There are moments when something you already know suddenly becomes real.

Today, I filled out a presenter profile for a conference.

This should not have been a particularly significant event. I submitted the proposal months ago. It was accepted. I built the presentation. I created the handout. I’ve practiced it. Other people have seen it. My name has presumably been sitting in a conference program somewhere for quite some time.

None of this is new information.

And yet, today they asked me for my biography.

Then my headshot.

Then my handouts.

And somewhere around uploading a photo of myself, my brain apparently went:

Wait. They really think you’re a presenter?

Ah.

There you are.

The Evidence Is Not the Problem

I’ve been thinking about imposter syndrome lately, although I’m not particularly fond of the term.

“Imposter” suggests deception. As though I somehow slipped past security and am now wandering around a professional conference hoping nobody asks to see my credentials.

I did not sneak into this conference.

I submitted a proposal. Someone reviewed it. They accepted it.

I have graduate degrees. I have years of experience in education and adult learning. I develop and deliver psychoeducation for a living. I have presented to hundreds of people at a time. I know this material because I built it from work I actually do.

The evidence is embarrassingly abundant.

And that’s the strange thing about feeling like an imposter.

Sometimes it has very little interest in evidence.

You can know that you are qualified and still not feel qualified.

You can know that you earned an opportunity and still wonder whether someone has overestimated you.

You can be invited into the room and still feel vaguely as though you’re trespassing.

Apparently, you can even create an entire presentation about helping people understand their experiences and then be mildly surprised when you have an experience of your own that needs understanding.

Rude, honestly.

Maybe I’ve Been Asking the Wrong Question

When this feeling shows up, my instinct is usually to argue with it.

Of course I belong there.

Here are my credentials.

Here is my experience.

Here are the things I’ve accomplished.

Here is the evidence.

Surely if I can assemble a sufficiently persuasive case, some internal jury will finally return a verdict:

Congratulations. You officially belong. You may now proceed without self-doubt.

That has yet to happen.

So I’m beginning to wonder whether Do I belong here? is even a useful question.

Maybe I don’t need to feel completely certain that I belong before I do something that matters to me.

Maybe confidence isn’t the admission price.

The Doubt Can Come Too

In a couple of weeks, I’m going to walk into a room in Norfolk, Virginia, and give a presentation at an international professional conference.

Even writing that sentence feels a little ridiculous.

There may be people in that room who have worked in this field longer than I have. People with different credentials. Different expertise. People whose names I recognize.

And I suspect there will still be a small voice somewhere in my head asking:

Are we absolutely sure you’re supposed to be up here?

Maybe.

But I don’t think I need to get rid of that voice before I walk to the front of the room.

It can come with me.

It can be nervous.

It can question whether we’re ready.

It can wonder whether everyone else knows something we don’t.

It just doesn’t get to make the decisions.

Because alongside the doubt, there is something else I know.

I care deeply about this work.

I have something worth contributing to the conversation.

And I don’t have to be the person who knows the most in the room to share what I know.

So the doubt can sit in the audience.

I have work to do.