Imposter Syndrome as a Principal and How to Silence Your Inner Critic
Silencing the Imposter: Principal Mindset Tools
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[00:00:00] In today's episode, I wanna talk about imposter syndrome. Stay tuned.
Speaker: Welcome to the Principal's Handbook, your go-to resource for principals looking to revamp their leadership approach and prioritize self-care. I'm Barb Flowers, a certified life coach with eight years of experience as an elementary principal. Tune in each week as we delve into strategies for boosting mental resilience, managing time effectively, and nurturing overall wellness.
From tackling daily challenges to maintaining a healthy work-life balance. We'll navigate the complexities of school leadership together. Join me in fostering your sense of purpose as a principal and reigniting your passion for the job. Welcome to a podcast where your wellbeing is the top priority.
I. Welcome back to the podcast.
Today we are going to be talking about imposter syndrome as a principal.
And how to silence your inner critic. So let me ask you this. Have you ever had the thought, if they really knew me, or if they [00:01:00] knew more about me, they'd realize I'm not ready for this. Does that sound familiar? Or maybe you have the thought, I'm not good enough. I'm not cut out for this. I just wanna tell you we've all been there, or we are all dealing with that as we go through the journey of being a principal.
. What Imposter syndrome is, it's when you're having the thought or thinking that you are a fraud. You don't believe in your own success. You have a fear that you don't belong where you are. And we've all been there. Everybody's been there. It's a form of self. Doubt. , And really it comes down to not believing in your skills.
And a lot of times I think that we think this often when you're new to the position, , or if you've been doing it a while and maybe you've leveled up and you're in a, different type of district or. You're around other principals, you're comparing yourself. It's so easy to have imposter syndrome and thoughts of being an imposter.
And I wanna just take you back to when I first got a job as an elementary assistant [00:02:00] principal and I was 28 years old. So I had been teaching for six years, got a job. I was so excited. Went to the board meeting and one of the board members said, hi, welcome. I can't believe they hired a 28-year-old with zero experience.
The teachers keep talking about it, but I'm sure you'll do great. And he walked away and I, I just can vividly remember this. And there was another administrator , , being board approved that night and I just looked at him and I'm like, , welcome to me. ? Because I was 28, the other administrator was a little bit older, but.
I was super young when I was hired as an administrator, and so the fact that that person said that to me really made me feel that thought of imposter syndrome, like,, am I ready for this? What am I doing? And then I would go to principal meetings as a new principal when I finally took over my first building.
And again, there were all these experienced principals there who were really good with great ideas, and I thought, how did I make it here? And then there's other times, [00:03:00] right where I would be doing something and realize I have no idea what I'm talking about. A lot of it was special ed when I was a new principal, because I was a general ed teacher.
I was the inclusion teacher, but I didn't know special ed , and so I had imposter syndrome with that. . I just wanna remind you, it is easy to feel like a fraud or like, how did I make it here? Even now as an experienced principal, sometimes I sit around the room. And I just think , when did I get here?
Time is just crazy. I was just telling my husband that time's crazy. Like sometimes I feel like I'm still, I don't know, 25 and now all this time has passed. I have all this experience in education, but you're just like, where did time go? How did I make it here? How have I been a principal for 10 years?
So anyways. I just wanna completely normalize that even seasoned principles can feel imposter syndrome sometimes, or you have these imposter thoughts come up because really it's your inner critic that you're not good enough, you don't belong here, you don't know what [00:04:00] you're doing.
And we all have that. The biggest thing here that we're gonna be talking about is how do you silence that? So.. In this episode, we're really diving into if you're feeling this imposter syndrome, if you're struggling with, how did I make it here? Am I good enough? I just want you to know, those are all thoughts of self-doubt creeping in.
It's completely normal. Our brain actually wants to protect us, and so it's that fight or flight feeling that we get. And so our brain defaults to the negative. So it wants to protect us instead of somebody else saying that we don't belong here. It's us saying that we don't belong here. It's us doubting if we're good enough.
And that's how our brain tries to protect us. And the biggest thing you have to think about is it's all your mindset. Those are just thoughts that you're having, and you have to talk back to it. And really imposter syndrome can, show up a lot. Like I said, if you're a new administrator, if you're taking over a new building, if you're starting any kind of new position, no matter [00:05:00] how much experience you have, maybe you're mentoring an assistant principal for the first time,
like you could be a principal with 20 years of experience and you mentor a new assistant principal. You feel imposter syndrome when I was an assistant principal, I was lucky enough to have a mentor. She was retired, rehired. She had been a principal for over 20 years, and I always think of her.
