This transcript has been edited for brevity.
Jim Rimmer (he/him): Welcome to another of the Arts Wellbeing Collective’s webinar Series. Our first event for Mental Health Month (October).
I hope you’ll join me in acknowledging the Traditional Owners of the land we’re all respectively coming from. For me, this is the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung people of the Kulin Nations. We recognise their continuing connection to land, waters, communities, and culture and pay our respects to elders, past and present, and through them all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, especially those joining today’s session.
If this is your first ever Arts Wellbeing Collective event, we are a small but mighty outfit focused on improving the mental health of people who work in the creative industries. We do this through creating easy-to-use resources, delivering training sessions and varying approaches to sector engagement, like webinars such as this one with guest speakers to discuss topics of concern to those who work in the arts and creative sector.
We are joined by Eugene Wong, a long-time friend of the Collective. Eugene is Principal Coach and Chief Story Shaper at A Stronger Narrative. He is also the principal for Melbourne Creative Professionals Network, which has about 12,000 members. Eugene’s focus is on helping purpose-driven people to maximize their impact in the world.
And as I hand over to Eugene, I’d like to start at the very beginning and ask something that I think many people in the arts are curious about – Is Imposter Syndrome real? Over to you, Eugene.
03m 33s – Introduction
Eugene Wong (he/him): Wow! What a way to be thrown into it! Imposter syndrome is all in your mind, which is what makes it very real. Because our minds determine so much of how we see the world, how we see ourselves and therefore how we operate in the world.
Today, we can learn some practical ways of operating. I want to take us on a journey about what imposter syndrome is and its symptoms. If you want to tackle it, it’s useful to not just put Band-aids over the symptoms, but to look at the root of the problem. Part of that will be looking at the imposter syndrome cycle, a whirlwind that you can get swept into. Then we’ll talk about how to overcome it, and some practical tips that that you can use. Because all the theory of the world is one thing, but practical tips are what will save the day. And of course, everything that we do, thinking about it through the lens of creative practitioners.
I come from a community development background. I ran a theatre company for 15 years, and I currently sit on the boards of a range of arts organizations both in Australia and overseas. I have a passion for seeing people thrive. I think a lot of artists fall into the category of the tortured artists, and we don’t necessarily need to be that way. So let’s dive in.
06m 27s – What is imposter syndrome?
A very dry definition to start with – it is a mental health phenomenon. It is marked by self-doubt; second guessing your own smarts, skills, and accomplishments. The funniest thing about it is that it’s often experienced by high achieving people. The ones who you would look at and think are completely accomplished. But internally, that person is freaking out because they think they are a fraud that’s going to be found out in any moment. So many popular artists and performers have been freaking out for their entire careers because they think they’re going to get found out. It doesn’t go away just because you get a multimillion-dollar contract.
Another way of looking at this is the inability to believe that your success is deserved. One of the things that people with imposter syndrome do is they downplay all their achievements, or they put them down to luck. They say, ‘Oh, I fluked it that time’, or ‘No, no, that success wasn’t really big in comparison to someone else’s work’. So effectively, it’s like gaslighting yourself or saying what you do doesn’t matter.
Now, if you’ve experienced this, you’re not alone. You are in very good company. The stats suggest that over 70% of people have experienced imposter syndrome at some point. The figures are higher for women and for people of colour and there are several reasons for that. We’ll go into it today as well.
08m 41s – The 5 types
The main thing that people talk about with imposter syndrome is there are 5 different types. I think it is worth going through these one at a time, because you’ll probably recognize bits of yourself in them.
Starting with the perfectionist. Someone who thinks that everything has to be perfect 100% every time, otherwise they are a failure. There is no room for grace. There’s no room for a little bit of slack in there, and if you make a mistake, then well, that’s it. I’ve been found out, I am useless, and I’ll never do it again. Often the perfectionists will produce something to a really high standard and be very unhappy afterwards to the point of saying, maybe I should just drop out of this completely. ‘I’ve done 99 recitals really brilliantly, and then I just croaked on the 100th, and that shows that I am an absolute loser.’ The perfectionist is someone who is often quite tormented by the need to overwork, to overdo things so that there’s no chance of any sort of mistake in there.
