I Still Don’t Know What I’m Doing
Spoiler alert: Neither did anyone else when they started
Confession time.
Every day for the last 10 days, I've hit record, stared into my phone, and said, "It's day # of 90 of redefining leadership, smashing the patriarchy, and changing the world without losing our joy, with me, Dr. Kelc."
And every day there's this tiny voice in the back of my head going, who do you think you are?
When you do something new in public, everybody gets to watch you figure it out. I’ve uploaded videos with no sound, with MASSIVE editing mistakes, and definitely less than flattering angles and choices of myself. And the first 2 minute video I made took me 4 hours to edit…WOOPSY DAISY.
I don't totally know what I'm doing. I'm learning as I go, in front of everyone.
And if I'm being super honest, it feels like I'm going against the academic grain. Everyone in academia talks about how important science communication is, but there's still this unspoken rule that it has to be hoity toity and super precise to count. And like... nobody outside of academia gives a shit about a p-value. The hoity toity version doesn't reach the woman sitting in her car before a meeting, trying to work up the nerve to ask for the promotion. And she's who I'm doing this for.
So I'm practicing on camera, with jokes and a little swearing, and yes, I'm having SO much fun doing it.
But there’s always this nagging feeling that I’m being judged. Nobody has said anything to my face. But I've heard a few people have said things behind my back, and that's enough to make anyone feel a little uneasy, no matter how hard I work not to care.
Some days this whole thing feels exciting. Some days I want to crawl under my duvet and cry and watch Off Campus and never re-emerge into society.
But you know what?
This week my clients and I did our reflection workshop, Harvest That Shit, Girl (yes, that's the real name). Today one of my clients said something I haven't been able to stop thinking about. We ended the workshop with a statement about what we’re making space for in these last 3 months of 2026. And what she said was such an important reminder for me, and for all of us that I HAD to share. (anonymously of course)
She said she was making space to do things before she felt ready, to just go for it, and trust herself a little bit more.
And I was like, oh. Right. That's literally what I'm doing every morning with my phone and a slightly unhinged amount of enthusiasm.
Okay, let me be a little nerdy for a sec…
You've probably heard the stat that men apply for jobs when they meet 60% of the qualifications and women wait until they hit 100%. It's EVERYWHERE. But it came from an internal Hewlett-Packard report that was never published, so it’s impossible to check those numbers.¹
So two researchers, Mona Salwender and Dagmar Stahlberg, tested it. Across four studies, the 60/100 gap mostly didn't hold up. Sometimes there was a small difference, and sometimes nothing at all.² What did show up every single time was something they called "desire for preparedness." Women wanted to feel more prepared than men before putting their hand up, even with the same qualifications.
My favorite study on this one: researchers gave men and women a science quiz, and they scored about the same (women averaged 7.5 correct, men 7.9). Then they asked everyone how they thought they did. Women guessed 5.8, and men guessed 7.1. Then everyone got invited to enter a science competition, and 71% of the men signed up compared to 49% of the women.³
The women knew just as much as the men. They just didn't believe it, and that decided who showed up. I think about that study ALL the time.
And I don't think something is wrong with us. If you've spent your whole life feeling like you get less room for mistakes, of course you want to be extra prepared. That's a pretty logical response to a whole lot of patriarchal bullshit.
Now, I can already hear the comments, so let me be super clear. If you've watched three seasons of Grey's Anatomy, please stay out of the operating room. Companies should hire people with the skills to do the job. When the stakes are high, preparation matters, and that is a hill I will die on (I’m not sure why anyone would argue against that, but I know they are out there…)
And also, a lot of us already know enough to try. We're sitting at "ready enough" and grading ourselves like we're at 40%.
The scary part is what happens when you try and it doesn't go perfectly, especially in public.
If you've read Painted Wolves, you know all about my snowboarding career. (Olympics any day now.) Lean back, fall down, cry, flip over, stand up, repeat. My butt hurt for a week. This year, I even injured my tailbone so badly, I had to sit out 2 months of snowboarding!! But every time I fell, I figured out something to do differently on the next run.
And it gets better. There’s research on this! It's called error management training, and it's kind of wild for those of us raised to color inside the lines, because trainers literally encourage people to make mistakes and then learn from them. A meta-analysis of 24 studies with over 2,000 people found this worked better than training people to avoid mistakes. The advantage got even bigger when people faced brand-new problems that looked different from what they'd practiced.⁴
So every awkward reel, every "um," every day I hit post and feel like a fraud with a phone... I'm basically running error management training on myself. In public. #grossbutcool
Somewhere along the way, a lot of us learned that being a good girl meant being right, getting the A, and never embarrassing ourselves. I'm trying to swap that out for "what happens if I try?" and "what am I going to learn?"
So this is what my client reminded me of this week, and what 90 days of talking into my phone is teaching me. You have to just start. You're probably never going to feel 100% ready, and I'd bet money you're more ready than you think.
xoxo
Kels
This Week's Thing: Find Your Ready Enough
Pick the thing. You know the one. The thing you keep saying you'll do "when you're ready."
Write down what you already know. Like, actually write it down. Remember the quiz study? Your gut is probably lowballing you.
Check the real stakes. If the worst case is feeling embarrassed for a day, go for it and see what you learn. If the worst case is someone getting hurt or you losing your house, okay, prepare more.
Take one small step this week. When something goes sideways (it will), jot down what it taught you.
A Girl's Gotta Cite Her Sources
Mohr, T. S. (2014). Why women don't apply for jobs unless they're 100% qualified. Harvard Business Review.
Salwender, M., & Stahlberg, D. (2024). Do women only apply when they are 100% qualified, whereas men already apply when they are 60% qualified? European Journal of Social Psychology, 54(7), 1545–1557. https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.3109
Ehrlinger, J., & Dunning, D. (2003). How chronic self-views influence (and potentially mislead) estimates of performance. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84(1), 5–17. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.84.1.5
Keith, N., & Frese, M. (2008). Effectiveness of error management training: A meta-analysis. Journal of Applied Psychology, 93(1), 59–69. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.93.1.59