Think of all the great conversations and plans happening!
I try to choose conferences that will leave me inspired with lots of great ideas and opportunities. I have wonderful notes on fantastic project and even timelines to get them all done… But then a weird thing can happen where I feel unworthy of all these ideas.
One example is the 2013 ScienceOnline conference. I have a notebook full of post and video ideas but when I got home, I didn’t do any of them. Not only that, I stopped all online writing. Why?
Laziness was definitely a factor but I have a bunch of half written posts over the last 6 months. I think I’ve been intimidated by the wonderful accomplished people in the ScienceOnline community. It isn’t their fault at all and they are all encouraging. Maybe the fact that they are regular people freaked me out; their writing has given them super hero status in my eyes. Maybe I thought their talent and hard work would just be magically transferred to me so the writing should be easier?
For some reason, after this last ScienceOnline conference, my brain started with: I can’t produce anything worthy. It seems to be a combination of:
- Impostor syndrome. This includes feeling like a fraud but also not trying for available opportunities.
- Perfectionism. In 2011, I adopted the word perfektion to push myself to try things. “Done is better than perfect”
In response, I am going to try to just post quick posts over the next week to see if I can get the groove back. Then, I will try adding some of those larger projects.
One of the benefits of this insecurity is that it has reminded me that things like joining twitter or starting a blog can be overwhelming and I will hopefully be more sensitive to friends and Vancouver locals who are starting into the ScienceOnline world.
explorewithmeg says
ScienceOnline was definitely inspiring (remember our plane trip home? :P) and I look forward to your future posts 🙂
Lisa McDonnell says
I definitely felt overwhelmed at the conferences I attended recently. Everyone had amazing research to present, and at times I found myself reflecting on my own work and wondering if I and my work were up to snuff. Am I talented enough to be a part of this community? I’m going to try and push those feelings to the back of my mind over the next few weeks and focus on the things I learned that I want to know more about. If I felt, after being at the conference, that I’m not well read enough I’m going to make it a goal to read more.
Thanks for posting this – I think many of us experience this but don’t say it!
Sarah Vollett says
I totally understand! A week and a half ago I decided to start a science blog in addition to my food blog (which I should have done ages ago, since I have far more to say on a science blog). I was completely full of inspiration and spent the entire weekend writing. Then, after my second post, a friend sent me a minor correction to a fact I really should have fact checked, and didn’t (but it was a minor technical inconsistency and didn’t really change the thrust of the article itself). There went my self confidence. I had to force myself to put out a second post this week, and I certainly am not writing at anywhere near the pace I thought I would be. This is a really reassuring post to remind myself that just posting anything is a victory, and that I don’t have to be the best science blogger out there; I just have to keep going.