Stop Believing You're Not Good Enough To Be A Professor

Tell me if this is you sometimes:

• I really don’t think I’m good enough to be a professor.

• I don’t really deserve this job.

• It was kind of a fluke that I got that grant.

• No one should read my book.

• *insert any other thought you have pertaining to why you might not be good enough*

I hear this from my clients all the time. As a certified life and weight coach for professors, I help professors reclaim five hours of their week, every week for themselves. And one of the ways you're not saving time right now is by telling yourself these stories about your work. Because you start believing these stories, that you’re not good enough. 

And you might even try to gather evidence to support these beliefs. 

Like, “I don’t really deserve this job; they just felt bad for me.”

“I’m not really good enough to be a professor; my students are just being nice to me.”

“No one should read my book; they published it because there were no other options.”

All of these reasons start to build and build and they become your reality.

But what I want you to do to combat this is simple.

I want you to write down the story you are telling yourself.

Write down what it is that you believe, and then write down WHY it is you believe that. 

Because then you might start to see that what you’re telling yourself to believe is actually imaginary and not true.

This is the work that I do with my clients. They bring me this long list of reasons why they think they’re not good enough, and I show them why it might not be true. I show all the reasons they are good enough to be a professor, why people do want to read their book, why they do deserve the grant, etc.

When someone comes along and gives you perspective on the reasons you are good enough, it changes your thinking. You think, well if this person believes this, then maybe I can believe it too. If they say I can handle this, maybe I can handle it. If they say I am doing great work, maybe I am and should be proud of what I am doing.

And you might not think that this actually is affecting you time-wise, but what happens when you believe these negative and false beliefs? When that judging voice pops up in your head saying you’re not good enough, or no one wants to read your work, or no one likes you? You probably get down on yourself and don’t do the work that you are setting out to do.

But when you recognize it and realize it is just not true, then you’re able to do the work you need to do. You can choose your thoughts differently around it and change the version of what you are telling yourself.

The next time you find yourself having these negative thoughts, take a moment and reassess what it is you are thinking and if it is true. You will find by reframing your thoughts you are able to have more confidence in your abilities while also saving time in the process.