There’s this trend going around Instagram about a woman, usually a Mom, showing a clip of her current life and then it flips to a volcano exploding, a huge lightning storm, and I think an earthquake. The point of it is that the woman didn’t get to where she is today without going through the volcano eruption, the lightning storm, and the earthquake. That got me thinking about my own journey over the last 10 years. Recently I’ve been spending time on LinkedIn looking for starting points for leadership development research and articles. While I’m sure it’s due to the algorithm, I feel like I’ve seen an inordinate amount of articles focusing on women and imposter syndrome. That’s a syndrome I know well and have chosen to do a lot of work around the last 10 years - yes, you read that right. A decade. 10 years of doing the work in and out of therapy to be confident in the skills and talents I’m hardwired for by design and have learned to hone through challenging times (not too different than erupting volcanoes, etc). Years of doing the work to believe that I’m not a fraud (the term used in the actual definition of imposter syndrome) and one day someone will come marching in and remove me.
Women and Imposter Syndrome
I know this is not a challenge unique to me. At age 40, I’ve had the privilege to hold titles and roles I didn’t even know existed at age 15 when I thought being a teacher would be the pinnacle of my career. Or maybe a campus principal if I was feeling ambitious, which, sidenote. I was your stereotypical high achieving, do all the things, and chase after the gold stars of affirmation and acceptance student with teacher comments on report cards like, “JoEllen is an amazing leader in the classroom”...in the 4th grade. Is this a bad thing? Absolutely not. Through the years, that drive resulted in scholarships that helped put me through college and helped me survive my Freshman year Biology course which had way more math than it should have. My desire to achieve and be the best led to incredible opportunities to learn around the world in high school from different cultures and leaders. That same drive would show up decades later as a parent advocating at the IEP meeting table for my child who couldn’t advocate for themself yet. Along the way on the advocating journey, though, the need for acceptance and approval got smaller and the drive to make sure my children were served well and receiving the education they needed grew into a core of courage. One of the foundational pieces, I’d learn, for me to move past the imposter syndrome that lingered.
Making the Insides Match the Outsides
On the outside, I was polished. Professional. Presented to leaders with confidence and influence. As a Mom, I was the one sticking to the schedule, reading all the parenting articles, researching, and doing all the developmentally appropriate activities.
New headshot where the insides match the outsides!
And on the inside, I was doubting it all. Who made me the leader of this team? I’m the one in charge of program rollouts across an entire state? Who let me leave the hospital with a child?! We are the ones making decisions with doctors about their future? Nevermind that I had worked hard as a teacher to build skills that led me to greater leadership opportunities. Never mind that we had kept our child alive (and even mostly thriving) for several years at that point.
And somewhere along the way, in the last 3 years especially, I’ve done the hard work to move through the syndrome every mom, especially working moms, experience. And if I’m keeping it really real, it’s been a combination of therapy, friends who honestly reflect back my strengths AND weaknesses, and a life partner (shoutout to JDG) who believes I can do anything because of the fields of lava we’ve navigated together. Coming out on the other side of Imposter Syndrome, at age 40, looks like this for me:
I don’t doubt the rooms that I’m able to walk into now. Even in a brand new to me industry that is wildly demanding of excellence. I walk in confident because I know these tables and conversations are exactly where I’m supposed to be. I am the poster child for transferable skills, tenacity, and an enduring belief in hope and courage.
I view life less seriously now. My children have taught me this time and time again. Slow down. Smell the flowers. Hold your breath so the butterfly will stay 3 seconds longer. Listen to the silly make up jokes and laugh with your whole self. I bring an actual unicorns and rainbow lunchbox to work - and it makes people smile! Looking for and finding whimsy is a skill I always want to be honing.
I’m at peace with the fact that I don’t have to know it all or be it all. In fact, last week someone commented that they “don’t know how I do it all!” I calmly smiled and gently said, “Oh, I don’t do it all!” and that was it. I didn’t go into a long-winded explanation. Just acknowledged the truth in a kind way.
Highly recommend using your daughter’s former lunchbox for bringing some whimsy to the office.
While there are still days where I think, “Who am I to try to connect with people about working and parenting and having neurodiverse kids and advocating, and drinking coffee while it’s hot?!”, I can say those days are less. I may not ever have a “following” of thousands online because I’m honestly not cool enough nor do I really have the time to keep up with the social media algorithms.
What I do hope is that through sharing pieces of my story and our journey, I’m giving even one struggling Mom hope that she’ll make it to the other side of a diagnosis or challenging stage of life. To know that she’s not alone in feeling overwhelmed, overstimulated, and underqualified. If I can provide even one panicked parent the resources to navigate a school and medical system that is wildly complex, then it’s worth the late nights to stay up writing. To be able to show people who need to see that joy and hope and courage and grief and sadness can all be held at the same time. That’s the win in all of this for me.
So while I doubt myself still on some days, I know now how to tell that voice to sit down and be quiet.
There’s work to be done and joy to be found.
Love you, mean it, friends.
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