I got the promotion. It didn’t quiet the voices.
Warning: this one is a little more personal than usual. But I think you'll see yourself in it.
Here we go…
First thing: I got promoted to Full Professor. And before you go "wait, were you half a professor before?" no. In academia in the US, the ranks go Assistant, Associate, and then Full. Full is the top of the ladder, where your entire body of work gets reviewed and a bunch of people over 9 months decide whether you've done enough to deserve the title. Big deal.
Second thing: my first feeling when I got the official confirmation was not joy. It was not relief. It was not even that specific kind of tired that comes after you've been holding your breath for months and you finally get to exhale. My first feeling was something closer to disappointment. Like, oh no. They didn't catch me. They still haven't figured out I don't deserve this.
I know. I KNOW.
On one level I can look at my CV and walk you through exactly why this is earned. I can recite it like a grocery list. I have done the work. I know I have done the work. And yet there is this voice in my head — what my therapist calls the "committee of assholes" — that is absolutely convinced the whole thing is a clerical error.
You know the voice. The one that tells you you're not ready yet, not polished enough yet, not quite there yet. The one that shows up the second something good happens to remind you that you probably don't deserve it.
We all have a committee of assholes.
They are very f*cking annoyingly dedicated to their jobs.
But then I called a bestie…
I was telling a bestie about this feeling this week, and she said something that actually made my pause and think.
She said: of course you feel that way. Because half of the time, actual people have been telling you exactly that.
And she's right. I have received reviews from colleagues as part of this process who tore my record apart, seemingly because I don't live where they live. I have watched male colleagues do genuinely less and move faster. I have sat in interviews where someone looked at my CV and said, with a straight face, "Well, here at University X, we value quality over quantity." While looking at my CV. I was once told my writing was so bad that I should reconsider my life. Not my career. My LIFE. For two hours straight.
Those are things that happened to me.
So when we talk about imposter syndrome, let's be real about what we're actually describing. Most of the time, the conversation around it goes something like: women have this irrational fear that they don't belong, like isn't that a funny quirk of female psychology. haha lol. Oh women and their silly lady brains…
And that framing, I would argue, is the patriarchy doing its thing. Because feeling like you don't belong is not irrational when you have spent your career being told, in ways big and small, that you don't. And for obvious reasons, the patriarchy is not particularly motivated to fix this. A woman who is convinced she's not ready is a woman who doesn't apply for the job, doesn't put her name forward, doesn't take up space. She doesn't get in the way of the current system and disrupt the status quo (aka men in power).
The committee of assholes is doing exactly what the system designed them to do. They didn't just show up randomly. They've been taking the damn notes.
What my bestie did in that conversation was not let me sit with the committee. She drowned them out. She reminded me of what is actually true. And yes, accepting that felt a little delulu, because we have been taught for so long that the committee is right, that the instinct to believe them feels more honest than the instinct to argue back. But sometimes the imagination required to believe you belong somewhere before the world has fully caught up is exactly what gets you there.
That is genuinely why programs like my leadership coaching experience, Like a Leader, matter. You cannot dismantle a committee of assholes alone. You need people who will walk in and replace them with something louder, cheerleaders who know what you've actually done and will hold that truth for you on the days you can't.
xoxo,
Kelsey
FULL Professor
P.S. Don’t worry, I definitely still celebrated with bubbles with a bestie who also became a full prof this week! 💃🏻
This Week's Thing:
Pull out a journal or just sit with these for a minute.
Who's on your committee of assholes? Where did they come from, meaning were they a boss, a colleague, a system that kept moving the goalpost? Sometimes just naming them out loud takes a little of their power away.
And then: who in your life is actively on the counter-committee? Who are the people that hold what's true about you when you can't? Hold onto those people. Ask one of them if they'd be your go-to accountability person. And the next time you hear the committee getting loud, give them a call or a text.
And if you're ready for an official cheerleader in your life, check out Like a Leader, my leadership coaching experience for Gen Z and Millennial women 👇🏼