Evaluation Anxieties

Lately I have been thinking more often about my anxieties surrounding up and coming evaluations. What did I do in previous years that resulted in me getting good marks? Was it my dietary habits, my sleep-wakefulness patterns, neo-cortex functioning well enough in the given environments, evaluators just simply liking me?

One thing I definitely remember from last year was my independent study course. Looking back on it, I see it as an excellent bit of experience that has helped me to further understand doing scientific research, and opened me up to cognitive accounts of psychological phenomena. My problem with it was that my mark was not based very much on the writing that I did. This was the very opposite of being a bad thing, and very well might help me get considered for grad school. I just wonder: should my supervisor have marked me more based on my writing? If he had maybe I wouldn't have gotten such a good mark, and then I wouldn't have to face further anxieties about the quality of arguments that I make and the style I use to write.

Thinking that my thoughts were indicative of some serious self-doubt, I looked up information on the imposter phenomenon, and found the following quiz on Imposter Syndrome

Do you secretly worry that others will find out that you're not as bright and capable as they think you are?

Do you sometimes shy away from challenges because of nagging self-doubt?

Do you tend to chalk your accomplishments up to being a "fluke," “no big deal” or the fact that people just "like" you?

Do you hate making a mistake, being less than fully prepared or not doing things perfectly?

Do you tend to feel crushed by even constructive criticism, seeing it as evidence of your "ineptness?"

When you do succeed, do you think, "Phew, I fooled 'em this time but I may not be so lucky next time."

Do you believe that other people (students, colleagues, competitors) are smarter and more capable than you are?

Do you live in fear of being found out, discovered, unmasked?

I won't take the time to enumerate my responses to each answer, but maybe you, the reader, can make your own judgments based on this list. I don't think I've ever told myself that I'm stupid: I don't believe that. What I do believe is that my weaknesses might hold me back from achieving my goals. Being in a school environment, I have become quite accustomed to getting evaluated by other people. This, I think, has taken some, maybe a lot, of the locus of my self-evaluation away from my hands. I don't think that one B on a class assignment is the end of the world, but I am always wondering if in the future I will not be able to adapt to the challenges presented to me. One thing I do quite often is target people, be they researchers whose journal articles I am reading or colleagues at school, who seem to really know what they're doing and think about how much faster they tend to see things than me.

I feel an insidious fear deep inside of me as I come to terms with this stuff. I feel this particularly at this point in my life, when I am about to make a transition that shall be capped with my final evaluations. It is scary. I think I fear this more than my own physical well being.

Ironically, I think that the best way to beat this kind of self doubt is not to get paralyzed by it, but to go headlong into my work, chanting positive mantras along the way!

In the words of Stuart Smalley: "I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and, doggonit, people like me"

Reflectively,

- Inkhorn