The second type is the expert. Someone who feels like they need to know everything before they even start. Because if they don’t know something, if they’re thrown a question and they can’t answer it, then, obviously, that’s going to make them look stupid and not worthy of being in the room. They’re constantly thinking ‘I’m a fraud. People are going to boot me out. I don’t belong here. I am so dumb in comparison to everybody else.’ I hope, for your benefit that you can’t identify with this. But I know that I have identified quite clearly with the first two already at different times.
The third is the soloist. They’re the sort of person who says, ‘I have to be completely self-sufficient. If I need to rely on someone else, that means that I am obviously deficient, and I don’t ever want to be considered that. If I’m deficient, then I don’t belong here, I must be a failure.’ What that does is it isolates them because they don’t ask for help. It’s a real issue, because it effectively cuts them off from all the resources they otherwise would have had if they had asked for help.
The fourth one is the natural genius, and you would have thought that someone with a whole lot of skill and aptitude would be cruising. But their assumption is, I always have to be naturally talented at something, otherwise I’m not going to succeed. It’s what some people refer to as a fixed mindset. There isn’t an understanding that you can start absolutely rubbish at something and work at it and become good at it over time. I heard a story recently; Ed Sheeran keeps a recording of a performance that he did back when he was a teenager, and it is absolutely dreadful. Now, his guitar playing in it is better than mine will ever be, but he keeps that as a reminder to himself, and also to play to other people when they say, ‘But you’ve always been talented’. And he goes, ‘I wasn’t, I just worked at it’. And so he quite enjoys playing this horrible recording of himself so that other people can understand you can actually be as good too. The natural genius person assumes, though, that if they don’t already have that innate talent, then they’ll never be as good as the rest and so it makes them more likely to just give up before they’ve even started.
Lastly, the super person is the person who needs to have it all under control, needs to be able to juggle everything for everyone all the time. ‘I need to be the perfect employee. I need to be the perfect parent. I need to be the perfect partner. I need to be perfect in every way. Otherwise I’m a failure.’ They’re always nitpicking. Finding some reason to unpick all the good they have done and just assume that they’re a failure.
So if those are the 5 main types of imposter syndrome, let’s look at the behaviours, and what the feelings look like on the surface.
14m 19s – Observable behaviours
If you’re suffering from imposter syndrome, normally you go in and out of this cycle of anxiety and relief. Here’s something that I’ve been asked to do. I’m really stressed about it, and then I finally did it. Thank goodness. You don’t even enjoy the moment, because you’re just so relieved that you haven’t dug a hole and fallen into it, and largely, that’s based on fear of failure and shame as well. There’s this sense of always anticipating what could go wrong in the future rather than what might be able to go right.
This ties in with low self-confidence. If you’re constantly beating yourself up, and the words inside your brain are undermining you, then you’re always going to doubt yourself. You’re always going to second guess. The result of that is your behaviour will be that you’ll avoid challenges, and you’ll avoid even opportunities, because you’ll be so convinced that you might fail that you would prefer to not do it at all. One of the things that about that I’ll talk about later is procrastination.
The third thing is a strong need to be the best. It’s good to want to be the best; that’s just being competitive. But a strong need to be the best all the time, that’s just perfectionism, and it robs you of joy. It makes you overwork because it means ‘I have to think of every possible scenario so that nothing will ever go wrong’. People who are like that often take other people down with them, because their requirements are so high and their demands on themselves, and therefore on the people around them as well, can be so high that it can just burn people out.
The fourth thing is an unwillingness to internalize positive feedback. There are some people where someone will say something nasty to them, and it just doesn’t stick, they’ve got this Teflon coating. That’s not these people. These people usually absorb negative things easily, but it’s the positive stuff that is really hard for them to absorb. if you compliment them on something they won’t take it to heart. You must drill it into them before they accept your positive feedback. It’s hard for them to celebrate their achievements because they are just always seeing the negative side.
