek professional help if you feel like you need somebody with a little bit more background than your friends or family or us.
[Both laugh.]
[Baker, with affirmative interjections from Stojnic throughout]
57:32 | And the very last thing of what we can do is to stay curious and be open. You don’t need all the answers that when you approach life with just curiosity and wanting to learn more and just keeping on digging, you’re never going to have all of the answers ever. But if you have that air of curiosity, it removes that pressure of I have to know all the answers. You don’t. You just have to start asking more questions, and you have to start learning more about what’s around you. And it’s not all on your shoulders.
[Stojnic, with affirmative interjections from Baker throughout]
58:04 | I read somewhere that our mindset needs to be less judgment, more curiosity, right? So just like if you’re meeting somebody new and you don’t want to be judgy, you tell yourself, I’m not going to be judgy, I’m just going to be open to it. You need to do that for yourself as well. Even though you think you’ve known you’ve known yourself all your life because there are still [laughs] parts that we don’t care to admit sometimes. So less judgment, more curiosity. Agreed.
I also wanted to mention one more thing, which I think was a common thread that I read, which is self-care. Sometimes you just need a moment and an opportunity to step back and take a breather and try to get yourself back on track with a healthy way of living, right? Whether that’s momentarily or in the long term.
So if that means just stepping out of your office or your room or wherever you’re working from and, you know, having a cup of tea to just let yourself decompress or go for a walk or go for a run, or whether that means like a normal or long-term basis, changing how you eat or getting more sleep at night. You know, you can only deal with these things if you’re at your healthiest mentally, physically, emotionally, etc.
So self-care. Whatever you need to do that helps energize you and will help replenish you, you do that and it’ll help you tackle it.
[Baker]
59:27 | Absolutely. I love it. Well, thank you, everybody, for listening. Be sure to check out the learning tab on My Talent for more research and training related to today’s podcast. You could also contact us now at our email, which is playingwellpod@unc.edu. We look forward to hearing from you. Keep learning, keep growing and keep playing well with others.
[Stojnic]
59:51 | Bye.
[Baker]
59:52 | Bye.
[59:53 | Music outro]