Beginners luck and Imposter syndrome - a shallow dive in

 Being fairly new to running I can remember feeling imposter syndrome and my beginners luck wasn’t all that lucky. I believe both subjects have their place within the Flowerboy world and I hope you the reader can gain some confidence or at the least some insights.

Stuck somewhere between both subjects this was an idea that I kept in my head until I got home then quickly wrote it down. I had to make sure to dive in while the ideas were still hot.  With this creative outlet being so new and my experience within writing so minimal I figured that writing and deep diving into what comes into my brain could be worthwhile. If not for the reader then at least future self to look back upon.

I’ll share my first connection to beginner's luck that came to my head - Year 6 ;  hockey is my life. We play in gym class and the foreign exchange student from China joins. He is so out of his element he is kind of good. It’s so frustrating for someone who lives and breathes the sport to have someone like this come in and disrupt it all.  He doesn’t know the rules so of course he doesn’t play by them. He is playing based off intuition. I don’t know shit about kung fu but would imagine this is like the drunken monkey style. It’s so unorthodox you can’t predict or prepare for anything. 

I wrote down ( actually wrote down on paper ) the first rough idea, then did the same on my iPad. I then figured asking Chat GPT could be helpful in finding different points of interest I could look into. My prompt was - “I’m trying to figure out when the switch comes between beginner's luck and imposter syndrome. Or what might be the determining factors of each one and how they relate” 

Here is my brain doodle of the same prompt to myself before asking the robot.

To translate : The Internet has messed the whole thing up. I think it's a big part of the reason why people give up so easily or don't even try new things. 

1 - You see the top 20 people in the world doing whatever it is you want to do. Exceptionally well. With zero backstory of how much work it took to get there. That’s discouraging.

2- You see a fail video of whatever you are going to try and the risk of you being one of those sad folks is not an option. We give up before even trying.

3- You see the hate comments on even the best people’s content and that also discourages you. 

Beginners luck isn’t much of a problem. It’s actually quite encouraging to try something new and know you will likely suck at it. Give yourself a break. It took me  actually going to the gym to realize nobody cares about how many chin ups you can or can’t do. The judgment is almost always internal.  Most of the time people are very open and encouraging to new people. If thats not the case then they simply aren’t your people. Trying new things allows us to see if it’s for us and maybe have a slight idea about what it is that people who do whatever it is are attracted to. 

This is what I appreciate about running and from my experience can compare it to skateboarding. When someone new shows up its pretty easy to see where they are at in terms of skill level. We all have been a beginner or are still learning so we understand what it takes to progress. In both activities its so special to be seen by your peers for trying something new, battling it and eventually accomplishing whatever your goal might be. That’s one of the least talked about things with run clubs. Sure, there is accountability and community. But the encouragement and praise within it is truly something special.

So lets talk about HOW TO BATTLE IMPOSTER SYNDROME: 

 I was reading a clever page here on Substack and the author said he was tired of writing down what he needed to do and switched it up to writing down what he DID. For me I need the organization of a list just to remember, but this might be worth giving a go. 

Something that connected with me in a talk with Ryan Wills ( he hosts The Mindful Endurance Program) which brings together sport and mindfulness. He had an insight about the anxiety that comes with a huge to do list. He says it’s about Agency over Urgency. 

If you have a huge list of to do’s, you look at the tasks one by one and consider the consequences of not doing it today. This will almost always narrow your list and take some pressure off. 

Learning to take compliments is also something to consider. It reinforces your value and hard work when they are recognized by your peers. 

@adamgrant writes - 

Impostor syndrome is not a disease. It's a normal response to internalizing impossibly high standards.

Doubting yourself doesn’t always mean you're going to fail. It often means you're facing a new challenge and you're going to learn.

Feeling uncertainty is a precursor to growth.

I thought about how to wrap this topic up over my last few runs and here is what I came up with.

 

It’s important to try new things just to see what its all about. Once we have given it a fair go we can decide if it’s worth pursuing. Keeping the childlike mentality of enjoying the moment and not questioning the process or having fear of judgement is hard but if we can give ourselves a glimpse of that feeling every once and while I think we can become better versions of ourselves and be more empathetic towards others when they are trying something new.

Comparison and judgement is everywhere so it’s hard to avoid it. If we can start to give out more compliments and champion the efforts we see people making I think this will result in us cutting ourselves some slack and appreciating our personal wins. 

Doing our best with what we have available now is all we can do. 

“You were born with all of the worth in the world. Nothing and no one can add to that. Nothing and no one can take away from it.” - Dr. Lamb

Have fun and pat yourself on the back. You are doing so good.

Thanks for reading and please continue with any insights you might have in the comments.