All of this is tied together with a pretty bow of self-sabotage. If you are doubting yourself, and expecting yourself to perform perfectly, then there is high risk that you’re going to fail according to your standards. Therefore, a lot of people procrastinate. Procrastination is a result of a fear of failure, or sometimes a fear of what will happen if you’re successful. By putting it off long enough, you’re hoping you won’t need to face it. The reality is you still have a deadline, but by that time you have left it for so long that you end up rushing through what you need to do, and it ends up sabotaging your results.
So that’s one form of self-sabotage. The other one is not seeking help when you need it, because you think that that will show you up to be a fraud, and therefore you don’t access the opportunities available to you, or the resources that could have made it better than it otherwise will be.
Those are the most common types of symptoms. But where do all these come from? They don’t just come out of nowhere and hit you in the face.
19m 15s – What builds these behaviours?
What I’ve tried to do is show how they all build together. In theory, these are all separate issues, but I’ve tried to put them together in clumps.
We all have a 7 or 8 year-old kid inside us, and if someone says something in just the right way at the right time, it reduces us to that little kid. There’s this wave of shame that washes over us, and we just feel small and unlovable or unworthy. These past experiences might be from a family upbringing. They might be from a workplace. Sometimes it’s from what happened at school or in a religious environment. Usually, they’re things that have involved shame or great judgment. Sometimes they’re actually systemic issues. So if you are a woman, and you know that the system has been set up so that no matter how good you are, you’ll never be able to crack into the boys club. That can create this mindset ‘Of course, I need to work harder’, because there is actually a bit of reality in that situation – you have to achieve more than others in order to be noticed.
So these past experiences end up like baggage that we carry around with us. That can feed into poor self-esteem or a lack of confidence. If your belief is that you are not worthy, then sometimes you end up with poor boundaries, because you think everybody else is more important than you. Therefore, I’ll just let them use up my space, my resources or my time, because who am I? I’m just poor snivelling me. And so that creates a new layer of problems when we’re not owning our own space.
The other thing that compounds it is when our sense of self/self-worth is sought out in other people, rather than being intrinsically motivated. Someone with a strong sense of identity says, ‘I am worthy of people’s time and people’s love simply because I am. I was born, and I am unique, and I’m special’.
By saying ‘I’m only as good as the last review of my show or my most recent show’… Then you’re giving someone else the keys to your brain. They get to control how you feel about yourself and so that creates all kinds of anxiety. You’re always comparing yourself to other people as well.
Flowing on from that is this sense of perfectionism; ‘if I’m not enough by myself, then I have to earn my place. I have to be perfect all the time.’ I said before, this leads to procrastination. It leads to difficulty seeking help because you don’t want your façade of perfection to be broken.
23m 23s – Tools to prevent imposter syndrome
So how can we reverse that? Let’s put in some self-care, some self-love and build some healthy boundaries – and often people don’t respond well to that. If you have previously had very poor boundaries, they’re not getting what they want anymore. That’s actually a pretty good sign if they arc up a bit about it, but you have to brace yourself for that when it comes.
However, surrounding yourself with positive people makes it less likely that’s going to happen. People who see the best in you and want to be your cheer squad. They are the type of people who are going to fill your tank and really energize you going forward. It’s good to have friends along the way, having people who can support you, who can feed wisdom into you, or some level of accountability.
Setting yourself up in an environment that’s got realistic goals. It’s important that you’re not overstretching yourself and setting yourself up for unnecessary failure. All these things are a framework that help you to grow and still have some support while you’re not really strong. If you don’t have a deep root structure keeping you safe. These other supports around you are essential.
As you go, you’ll get some successes. One of the things that I say constantly to clients is, what are you doing to celebrate your successes? Some people write it on the wall and stick it in the office and have lots of successes build up over time. It’s on the wall all the time. Other people go out and have a celebratory dinner, or they take an afternoon off as a reward. Celebrate the successes as they come so you can remember exactly what you have achieved.
