9 | discrediting yourself
April 22, 2019
In this solo episode, I discuss how as early twenty-something it is easy to discredit yourself when you're a freshman at life and are living in a world that thinks you're naive. When in reality, you're credible about your experiences.
Transcript:
I was listening to some podcasts recently and people kept throwing around this term, this buzz word. The term was imposter syndrome. I was intrigued so I had to look more into it.
According to Wikipedia (which I know a lot of our teachers told us not to trust Wikipedia but I trust it), it says “psychological pattern in which an individual doubts their accomplishments and has a persistent internalized fear of being exposed as a "fraud".[1] Despite external evidence of their competence, those experiencing this phenomenon remain convinced that they are frauds, and do not deserve all they have achieved.”
Now I think the word fraud is harsh, but it gets the point across. To put it in simpler terms, examples of this could be you go to college, law school, practice law for ten years, but still doesn’t consider yourself credible to discuss law. Take someone who has been cooking for the past few years and even published a cookbook, but doesn’t consider themselves a chef or that they can’t talk about food.
So what exactly does it take for your accomplishments or life experiences to consider yourself creditable?
After reading this, the lightbulb went off. This is exactly what I was experiencing. I’m sure this something some of you are experiencing right now too.
Right now, we, as twenty-somethings, are the freshman in life. We are at the bottom of the totem pole again. We went from feeling like we were at the top in high school and college, back to being the little naive freshman. People keep telling us how we don’t know what the real world is like and we have a lot to learn. And you know, they’re right. We do have a lot to learn, but it doesn’t mean we don’t know or haven’t experienced anything.
At twenty-three, you have experienced many scenarios in life that involve struggle, heartbreak, hard work, and triumph. Think about it. You’ve been through some stuff already.
You’ve worked your butt off for the top spot on the sports team in high school. You been dumped by the person you thought was the love of your life. Maybe you’ve had that hard conversation of breaking up with them. We’ve made small mistakes and big mistakes. We’ve learned from them. You’ve taken those trips to places you’ve never been. You’ve stood by your family during the loss of a loved one. You’ve tried something one way and found another worked better. You’ve made friends. You have lost friends. For a lot of us, we just hurdled the obstacle of college graduation.
Sure, you haven’t experience it all yet, but who has.
All of these experiences are your experiences. No one can say you didn’t live them, they didn’t affect you, or you didn’t learn something from them. Each person has their own story. Each person can speak to and is credible of the experiences they’ve had.
You can speak to your experiences of struggle, heartbreak, hard work, and triumph. So who can say, including yourself, that us twenty-somethings can’t speak to our own experiences? You are credible to talk about your experiences. No one can discredit you. You certainly shouldn’t discredit yourself.
I have heard from other new graduates who have started at a new job, that is it easy to discredit oneself. Yes, you’re the new person in the office who is learning your new position and the company, but that doesn’t mean you don’t know anything or people can speak to your like you’re dumb. You went to college and you got the interview. There is obviously a reason why you’re there. So don’t let yourself think or let one person’s tone keep you from thinking you’re less capable of doing your job.
Do not let yourself think that you’re not capable of doing something just because you’re young and people think we are naive.
I’ll tell you that I was so so scared of starting this podcast. I totally discredited myself. I said to myself: '“How could I come on here and talk about the struggles of early twenty-somethings?” “I don’t have all the answers and I surely don’t have my life together, so how am I credible enough to have conversations about these topics?”
Like I said, it comes down to me being credible about my own experiences. I haven’t experienced everything, but I’ve had experiences that I’ve learned from. I can speak to how those went for me, just like how so many of my guests have been able to speak to their experiences on here.
Do not discredit yourself. You are capable of doing all the things that are right in front of you.