Skip to content
ADVERTISEMENT
Sign In
  • Sections
    • News
    • Advice
    • The Review
  • Topics
    • Data
    • Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion
    • Finance & Operations
    • International
    • Leadership & Governance
    • Teaching & Learning
    • Scholarship & Research
    • Student Success
    • Technology
    • Transitions
    • The Workplace
  • Magazine
    • Current Issue
    • Special Issues
    • Podcast: College Matters from The Chronicle
  • Newsletters
  • Events
    • Virtual Events
    • Chronicle On-The-Road
    • Professional Development
  • Ask Chron
  • Store
    • Featured Products
    • Reports
    • Data
    • Collections
    • Back Issues
  • Jobs
    • Find a Job
    • Post a Job
    • Professional Development
    • Career Resources
    • Virtual Career Fair
  • More
  • Sections
    • News
    • Advice
    • The Review
  • Topics
    • Data
    • Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion
    • Finance & Operations
    • International
    • Leadership & Governance
    • Teaching & Learning
    • Scholarship & Research
    • Student Success
    • Technology
    • Transitions
    • The Workplace
  • Magazine
    • Current Issue
    • Special Issues
    • Podcast: College Matters from The Chronicle
  • Newsletters
  • Events
    • Virtual Events
    • Chronicle On-The-Road
    • Professional Development
  • Ask Chron
  • Store
    • Featured Products
    • Reports
    • Data
    • Collections
    • Back Issues
  • Jobs
    • Find a Job
    • Post a Job
    • Professional Development
    • Career Resources
    • Virtual Career Fair
    Upcoming Events:
    College Advising
    Serving Higher Ed
    Chronicle Festival 2025
Sign In
Advice

How to Overcome Impostor Syndrome

By Sindhumathi Revuluri October 4, 2018
Impostor Syndrome
iStock

Pathologized for a reason, “impostor syndrome” runs thick in the veins of academics, from newly arrived graduate students to those nearing retirement (yes, really). It seems to be such a deep part of the ecosystem of the academy that it is hard to imagine faculty life without it. At the same time, it can be deeply painful and damaging, almost paralyzing.

To continue reading for FREE, please sign in.

Sign In

Or subscribe now to read with unlimited access for as low as $10/month.

Don’t have an account? Sign up now.

A free account provides you access to a limited number of free articles each month, plus newsletters, job postings, salary data, and exclusive store discounts.

Sign Up

Pathologized for a reason, “impostor syndrome” runs thick in the veins of academics, from newly arrived graduate students to those nearing retirement (yes, really). It seems to be such a deep part of the ecosystem of the academy that it is hard to imagine faculty life without it. At the same time, it can be deeply painful and damaging, almost paralyzing.

So what is impostor syndrome and how do you get over it?

In 1978, two psychologists, Pauline R. Clance and Suzanne A. Imes — first identified what they called the “impostor phenomenon.” They described it as “an internal experience of intellectual phoniness.” Their research was based on work with “high achieving women” in which they found this phenomenon to be particularly prevalent.

Two important stipulations to make before going any further:

  • Impostor syndrome arises in spaces of achievement where judgments are made about merit. You don’t feel like an impostor at the public library or on the subway. The hoops that you jumped through in graduate school and on the job market are real, and looking back on them, it may be tempting to think that you walked around them instead of through. But nobody actually does.
  • Second, the origin story of this research is often framed as a surprise: Despite all of their external achievement, these women still felt like they didn’t belong. Which just goes to show you: Feeling like an impostor doesn’t have much to do with what you have done. It has to do with how you feel.

The good news: You can find ways to feel better about who you are and what you have done, and as a result, maybe even achieve more. Here are a few suggestions (which you shouldn’t feel bad about not having already internalized):

Compare like to like. Are you an early career faculty member? You probably don’t know as much about navigating your institution, managing your time, or teaching new courses as a veteran. That makes sense. Don’t confuse capacity to learn and improve with pre-existing knowledge. Same for those who have been in the game for a while. When you see the young phenom using new slang and connecting with the pulse of the field, remember that that is their job now. Your experience is valuable in other ways.

Focus on what you have accomplished in and of itself, not as compared to what you had hoped to accomplish. Not a single one of us can say that we have crossed off everything on our list forever. Reframing your narrative as one of concrete accomplishments shifts your focus to the presence of labor and achievement, and away from the absence of “more.” Once you do that, work on the story you tell others about yourself. Telling that story well will benefit you as much as it instructs others.