I commented on how she handled something and I commented in a positive way, , thank you for modeling that for me. That was really helpful. And she goes, did I do good? And I'm like, yeah, of course. It was great. And she's like, I've never dealt with that in 20 years. She's like, there's so many situations as a principal, it doesn't matter how long you've been a principal, a new thing comes up, education changes.
You get a situation you've never had before and you feel like a new principal again. So just remember that those thoughts of imposter syndrome they can come up at any time. And just remind yourself that it's a thought. So right now what I wanna do is give you three tools to [00:06:00] silence the inner critic and lead with calm confidence.
And really, I like to talk a lot about imposter syndrome, self-doubt. Those are all things that have to do with a lack of confidence in an area. Maybe it's a lack of confidence in all leadership because you're new, or it could be a lack of confidence in one specific area because it's something that you're not sure.
You might not have handled it before, and you've handled everything else with confidence. So really what we're doing here is we're quieting the inner critic and we're leading with confidence. So the first thing I want you to do is name the inner critic.
When you start hearing that imposter voice and you think about things like, you're too young, you don't know enough, you're not able to handle this. For me as a new principal, a lot of the teachers I worked with were my parents' age, or they had kids my age, and so maybe it's like you're, that goes with, you're not old enough, but.
Maybe it's you're not experienced enough. They've been teaching for 20 years and you only taught for six like me. [00:07:00] Whatever it is, describe what that imposter voice is. Name it. Not only , what it sounds like, but give it a name. And the reason I say give it a name is because then you can just call it what it is.
Maybe it's the doubter, maybe it's my inner self critic. Maybe you just call it that. Maybe it's in positive intelligence, we call it the judge right there. It's the judge judging you all the time. Whatever you wanna call your self critic name it, because once you give it a name, you're giving it less power.
You're identifying it. You are becoming aware that it's there and you're just not giving it the power that it deserves. You're like, oh, that's just my judge coming out, or, oh, that's just the doubter coming out. It's not a big deal. Where instead, if you let those thoughts ruminate and become true, they can become a big deal if you.
Continue to ruminate on you're too young or you're not good enough that becomes a thought that becomes true to you, and it feels super true. But [00:08:00] if every time you think you're too young or you're not good enough, you just say, oh, that's the doubter. Then you just let it go, , you're naming it and you're giving it less credit. Then the next step after you name the inner critic, I want you to reframe using what I call the T cycle so I like to teach in coaching your thoughts, create your emotions, which create your actions.
So if you have this negative thought and you name it and you say, okay, that's my judge saying I'm too young, or that's my judge saying I'm not good at this. Well think about, that's your thought. I'm not good at this. What emotion is coming up? Well, if it's that I'm not good at this, it's probably anxiety.
It's probably hesitation and making a decision or hesitation in the next step. And so action might be if you think you're not good at this, avoiding something. So let's say you have to have a hard conversation with a teacher, right? A lot of people hate having hard conversations when I talk to principals.
And so an emotion that might come up for you [00:09:00] is anxiety, and then the action is you avoid the conversation. And so I want you to reframe the thought to I'm learning like everyone else, or each time I have these tough conversations, I get just a little bit better. And if you can reframe that thought, you can then have a new emotion, which could be courage, and every time you reframe that thought, then you're going to have a new emotion. So the new emotion, let's say it's courage, then you're going to take a new action. So you're going to step into that conversation with presence and more confidence, right?
Because your thoughts matter. Whatever thought you're having matters. The more you tell yourself you're too young, then that's going to lead to an emotion of uncertainty. To an action of, maybe avoiding things of not doing enough, whatever that is. But if you tell yourself you are capable of handling this, then the emotion becomes excitement.
Maybe the emotion becomes [00:10:00] courage. Maybe the emotion becomes excitement and courage and your new action is that you just start taking action. You start. , Looking at initiatives that need changed and you start to make change because you feel like, I'm capable of doing this, I know what I'm doing, I can handle this, I'll figure things out.
