Beginner's Mindset or Imposter Syndrome

For the past couple of weeks I have been taking a Learn to Row class at my local boat club. Although I have been on and around different kinds of boats my whole life, I had never done crew. Just to be clear, I’m talking about the long multi-person boats where people sit backward and row in sync while the coxswain yells orders to them. On the first day of class, we spent half of the time learning the motions on an erg (stationary rowing machine) and the other half learning crew terminology and boat parts. On day two, we sat 4 at-a-time in a boat at the dock just to see how it felt to be in the boat in the water. We had to learn how to carry a very long (and, coach Sam emphasized, very expensive) boat between eight adults of different sizes and strengths. We had to learn how to get in the boat, adjust the footboards, put the oars in the oarlocks, steer the boat, turn around (spin), and row in sync with others on the boat. In other words, it’s a lot more complicated than I had imagined. It has been difficult and confusing and super fun.


This past week I also had the opportunity to do a presentation with my boss at a conference held by the Office of Social Emotional Learning for Chicago Public Schools. We worked really hard planning everything, writing scripts, and making the presentation interactive and informative. My boss was supportive and encouraging. She never once made me feel like I was “less than” or inferior to her. And yet, I was so incredibly nervous when the day came to present. 


All of this has got me thinking about beginner’s mindset and imposter syndrome. Both experiences - rowing and presenting - were new to me, but I was able to approach rowing with a beginner’s mindset, ready to make mistakes and be corrected, open to fail, and learn from my failures. At the conference, I felt like I was expected to be an “expert” on my topic, and I was worried someone would ask a question I couldn’t answer, or point out a mistake I made. In the end, I was able to relax into the presentation and did well. Still, I wonder if I would have enjoyed the process more if I had been able to reframe my lack of experience using a beginner’s mindset and lead with curiosity, instead of allowing myself to feel imposter syndrome. Because I think they might be two sides of the same coin. We never finish learning. No matter how many years we’ve been running, there are always moments where we doubt, get nervous for a race, or have a bad day. I know I’ve toed the start line of many races where I felt super nervous because I put pressure on myself to perform a certain way, and I worried I wouldn’t live up to the expectation. If we maintain a mindset of curiosity about what we can do instead of pressuring ourselves about what we should do, maybe we would be able to relax more, which in turn could lead to better results. Maybe, the next time we feel imposter syndrome, we can embrace it, and recognize that we’re not imposters, we’re just always beginners - always open to learning and improving.