Choosing to not compare yourself to others. I know it’s hard, but there’s no point in you comparing yourself to the person who’s been doing it for 25 years if you’re just starting out. That’s a sure fire way of getting yourself discouraged and depressed. And why compare yourself to someone who’s got different skills and different personality traits to you? You’re much better off comparing yourself to yourself and just trying to improve continually every day.
Lastly, we talked about surrounding yourself with positive people. The flip side of this is avoiding the negative people. We often say you are your own worst enemy. I think that’s a lie. I think that there’s always at least one person who has it in for you more than even you have it in for yourself. Avoid that person, that’s all. Don’t put yourself in situations where you’re going to get lots of bad feedback when you’re feeling really vulnerable. If you’re a performer, getting feedback as soon as you step off the stage is maybe not the best time. Can you set up systems and protective measures so that you don’t get that feedback until the next Monday, for example?
27m 30s – The cycle of imposter syndrome
I wanted to talk about the impulsive syndrome cycle, because that’s how we get caught in this whole loop. Let’s start at the top here; you get a new project or a task. It’s a great opportunity, but for someone who’s got imposter syndrome, it’s met with a fair bit of anxiety. They assume they aren’t good enough and therefore they procrastinate, or over prepare, or they might just turn down the opportunity straight away, because it’s a bit too scary. Like a fight or flight mechanism. Instead of fighting the procrastination (which they aren’t doing), they withdraw (flight) or freeze with procrastination, which is like a deer stunned in the headlights.
If you do get to the end of the project and it gets completed, and there’s this feeling of relief. Sometimes you achieve really good things and people congratulate you, and the instant responses to assume, ‘Oh, no, I was lucky. Anyone could have done that. It wasn’t a really major work that I did.’
This feeds into more self-doubt, anxiety and depression, because you reinforce the idea, ‘Well, I am crap!’ And then someone gives you a new project or a task. And then the cycle continues again. That’s the happy ending. We just get caught in this loop, and we just keep going and going.
29m 37s – Breaking the cycle
How do we break this? If you know what your triggers are then you can see them coming. A lot of people will say ‘You triggered me.’ Usually what it means is, someone said something, and I was triggered by that. But I get to choose what my response is. It takes a while to train your brain to do it. It is not necessarily someone else’s fault if you get triggered by something, and if you know that certain things are going to trigger you, then you can do things that will look after yourself, and that will draw boundaries so that other people don’t overstep them.
As you go, it’s good to build into yourself this sense of confidence and self-worth. Comparing yourself to others is the fastest way to steal your joy. But if you know what your strengths are, then you can operate in your strengths, and it means that you are more likely to have wins. If you know your weaknesses, you can either work on them or say, ‘Actually, I choose to not operate in my weaknesses at all. I’ll delegate that out to someone else who’s good at that. I’ll stick to my strengths.’ Either way, I encourage you to try to differentiate yourself from other people because if you know that you are different then you don’t compare apples and oranges. You just know that this is a really good apple, and this is a really good orange, and that’s fine. We’ll just let them be. So, knowing what your strengths are allows you to have more grace for yourself and for other people as well.
Some people really value positive affirmations. What that’s doing is just firing positive messaging into the back of your brain, knowing that some of it will lodge there and will dislodge the negative stuff.
Similarly, visualizations help you to picture it; if you can see it, you can be it. Lots of people just don’t work hard on getting a clear vision, so then they give up a lot more easily than they otherwise would.
This next one I love. It’s creating an ‘I am great folder’ (or in my case, a bag). When I ran my own theatre company, I kept every single handwritten piece of feedback that we had over 15 years, and they were all catalogued. When I was discouraged, I would go through and read all of these handwritten comments. It would remind me of why I was doing what I was doing.
I have letters, words of encouragement, thank you cards, all those sorts of things that are a booster or a pep talk for me when I need them. The reality is, I very rarely ever refer to them. But I continue to add to the bag. I just like knowing that I have that bag there, because to me, it’s proof that I’ve done well, and that some people appreciate what I do. So, I encourage you to start with your ‘I am great’ folder.
