On the 30th of October 2018 Code Like a Girl held an event in Adelaide to discuss how to Overcome Imposter Syndrome. The guest speaker was Teresa Janowski, CEO of Stem Nation a non-profit organisation that runs school programs to encourage students to take up a career in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics).
Teresa discussed her career in engineering and management, as well as some really useful insights into how she has been so successful:
- Be a little bit brave and speak up
- Have mentors you can call on for advice
- Have a small group of friends who have your back
- Read. Read. Read. (see recommendations below)
- Limit time watching TV (so you can read)
- Attend networking events
- Journal daily to put everything that is in your head down on to paper
Some of Teresa’s book recommendations:
Overcoming Imposter Syndrome Activity
After Teresa’s talk the Code Like a Girl team led a written activity to help us overcome imposter syndrome that asked us to:
- R – Record successful outcomes and Feedback
- Take notes of quantitative and qualitative examples of your success.
- This part is about gathering evidence of specific achievements – not just how it made you feel.
- E – Evaluate Negative Imposter Thoughts
- Learn to recognise these thoughts when they arise. This will take practice!
- Write down the thought.
- Can you pinpoint where it’s coming from? How does it make you feel?
- A – Ask trusted people for their opinion
- Sometimes it’s easy to get stuck in our own head.
- Look outside yourself for views of those you trust.
- C – Challenge assumptions with data
- Reflect on your notes from the first section. Does the data support or contradict the imposter thought?
- Here is where we learn to separate legitimate concerns from imposter thoughts.
- T – Transform the Imposter Thought
- Based on the previous steps, write down a revised thought.
- Next time you feel this way you’ll be able to reflect on this process.
It was a really useful exercise that made me stop and think about my fears and see how they are unfounded due to my many other successes. Asking others for their feedback is key. What we tell ourselves isn’t always how others see us.
Overcoming imposter syndrome isn’t specific to coding, it applies to all areas of our lives and this event really helped to open my eyes to actions I can take to feel like a belong anywhere.
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