As I mentioned last week this concept from one of my favorite shows Insecure. Maybe I love Insecure so much because it causes me to do some self-reflection. I said google it last week, but let me share what it is. Impostor syndrome is anxiety or self-doubt that results from persistently undervaluing one’s competence and active role in achieving success, while falsely attributing one’s accomplishments to luck or other external forces.

I had to look it up as Ahmal mentioned in the “Wine Down”. This is so me. I am and have always been a perfectionist. I wanted to excel in school due to that fact, as well as my competitive nature. It was not that I necessarily liked school or a particular subject. I just knew I had to be great at it. Though high school, college, physical therapy school, medical school, residency, fellowship, first job, and the ones in between I have had the fear that I was not good enough, not smart enough. To this day when I have an obstacle and there are always those I often have fear and self-doubt. Whether it is that hard surgical case, board recertification, self-assessment tests for recertification, marathons, triathlons, etc. Oh my God, I had so many doubts that went through my mind before my first IronMan race last year. Anything that could go wrong, I thought of. There is always a fear in my mind that I will fail, and I will confirm this mean girl who told me she thought I was dumb when we were in middle school Add the fear of failing in a relationship and that is an entire other conversation

I share to say that no matter how perfect you may think someone life is, no one is perfect. No one has it all. We all struggle from time to time and while some may think revealing this is a weakness I beg to differ. I have had to learn to lean on God. When those fears come, I have to speak the opposite to myself. When fears of everything that could go wrong surface, I just have to think of a plan to counteract all of those scenarios. Also I often think what if the worse case happens it may not be that bad or the end of the world. We all have issues, and could all spread sometime on someone’s couch, at the end of the day.