Again, surrounding yourself with positive people and reframing. That includes yourself. So if you’ve got negative thoughts, reframe them. That’s the key thing. I started this by saying it is all in your mind. This is how you can control it. Let’s get rid of the negative thoughts that drag you down in your own walk. And so be kind to yourself.
Accept that failure is okay. I know that’s hard, especially when you’re a creative but one of the phrases that I really love is I either had a win or a learning experience. Nothing is ever a loss if you dig for the gold in it. It just takes a little bit of time to process it so that you do find the gold there.
When you’re struggling, seek help. It’s great to have friends around. It’s great to have encouraging people or mentors or coaches around, but professionals can also be really useful. Going to see a counsellor to offload, that can be a really useful thing.
So these sorts of things can be applied to the imposter syndrome cycle again. We talked about having a new project or task, and then that raising anxiety. But if you already know your strengths and your focus is on serving people, not on trying to earn good reputation, it’s like ‘this is just what I got in my hands. You can take it or leave it.’ That can take a lot of the stress off, because then it’s not up to you how they receive it. It’s up to them, and it’s their problem if they don’t like it.
But remember, if someone’s asked you to do something, it means they’ve already pre-vetted you. They already believe in you. Sometimes we forget that someone already likes us. Knowing that reduces the anxiety, which will reduce some of the procrastination and the over-preparing.
Having a clear plan is helpful, and then breaking it down into baby steps so nothing feels so overwhelming that you don’t start. If the next step is just to send one email today, that’s so much easier than saying, I need to write a book. Break it down into bite size chunks.
And then just accept that failure is fine. Everyone wants to get into flow state. But flow state is actually where you’re being pushed 5-10% beyond where your comfort zone is. That assumes that 5-10% of the time you’re going to be making mistakes. That’s where you work best, and where you learn the best. So, budget for a certain percentage of failure. Play around without needing to do it in front of an audience, or a paying crowd, or something like that.
When you get to the completion of a project, remember to keep your friends around. Remember to add to your ‘I am great’ folder and that helps you to fly. Fend off that discounting the feedback and the assumptions that it was just luck, or a trivial thing. When those ideas do come through, take a step back, slow down, and then talk to someone who you trust. I think it’s useful to track your thought processes as well. Write down what you’re thinking, what you’re feeling and why. Where did it come from? Is it actually true? What is the real truth behind this? Sometimes that can take the sting out of it.
Just careful how you use social media. If you are addicted to it, then it that can be a real lead weight around you when you’re in that vulnerable situation.
And the last thing is, yes, seek professional help if you need it, but when you’re not doing task-related stuff, work on your self-confidence. Work on your strengths, on building up your skills, on your internal sense of self-worth. Stop comparing yourself to other people and identify what your triggers are, so that the next time it comes you can notice you have these feelings.
That is where I wanted to leave it for today. I’m intrigued to hear what your thoughts are and what it’s raised for you.
40m 01s – Q&A: When things are out of your control
Jim Rimmer: That’s a wonderful presentation, Eugene. Margaret has asked specifically about individual agency. And how we manage those expectations when rehearsal schedules or other things are outside of our control.
Eugene Wong: Please correct me if I’m not on the right wavelength here. Sometimes the expectations that are placed on us are beyond what we can actually meet.
I often hear people say, ‘I didn’t fulfil my responsibility’. And my question to them was, what was your ability to respond in this? A responsibility is your response ability. And if you don’t have the ability to respond, then that’s just an unreasonable expectation.
I’d be asking ‘Why is someone expecting that of you? And why did you accept that if you knew that you didn’t have the ability to respond?’
I think sometimes, especially with artists, it’s what’s known as being turbulent. We’re affected greatly by inputs around us. Some people say creatives are just emotional. That’s not a bad thing. That’s part of what makes us strong, we just need to learn how to manage it. Knowing that sometimes we get affected by things around us, we need to be able to lay down or weave in enough slack in our schedules to be able to handle that.
