You're Not Qualified....

The Lie Imposter Syndrome Makes Us Believe

You know what’s really fucked up?
Imposter syndrome.

It’s not cute, it’s not quirky, and it’s not just a little insecurity. It’s a slow, quiet, shape-shifting thing that finds its way into every corner of your life if you let it. I’ve spent decades wrestling with it - negotiating with it, accommodating it, and sometimes letting it run the show.

For years, I thought it was just low self-esteem or low self-worth. Those I could maybe fix with therapy or hustle. But imposter syndrome is trickier than that. It’s the lovechild of trauma, conditioning, and a lifetime of being told you don’t measure up. It’s not self-doubt. It’s self-erasure.

When you grow up being told that your worth is directly tied to a college degree but also told that college isn’t meant for people like you, it warps your brain. You start to believe that value lives outside of you - in other people’s approval, in certificates, in achievements that prove you have worth; value.

And that message digs deep when you grow up in poverty, in instability; in chaos.

I learned early that validation was a currency.
And I was broke.

As a teenager, I sought it in all the wrong places. In people. In chaos. In trying to become what everyone else said I should be. And when that didn’t work; when it never worked, I shifted the chase toward achievement.

I went back to college later in life, terrified I’d prove everyone right. But I didn’t. I proved myself wrong. I discovered I was capable. More than capable. I was damn smart.
And for a while, that felt like redemption. I got one degree, then another. Then a Master’s - then acceptance to a PhD program.

But what I didn’t see then was that my degrees weren’t about learning, they were about revenge. If I’m being honest, I didn’t chase those degrees out of a pure love of learning. Each one was a “fuck you” to everyone who told me for years I would never amount to anything.

Every A, every diploma, every late night studying; a middle finger to the people and systems that told me I couldn’t.

“Oh, you think I can’t get a degree? Watch me, bitch.”

That became my fuel. It worked; until it didn’t. Because achievement built on rage doesn’t heal you; it just keeps you running.

Even when I started a PhD program, I didn’t really want it. I wanted what it symbolized. That eight-year-old girl still sitting at a chipped kitchen table somewhere inside me believed that a terminal degree would finally make her enough.

Spoiler: it didn’t.

I continue to carry that imposter voice into every part of my adult life.
In corporate America, it whispered: “You’re only worthy if your title says so.”
As a professor, it said: “You’re not legitimate without tenure.”
As a coach and consultant, it hissed: “You’re not credible without the PhD after your name.”

And for years, I listened.

I performed, I overworked, I tried to outrun it.
But imposter syndrome is a marathon runner. It will keep pace with you forever unless you stop and turn around.

Somewhere along the way; probably around 3 AM, grading papers I’d overcommitted to, or between coaching sessions wondering if I was “qualified enough” I realized I didn’t want to outrun it anymore. I wanted to face it.

And what I found was humbling.
That eight-year-old girl doesn’t need to be shamed or silenced. She needs to be seen. She still wants the gold star, the title and the eternal validation. She needs to be told that she is enough even if no one else ever said it.

So that’s what I do now. I tell her that she is safe, that she doesnt need to prove a damn thing anymore to be worthy; to have value.

When imposter syndrome shows up - and it still does - I remind her that we’ve already earned the only credential that matters: self-trust.

I may not have a PhD, but I have something better. I have lived experience. I am a DAMN good educator. I have resilience. I have expertise that wasn’t learned from a textbook but from living, teaching, surviving, raising kids and showing up.

I’m not less-than because I didn’t take the traditional path. I’m proof that there are other ways to become exceptional.

Imposter syndrome will tell you that your worth lives outside of you. But the truth is, it never did. It was always right here waiting for you to believe it.