Is Self-Doubt Part of the Process?

glassharmonica
Fri, 03 Aug 2018 13:49:47 +0000

One thing I have noticed is that often (admittedly not always) the smartest and most talented people I know are also the one’s who are modest and the first to tell you they are not that talented or that smart. I don’t like the term “Imposter syndrome” which is often given to this phenomena.

I think what you’re describing is simply being a modest, nice person, not imposter syndrome, and also not the kind of spin-doctoring that one sees in the classical music conservatory world. I do agree that people who have a sense of early success can sometimes fear risk-taking.

Some of us seasoned posters come from different perspectives–e.g., @compmom and @SpiritManager come from the composing world; @bridgenail and @“Mezzo’sMama” from the vocalist world; @StacJip from the jazz world (did I get that right?) So we’re coming from different contexts in which there is not always a lot of overlap. I’m speaking from the world of classical players, and even more specifically from strings, so some of what I write might not be applicable to all situations, but I do have a very long perspective on this world.

Imposter syndrome tends to occur when you wind up in a rarefied world (e.g., a top conservatory or a finalist in a competition) and suffer from an internal crisis of confidence (“Do I belong here?”) even when, to others, everything on the exterior indicates that you do. Often it happens when you go from being the big fish to being a normal-size fish in the new pond. This is a feeling college students experience in other (nonmusical) scenarios, of course, and beyond, although people tend not to talk about. I teach at a prominent, and somewhat stressful (students tell me) university and a few years ago one of my favorite students gave the valedictory speech about her feelings of not belonging (imposter syndrome) even though she obviously did quite well enough to graduate with high honors. I met with her for lunch recently and she told me that three years later people are still talking about her speech–strangers, including the school’s elite athletes, a high-achieving graduates in many other disciplines came up to her and told her how much they relate to what she talked about. I think this feeling is more endemic among young people today than it was in my day, as now so much emphasis is placed on striving for admission to elite institutions.

The flip side of imposter syndrome is the spin-doctoring technique that absolutely exists in these competitive world. Students who claim not to study (but have more-than-perfect GPAs), musicians who claim not to practice. The point is to promote an image of oneself as a natural genius (*yes, there are a few ultra-talented people who can get away with almost no practice or almost no studying, but most high-achieving students are actually working pretty hard.) The intended effect, in addition to burnishing one’s image, is to discourage the competition. There’s a huge difference between, “I practiced 8 hours a day and got into the finals” and “Oh, I woke up ten minutes before the audition and sight-read the Strauss, haha. Now that I passed I guess I’ll have to look at the score.” Imagine how it feels to kid #1 to hear kid #2 talking about effortlessly achieving what s/he struggled over.