Ignore the problem of other minds. With apologies to philosophers, this boils down to: You don’t know what other people are thinking about you; they don’t know what you are thinking, either. Even their clear statements about your work do not reveal anyone’s disposition about your suitability for academic life. Academic work may feel more personal than other kinds, but it is important to remember that assessment of your scholarship is just that — it reflects your work, not you. For those of you whose scholarly work involves deconstructing words, this may be a difficult habit to break.

Avoid the Facebook (or other social media) trap. Not everyone is happy and successful even if their posts and tweets make it seem so. You are a smart person; you know this. Don’t be lured into doubting your own abilities by other people posting about their successes.

ADVERTISEMENT

Think about how you cede authority. If you’re writing a paper and feel like you aren’t “allowed” to make a particular argument, force yourself to sit with that feeling and interrogate it. Who is allowed to make that argument? Why? And why haven’t they already made it? The answers to those questions may make their way into your work — for example, in the form of additional citations or a reflective lit review. Done smartly, this awareness can actually make your argument stronger and more compelling.

Don’t confuse genuine humility with feeling like an impostor. At the same time, don’t give away your hard-earned findings. Say you are delivering a conference talk and the pre-eminent scholar of your field is in the room. Acknowledge that person. The truth is — whether you are furthering the senior eminence’s work or digging a tunnel under it that will lead to its collapse — you couldn’t be doing what you are doing without that person. Maintain your integrity by being honest with yourself and others about where your work builds on that of others.

Learn how to take criticism. One of the best books on that subject is Thanks for the Feedback: The Science and Art of Receiving Feedback Well (even when it is off base, unfair, poorly delivered, and, frankly, you’re not in the mood) by Douglas Stone and Sheila Heen. They encourage us to look for what might be true in feedback, no matter how viciously it was framed. What is someone actually saying about your work (not just what you think they are saying)? Are you translating a reader’s report comment from “The author should have included the following secondary sources,” to “The author has no idea what he is talking about”? Maybe the latter is what the reviewer meant but that’s not what he or she said. The first you can do something about — go add those secondary sources and send the article back out. The latter interpretation probably isn’t true, and even if it were, there wouldn’t be much you could do about it in the context of revising your article.

Be realistic about the nature of academic work. Rejection is part of the game. You only need one job (at a time), one journal to accept a paper, one publisher to say yes to your book manuscript. By definition, that will mean a huge ratio of rejections to acceptances. No unicorn wishing here: You have to send things off, multiple times, to get published/funded/employed. Get used to the cycle of production, rejection, revision, acceptance. It’s totally normal.

ADVERTISEMENT

Stay concrete. Impostor syndrome feeds off vagaries and generalities. “I’m not good/smart/charismatic/funny/self-assured enough.” What’s enough? Who is all of those things? What is “good” anyway? Instead of wallowing in vague self-doubts, reframe them more specifically — as “I have something to learn about lecturing,” or “My prose could be clearer.” That way, you have something to work with and work on. Go to your institution’s teaching center or hire an editor to help you.

Learn to see yourself in context. If you feel like an impostor because you don’t know or can’t do a particular thing, think about that thing. Is that skill or content crucial? If so, can you acquire it? Not because you want to belong but because it may make you more effective or productive. And if it doesn’t actually matter, think about why it is that others have it and you don’t (assuming you really don’t and aren’t just being hard on yourself or inflating other people’s capabilities). Maybe there are real and good reasons why that wasn’t part of your background or education.

Think about the factors that could contribute to feeling like an impostor. What are the demographics of your discipline? The history of your field? Are you what people expect from a graduate student or faculty member? Our personal identities and life experiences are often major assets to us, and it is important to remember that other people’s first impressions are not the same as our self-worth.

Academics use the term impostor syndrome to talk about our feelings and perceptions. But you should be aware: There is also more recent research showing that the phenomenon hits especially hard among scholars who are members of minority groups and/or are studying topics that are marginalized in academic culture. In other words, some academics don’t just feel like impostors, they are made to feel like impostors, no matter how self-assured, smart, and confident they are. So while impostor syndrome may affect all academics, some are disproportionately unsupported in overcoming it.

