Exploring the power of positive affirmation to combat imposter syndrome on the trail and beyond.
“I’m strong. I’m here. I’m ready.”
As I step out onto the High Sierra trailhead, my forty plus pound pack strapped tight to my back, I whisper these words to myself. With each shaking step, I play them on repeat, over and over, until I start to believe them and my belief makes them a part of me.
Like the butterflies in my belly, the eyes looking out at wilderness all around, the legs so strong and feet so adventurous, the heart pounding a rhythm in my chest. The belief sings through my veins, bringing me new life, new energy, and ever renewing faith in my ability to do this big, scary, epic thing.
I have never walked this far, this long, away from comfortable civilization, this high up any mountain range. There may be thunder or lightning strikes; there may be cougars or bears sniffing around my camp at night; there may be hunger or thirst or heat or hypothermia or grievous injury or losing my way entirely. But I am strong, I am here, I am ready.
And this is far from the first time that I’ve used positive affirmation to combat fear and embrace vulnerability.
I am sitting cross-legged on the floor of a beautiful Florida vacation home when everything stops.
I am less than six months away from completing a veterinary degree that has been a lifetime in the making. I am on a rare break between rotations and relaxing in the Florida sun after another invigorating veterinary conference with colleagues and networking and business education and butterbeer and escaping from Gringotts in Diagon Alley. I have promising prospects for my first job as a graduated small animal veterinarian.
But now, I can’t breathe, can’t speak, can’t stop this silent scream as my heart explodes in my chest. I suck in futile gasps of frantic air, almost to the point of retching between desperate, heaving sobs.
One email has stopped the whole world in its tracks.
I am crushed beneath the weight of this impossible failure, this confirmation of my deepest insecurities. My eyes remain fixed in disbelief on the words illuminated in front of me as I am slammed by wave after wave of shame and fear and mounting nausea. And I still can’t draw breath. I have failed my veterinary board exam.
I forget everything I know to be true. I forget my standardized testing anxiety. I forget the months of studying for this exam, the years of studying for this degree. I forget every success that brought me here, everything I have learned through sleepless study nights and years of sacrifice. It all feels worthless now, invalidated in the face of this monumental failure.
“You’re a sham, you don’t deserve that veterinary license anyway. You should have walked away after you failed that first anatomy exam in your very first year. You don’t belong here, you never have. All of those patients you might have cared for, they’ll be in better hands with someone else.”
That opportunistic voice lurking in the darkest shadows of my head comes crawling out to whisper in my ear, taunting and terrifying and so so familiar.
I am a fraud in my own mind.
I resolve not to tell a single soul (aside from my fiancé), horrified of what they would surely think. I keep it all to myself, holding a carefully crafted front around friends and colleagues and long-distance family. Classmates excitedly exchange pass scores all around me in teaching hospital hallways, online newsfeeds, text chats, any available avenue for celebration and gossip. People ask me how I did or did I hear about so-and-so failing, who would’ve guessed it or nobody is surprised about that. Rotations become awkward and agonizing. The NAVLE is all anyone can talk about.
The dark, whispering voice sings a litany of loathing on repeat through my every waking moment. Every time a clinician asks me a question I don’t know the answer to, every time I struggle with anything (even arriving on time or looking as professionally dressed as the next girl), it affirms for me that I just don’t belong here, don’t deserve to be a doctor. Too stupid, too awkward, too ugly, too slow, will never do right by my future patients or clients… I am secretly drowning in my own negative self talk as I continue rotations by day and start the intensive study process all over again by night, lying about why I’m not available to join in the fun everyone else soaks up in our last precious school months together.
Affirmations become a life raft in an ocean of shame and despair, quite literally saving my career and my life.
After almost a month of silent torment, I start listening to an audiobook given to me by a visiting business speaker. The narrator’s voice plays through the speakers of my little Mazda, talking about manifesting my own reality. My mindset shapes my reality, the book tells me. The thoughts I play in my conscious mind are the building blocks of my subconscious, and my subconscious shapes my whole life perspective, my outlook, and where I subsequently focus my energy.
Knowing this, I have two choices. I can continue passively allowing external forces to dictate my conscious trajectory, making me a victim to my circumstance, or I can choose to change my situation one intentional conscious thought at a time. I can stop refusing the call to adventure and finally be the hero of my own story. I can stop helplessly cowering on this road of trials and face my ordeal with head held high in spite of my fear. I can craft weapons to combat the villainous voices holding me hostage within my own head rather than uselessly plugging my ears and pretending to be anywhere, anyone else. I am powerful. I will start with a single step.
I decide to start as I often do: with writing. I write down every horrible piece of negative self-talk that has lately been swirling through my head. Next to each one, I then write a short, affirming statement, arming myself for the next battle with that particular demon. Every time the demons tell me I am stupid, I am weak, I am not cut out for this, I consciously think or say aloud the corresponding affirmation, over and over and over, drowning out the negative voice until it is silenced. I tell myself these affirmations in the mirror, on walks, while driving, any time negative self-talk rears its malicious head.
With these affirmations, I feel myself harnessing my conscious mind, redirecting the thoughts shaping my subconscious beliefs. My perspective begins to shift.
“I’m a failure. There’s no coming back from this.” → “I embrace, accept and forgive myself.”
“I should give up.” → “I am brave.”
“I’m worthless and stupid.” → “I am confident and competent.”
“I’m weak.” → “I am powerful.”
With time, I am able to separate my self worth from this failure and grow from it instead. Just because I have failed does not mean that I am a failure. This shift emboldens me enough to finally tell my closest friends and family, ushering in support I so desperately need and should never have asked my fiancé to shoulder alone. I study harder and with excitement at the opportunity to learn. I find a dream job to look forward to after graduating. I visualize the entire testing process from entering the Holiday Inn lobby the night before to walking triumphantly out the doors of the testing facility every single day for over a month before my testing date arrives.
I pass the second round of testing with flying colors (and minimal panic attacks). More importantly, I see myself differently. I now know that I am a kickass, competent, compassionate doctor and a beautiful, powerful woman. I am shaped by my perspective, not my circumstance, and my failures do not define me. I have crossed the return threshold on my hero’s journey, and I am now the master of both my conscious and subconscious worlds. With this mastery comes the freedom to truly live.
Think about a habit that you have been struggling to create for yourself – losing weight, quitting an unhealthy habit, seeing yourself in a more positive light, anything at all. An area you have allowed yourself to feel you are somehow inadequate. A negative self talk pattern you’ve had trouble breaking.
Craft a short, affirming sentence using the following guidelines to counteract that struggle and start you on a new trajectory. Make your affirmation:
1. Present tense
2. Positive language
3. First person
4. Specific
5. Short and easy to remember
And always remember, you don’t have to walk this journey alone. If you need a Robin to your Batman, a wind beneath your wings, a friend to encourage you as you embrace your epic quest, I am always only one email, comment or social media message away. If you already use affirmations, let me know your favorites in the comments below.
You are a badass, my friend. Now go say it and slay it.