For example, knowing that, at your best, you can run 10 k/h, and at your worst, you can run 1 k/h. If you’re always budgeting your time so that you’re running at 10 k/h, what happens when you’re having a day where you’re not feeling great? Artists can get gung-ho when we’re inspired and then when we crash, or we’re struggling a bit, we haven’t thought that through very well. And so we set ourselves up for failure.
Jim Rimmer: The Arts Wellbeing Collective also has a bunch of resources that are quite specific to leaders and decision makers in creative workplaces. These include our Work Well Guide and our upcoming Creating Mentally Healthy Workplaces training course. A lot of our focus is a recognition that we often spend more time with our colleagues than we do with our loved ones. So they’re an important place for mental health interventions.
Irena has asked how we might deal with negative feedback, especially when it’s framed unkindly.
44m 21s – Q&A: Dealing with negative feedback
Eugene Wong: There’s always going to be someone; as I said, you’re not your own worst enemy. If something stings, I find it helpful to think through why they asked that. You don’t necessarily need to ask them, but you can explore it in your own mind. Why did they phrase it that way? Often, if there is a barb in what they say, it’s actually because of their own insecurities or woundedness. In which case, it makes it easier for me to not take that personally, and just go, ‘They had a bee in their bonnet. I was just collateral damage on the day. I’m going to go back to my ‘I am great’ folder and remind myself of who I am.’
If you’ve got someone who often says triggering things, draw that boundary. Not necessarily saying, ‘Don’t you dare say that to me’, but ask just to clarify why. ‘That question sounded like that was said as an attack. I just want to clarify if it was intended that way?’
That gives them the opportunity to say, ‘Oh no, I didn’t mean it that way’, or to have to own where they’re coming from. It turns their own comment back on themselves, and it can be embarrassing for them. But you’ve been quite gracious and non-judgmental in how you’ve done it. People then start to recognize you’re not going to take rubbish.
46m 47s – Q&A: Resources for women of colour
Jim Rimmer: Michelle has asked whether there are any resources specific to the experience of imposter syndrome amongst women of colour that you’re aware of.
Eugene Wong: This is where we start to move into discussions about systemic inequity, and I think it’s worth separating the two. Yes, there are problems with the system. I’m not denying that at all and we need to tackle the inequities within any system and make sure there are healthy structures. At the same time, a separate issue is, to what degree are you allowing yourself to get triggered by these comments? Recognize the truth that, yes, I may need to work harder simply because of the system, and that’s unfair. And yes, I’m going to fight that or try to correct it. But at the same time, I need to work on what I can own myself. In terms of resources, Blair Imani talks a lot about intersectionality and imposter syndrome. I’ve watched a bit of her stuff. I do think, though, that it can feel less complicated when you separate the two. Recognise that there are overlaps, but the way that you deal with it doesn’t always need to combat them both at the same time.
49m 03s – Q&A: Finding mentors
Jim Rimmer: John is riffing off your reference to a cheer squad and wondering how we find useful mentors who can make specific and actionable improvements to our projects.
Eugene Wong: Firstly, find someone who is further along the path than you. Think about the area that you want to be mentored in. I had four mentors at the same time at one stage, but they were all for different things, because no one is a demigod who is good at everything. If it’s woodwork, then you want to find someone who’s really good with woodwork. If it’s personal character, then the person with great woodwork capability may or may not be of any value in that respect. Look for people that you admire and then have dare to actually speak to them – ‘This is the reason why I am really interested in potentially getting mentored by you.’ Give them clear expectations. For example, I only want to catch up once every two months, I’ll come to where you are and pay for coffee each time. If you want someone to speak into your life, don’t expect them to come to you all the time.
The second thing that I would say is – who do you really like or who would you get along well with? Because sometimes you’ll riff off their personality or their experience, or their dark sense of humour, and that makes for a good, almost collegial attitude. Sometimes you end up bringing life and bringing wisdom to your mentor as well, and it becomes more of a two way.
