Femme Fatale Guide: How To Overcome Imposter Syndrome & Perfectionism
How To Overcome Imposter Syndrome:
Keep Your Ideal Self Top of Mind: While you can't ever truly "fake it until you make it," it is essential to cultivate the belief that can act in accordance with your ideal self. Consider what the ideal version of yourself would do on a daily basis: What would your morning routine/night routine look like? How would you prioritize tasks or activities throughout your day? What would you consider your metrics for a successful project, task, social interaction, or professional activity? How would you describe a productive day, week, or month? Qualify and quantify these ideal metrics to give yourself a blueprint to move forward toward your goals and become the best version of yourself.
Competence Builds Confidence: Remember that the notion of an "overnight success story" is a fallacy. Quickly-awarded achievements, seemingly effortless skill sets, or having the perfect script for every occasion typically stem from hours or years of practice, experiences, studying, self-development, and trial and error. Over time, you refine these crafts until you can consider them as strengths. This inner knowing gives you the self-assurance needed to truly believe in yourself and it's contagious in your work, speech, and body language. Competence radiates inner confidence, without a question.
Remember Everything Is Relative: Logically, we know that comparing the middle of someone's journey to the beginning of yours doesn't make any sense. While it can be intimidating to enter the ring as a beginner, remember that the most skilled and successful people you know were at one point at square one. The only way to catch up to those you admire is to make an effort in the first place. However, because you're a beginner, give yourself some grace and remember that making mistakes is part of the learning process. It is better to fail in the beginning before people have certain expectations of you. But, the truth is, no one truly knows what they're doing. More time existing and life experience only helps us make better judgments to more accurately assess the proper next move.
Perceive Attempts As Data: Success is all about pattern recognition. See what "inputs" derive certain "outputs." Some attempts – at a certain career path, academic concentration, interpersonal interactions – will be advantageous with many that are neutral and some that go sour. Do not allow an unanswered email to a pitch, a lower grade on an assignment, or an ending of any type of relationship to feel like a moral failure and as a marker of your worth (personally, professionally, etc.). Evaluate what you did correctly and seek out areas for improvement. The more attempts you make, the more data you collect in order to help you make accurate assessments going forward. Consider this your motivation to start.
Accept Failures As Life Lessons: Failures offer a unique opportunity for self-reflection and course correction. Consider the mistakes that lead you to a negative outcome or the unfavorable circumstances you entered into (e.g. not studying for a test or already seeing red flags during the job interview). Use these opportunities to refine your strategies to succeed. While failures might not be inherently positive in the short term, failing fast saves you a lot of trouble along the way.
How To Overcome Perfectionism:
Find Stupidly Small Ways To Start: Write the title on a document and some keywords you want to use; Write an introductory sentence to an email; Place the first photo on the collage; Mix the spices together for a dish –literally anything to get you started on the task at hand. Give yourself a small push to gain momentum to keep going.
Set A Timer: Gamify any task by making it a race against the clock. Set a timer for 10, 20, or 30 minutes to see how much you can get done with a short spurt for hyper-focus. Focus on output, not outcomes when using this method. Remember: You can always go back and edit a project or refine the details of a space, meal, or task after. You will probably surprise yourself with how much you get done and how quick it is to elevate the standard of any timed work.
Consider Consequences of Delayed Action: Procrastination is perfectionism's greatest frenemy. The quicker you are to begin a task or strategize how to initiate a conversation, the more likely you will be to make it happen and give yourself the brain space to mull over the ideas before sharing the final product. Shitty first drafts of anything in life are welcomed. You can always edit later before finishing or showcasing something you want to take pride in. A step forward gives you guidance toward the right path. A step backward provides insight into how to strategize to win in the future. The only guaranteed way to never achieve greatness in a certain area of life is to not start in the first place.
a procrastinator who wants to: get good grades, read books, have a proper sleep schedule, complete stuff on her watch lists, have fun occasionally with her friends, and still wants her down time. a fucking vicious loop for an eternity.
How To Remember Things Long Term Using Mind Palace Technique
If you're a Sherlock fan, you already know about this, but if not, let me introduce you to something that will probably change your life
Mind Palace as termed in BBC's series Sherlock is a memory technique called 'Method Of Loci'
It's very easy to get hang of, but you need to invest some time at the beginning
Here are the steps that I used to create a mind palace to remember all the things I'm required to in med school:
1) Imagine a small place/room
To begin, you need a small space until you get the hang of it. You can start with your own room or house or any place you know like the back of your hand
Example: your fridge, to begin with
2) Think of all the things that are placed in the room and commit them to your memory
Let me continue with the example: think of where everything is kept in your fridge.
Think of where the eggs are kept, the milk, the vegetables, etc.
3) Make a little list of something that you need to remember
People on YouTube would suggest to remember something like your grocery list (which will do) or the numbers of pi (which, while impressive, is unnecessary, I think)
I would suggest to not waste energy on something that doesn't apply to your life/studies.
Example: elements of the periodic table
4) Associate the list with the items in your mind palace
It doesn't always have to make perfect sense, you just need to relate to it while remembering later
Example: in my fridge, the eggs are kept separately at the top, just like Hydrogen in the periodic table
Next is Lithium, second row where we keep milk and so on.
5) For the first time, write down what you're associating everything with, a diagram on a plain paper works the best
So like, draw your fridge, make shapes that resemble the things in there and label them with the things that you are associating it with currently
6) Practice by Exploring Your Mind Palace
Like I said, it will need some time when you're doing it for the first time, but then, a practice for 15 minutes a day by venturing into your mind palace is enough
7) Make Your Mind Palace Bigger!
After you get the hang of it, just start renovating your mind palace bit by bit!
You don't need to keep just one mind palace, you can have as many as you want! Create one for remembering things about your family, another for school, another for birthdays of your friends, the list is endless
◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇
Hope this helps! If it did or you have any questions, feel free to send me a direct message or an ask, I'll be happy to talk to you about this and help you create your own mind palace Xx
- StudyTheory
Some Links:
Fiverr - I will make your notes for you!
Join My Productivity Bingo!
A Dorian Gray. @blackcoffeenosugah - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag
snowghoul
origamiaround
pixelskylines
titsay
izzy806
gracieabrams
blakekathryn
sugurugetos