ADVERTISEMENT

If this aspect of impostor syndrome speaks to you, here are some additional steps to consider:

Create your own “board of advisers.” These are people who really see you and can honestly tell you things about yourself and your environment. And in that spirit, trust others as much as you trust yourself — but not everyone. In other words, if someone you respect gives you a compliment, hear it without dismissing it. If you respect them, respect their opinion about you. At the same time, ignore the haters. (This is relevant advice for everyone.)

Take pride in, and learn to voice, the additional challenges that go with being a forerunner. I once heard a very eminent scholar say that for every marginalized identity you can claim, add one year onto the time it will take you to finish your dissertation. That was a powerful moment for me. It quantified the extra labor — emotional, physical, psychological, intellectual — that it takes to exist in a relatively homogenous field. The extra work you will face is because others see you as an impostor, but not because you actually are. In other words, you are trespassing on territory that implicitly belonged to others. You may find, as I did, that your own feelings of being an impostor are related to that implicit definition of who belongs in your field and on campus — and not to your scholarship, teaching, or citizenship.

Finally, remember this: You can change faster and more thoroughly than the institutions in which you work, or the environments you inhabit. Take the time to be real with yourself and those around you. Everyone will be better for it.

Sindhumathi Revuluri is an associate dean of undergraduate education and a former faculty member in the music department at Harvard University.

A version of this article appeared in the January 11, 2019, issue.
We welcome your thoughts and questions about this article. Please email the editors or submit a letter for publication.
Share
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Facebook
  • Email
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT

More News

Protesters attend a demonstration in support of Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil, March 10, 2025, in New York.
First-Amendment Rights
Noncitizen Professors Testify About Chilling Effect of Others’ Detentions
Photo-based illustration of a rock preciously suspended by a rope over three beakers.
Broken Promise
U.S. Policy Made America’s Research Engine the Envy of the World. One President Could End That.
lab-costs-promo.jpg
Research Expenses
What Does It Cost to Run a Lab?
Research illustration Microscope
Dreams Deferred
How Trump’s Cuts to Science Funding Are Derailing Young Scholars’ Careers

From The Review

University of Virginia President Jim Ryan keeps his emotions in check during a news conference, Monday, Nov. 14, 2022 in Charlottesville. Va. Authorities say three people have been killed and two others were wounded in a shooting at the University of Virginia and a student is in custody. (AP Photo/Steve Helber)
The Review | Opinion
Jim Ryan’s Resignation Is a Warning
By Robert Zaretsky
Photo-based illustration depicting a close-up image of a mouth of a young woman with the letter A over the lips and grades in the background
The Review | Opinion
When Students Want You to Change Their Grades
By James K. Beggan
Photo-based illustration of a student and a professor, each occupying a red circle in a landscape of scribbles.
The Review | Opinion
Meet Students Where They Are? Maybe Not.
By Mark Horowitz

Upcoming Events

Chronfest25_Virtual-Events_Page_862x574.png
Chronicle Festival: Innovation Amid Uncertainty
07-16-Advising-InsideTrack - forum assets v1_Plain.png
The Evolving Work of College Advising
Lead With Insight
  • Explore Content
    • Latest News
    • Newsletters
    • Letters
    • Free Reports and Guides
    • Professional Development
    • Events
    • Chronicle Store
    • Chronicle Intelligence
    • Jobs in Higher Education
    • Post a Job
  • Know The Chronicle
    • About Us
    • Vision, Mission, Values
    • DEI at The Chronicle
    • Write for Us
    • Work at The Chronicle
    • Our Reporting Process
    • Advertise With Us
    • Brand Studio
    • Accessibility Statement
  • Account and Access
    • Manage Your Account
    • Manage Newsletters
    • Individual Subscriptions
    • Group and Institutional Access
    • Subscription & Account FAQ
  • Get Support
    • Contact Us
    • Reprints & Permissions
    • User Agreement
    • Terms and Conditions
    • Privacy Policy
    • California Privacy Policy
    • Do Not Sell My Personal Information
1255 23rd Street, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20037
© 2025 The Chronicle of Higher Education
The Chronicle of Higher Education is academe’s most trusted resource for independent journalism, career development, and forward-looking intelligence. Our readers lead, teach, learn, and innovate with insights from The Chronicle.
Follow Us
  • twitter
  • instagram
  • youtube
  • facebook
  • linkedin