51m 29s – Q&A: Repaying mentors
Jim Rimmer: Suze is also asking whether there should be an expectation of paying mentors beyond just a coffee.
Eugene Wong: It’s up to you. I think, no matter what you do, it’s important to honour the people who speak into your life. For some people that might be paying them what you think they’re worth, or make an offer. Sometimes it’s not a transactional thing, but every now and again I will just gift them something. It might be a voucher for a fancy dinner, or for a theatre experience, so you’re showing that you’re not just using them, you actually do value them. Sometimes it’s a genuine handwritten card explaining the difference it’s made. I gave some lengthy advice to someone, and five years later he left me a voicemail message, saying it was a really useful conversation and that he wanted to say thank you. That was five years ago, and I still have that on my voicemail inbox and I listen to it every now and again. It really matters to me. There are different ways of expressing yourself. I am not personally a fan of turning everything just into a transaction, but sometimes honouring someone for their time does require giving them money.
53m 36s – Q&A: Resources for young people
Jim Rimmer: Anonymous is wondering whether you’re aware of resources specific to young people and the potential for their experiences of imposter syndrome.
Eugene Wong: I think the best thing that we can do is to build up the sense of self. It’s something that’s not specific to young people or people of colour or women. Find something that will help you to understand what your strengths are and what your value is as a person. The core of it is identity and learning healthy boundary-making, and some of those materials might be better geared towards young people or to towards women or people of colour.
54m 49s – Q&A: Entering Flow State
Jim Rimmer: The final question that we have time for is from Erica, and she’s asking whether you have any tips for entering flow state. Which is a phenomenon I’m sure you’re aware of, but it’s that ultimate quest, for many people that work in the arts. Finding that elite status of where we’re working at our very best, but enjoying the process of stretching ourselves.
Eugene Wong: Such good questions, everyone. Flow state is where you are being stretched so much that it takes your full concentration to be involved. The rest of the world just ceases to exist, because you are in the moment with this thing. It’s like you’re being expanded like a balloon. You’re feeling the stretch, it’s the first time that balloon is being blown up. When you release the air, the balloon doesn’t quite shrivel back. And the next time that you blow it up, it’ll easily go back to the size that it was, and then you can push a little bit further.
So with flow state and pushing your capabilities, first get into a safe space, where there’s not going to be judgment for doing it wrong. That might be a safe physical space, but also a safe emotional space. I would try to evaluate what your capabilities are, and what would be the next step beyond that? Or the next three steps beyond that?
Just assume that you’re going to fail. For people who do actuarial studies, which is high level maths, they have like, five different levels of failure. And then the best that you can get is actually just to pass. And so people get really excited ‘I only did a 3rd level fail this time rather than a 4th level fail. Maybe next time that I try I’ll get down to a second Level fail’. They get used to this idea that failure is a good thing.
Imposter syndrome itself isn’t a bad thing, because it’s feeling the stretch. And that stretch is how you get into flow state as well. If you’re new to a role, maybe your standard isn’t as great as if you’d been in the role for five years. That’s great, you’re in that period of stretch. So give yourself a little bit of slack to be able to make some mistakes and to be able to be confused. Then try to enjoy the process of turning it into a game. Gamifying things makes it fun and makes you willing to embrace those challenges. It’s not just ‘I need to get to 100%’, but it’s ‘last time I was at 65%. How can I get to 70%?’
One last thing, if you struggle with imposter syndrome, there is a two minute video on YouTube called the Gap by Ira Glass. I’ve watched it scores of times, and it saved me that many times as well. I really encourage you to do it. And if you’ve got any other questions, free to send a message on my Facebook wall, A Stronger Narrative, and I’ll respond to it.
58m 49s
Jim Rimmer: Gamification is an incredibly interesting space. We could run a webinar on that alone. Unfortunately, we’ve run out of time. Thank you so much, Eugene, for sharing your insights. Thank you for all the participants for asking such considered questions and for sharing your own experiences. If LinkedIn is your thing, you can follow both Eugene and Arts Wellbeing Collective. We look forward to seeing you at our next webinar in a month or so.