Those thoughts make a huge difference on the actions that you take. So if you don't like. The actions that you're taking, go back and think about what the thoughts are that might be causing you to feel that imposter syndrome. And so that's the second thing. So the first thing you're going to name your inner critic.
Second thing you're going to reframe any negative thoughts, any imposter syndrome thoughts that you're having. Reframe them, thinking about the T cycle that your thoughts create, your emotions and actions. And then the third thing you wanna do here, which is really important. This is probably the most important step.
You want to build your evidence, so I always say we can have evidence for negative or [00:11:00] positive things, so. There's plenty of evidence that maybe you can't handle this right, but there's also plenty of evidence that you can handle this. So it depends on what you wanna focus , on what is going to be your dominant thought, which creates your emotions and actions.
, So if you wanna think about your evidence, you want to keep evidence of wins that you're having. Because every time you keep evidence of those wins, you are adding evidence to positive thoughts. So for example, I had for a long time negative thoughts about hard conversations, because I would think about one conversation I had that went really bad.
I tried to have a hard conversation. It did not go like I wanted it to go. And so I use that as evidence of I'm not good at hard conversations. However, if I thought about it, I had hard conversations all the time. They just might be like mini hard conversations, and I wasn't keeping evidence of those ones because [00:12:00] instead I was ruminating on the one bad conversation versus five good conversations
those five good conversations are actually evidence towards, I'm good at hard conversations. So think about that. If you keep evidence of your wins, you're keeping evidence towards positive thoughts. So for example, if you solve a parent conflict, you know you have a parent mad at you, you solve it, you're able to smooth it over and actually build that relationship that's evidence towards you being good at building relationships or you being good at talking to parents.
Let's say you gave a teacher feedback and it was really helpful to that teacher. That's evidence that you're good at giving teachers feedback. Let's say you're seeing data improvements in your building, that's evidence that instruction is improving in your building. So remember that we can always find the bad or the good in any situation.
It's what we focus on that makes all the difference. So you really want to pull it out. When imposter syndrome thoughts are coming in. So for example, if you're having thoughts [00:13:00] that I don't know how to talk to parents, or I'm not good at this, or all these parents are way older than me and I feel so young, I don't know.
I'm just throwing those thoughts out there. What are the thoughts that actually support that? You're good at parent conversations, and the more wins that you keep, you're building that evidence to get rid of that imposter syndrome. I really encourage you to document wins each day.
And I actually have a free planner that I'll link in the show notes called the eight to four Principal Planner. And in this every day, what I encourage principals to do is to document three wins. Now I will say I have this planner out on my desk. I probably document the three wins three times a week.
That's okay. That's still nine wins throughout the week, and every time you are gathering those wins, again, it's evidence against imposter syndrome. It's evidence towards you being the leader that you want to be. So I really encourage you, it's easy to [00:14:00] say, that's not important. I can find other things. I want you to focus on building your evidence of small wins every single day.
So let's review what those three tools are. You want to first name the inner critic, second reframe imposter syndrome, thoughts with the T cycle that your thoughts create, your emotions, which create your actions. And third, build your evidence towards you being the leader that you wanna be.
This week what I want you to do is try each day to log those three wins, and I wanna see how it helps. With any self-doubt or any negative thoughts that come in your inner critic, I wanna see how those wins really help you. So download that eight to four planner, write it in a notebook, whatever you need to do, but really focus on three wins each day.
'cause just think about that. If you did that every day for a school week, you'd have 15 wins for the week, which is quite a bit. So that can be really helpful in changing your thoughts [00:15:00] about yourself as a leader.
And then episode three, I actually did an episode on dealing with imposter syndrome, where I give you five affirmations for dealing with imposter syndrome. So I'll link that episode as well. That might be helpful as well. If you want just some affirmations that can help you start with that positive thought and change the emotions and actions that go with it.
So I hope you found this helpful. I want you to remember. That imposter syndrome really comes from just that inner critic. It is those negative thoughts, and you have the power to shift those thoughts to more positive thoughts so that you can actually have the confidence that you're doing your job well.
And once you have the confidence that you're doing your job well, I always tell people, you're going to enjoy your job more. And if you love this show, if you're listening on Apple, scroll down on your app and leave a review.
That's how people find the show, so I really appreciate when you do that. Just keep in mind you have the power to shape your life according to the mindset you choose. I [00:16:00] hope you have a great week, and I'll see you back here next time.
