Women of Color Mentoring Group

As a person of color who attends a predominantly white institution, I constantly fight the idea that I don’t deserve to be in the same spaces as my white classmates. Then I remember my mom telling, “No, you deserve every right to be there you’ve worked as hard and at times even harder than your classmates!!” Everything about that statement is true and I often do believe it, the keyword is “often.” When I am in a classroom of 30 where I am the only person of color, I repeatedly fall into this hole of “everyone is more prepared and smarter than me” or “how I am in this school so prestigious where my classmates don’t even look or act like me?”

These inner thoughts and feelings are all related to Imposter Syndrome, where individuals doubt their success in life and believe they have received accomplished or success by luck. The first step of tackling your own Imposter Syndrome is to understand what it means and how you see yourself as an imposter. This article from Time Magazine does a wonderful job of explaining Imposter Syndrome and ways to go about combating this internalized shame.

The ways I combat my Imposter Syndrome is with a mantra I say whenever I fall into the pit of believing I am an imposter is, “I deserve everything that has found its way to me, no matter how big or small the success is I deserve it!” What are affirmations you say to uplift yourself in situations that you do not feel motivated or inspired?