PEORIA MAGAZINE September 2023

TWENTY SOMETHING

FACING IMPOSTER SYNDROME In your 20s, it can take a while to figure out if and where you belong

BY KATIE FALEY ILLUSTRATION BY MISSY SHEPLER

I ’m going to let you all in on a little secret. I feel like a fraud. And I know I’m not alone, because there’s a real psychological term that has gained traction on social media among the younger generation: imposter syndrome.

with my friends, who all happen to feel the same way. In fact, one friend, a new mom, re cently told me that she still feels like she’s just a teenage babysitter for her own baby. She doesn’t feel old enough to have a baby, even though she’s a few years older than her mom was when she had her first baby in the ‘90s. She keeps waiting for the letter to come in the mail to tell her that she passed all her courses, got her degree in motherhood and she’s allowed to be a mom.

I almost believed a job would just magically fall into my lap. When I started searching for a real adult job for the first time, it seemed like I was getting advice from all sides. From my parents I heard that you need to physically go into the building of the place you want to work and ask for an application. From the career services at my col lege, I heard that you just need the perfect résumé. From LinkedIn, I heard you just need to have the right connections. I thought if I put all of that advice together, I’d have the perfect combi nation and get a job without a problem. The only problem was, I didn’t really have any connections. That seemed like something that came about after you already broke into the workforce.

I FEAR THAT I'VE GOTTEN THE JOBS I HAVE THANKS TO LUCK RATHER THAN ACCOMPLISHMENT

SEEKING WORK AFTER COLLEGE

I often feel like I’m only pretending to be an adult. I have this lingering fear that at any moment I’m going to be exposed for being an imposter. I fear that I’ve gotten the jobs I have thanks to luck rather than accomplishment or hard work. I often vent my feelings

I’m a little bit into my career now, but when I was first trying to break into the workforce, I was nothing short of stressed. I thought I understood the concept of finding a job until I actually went searching for a job. In my naiveté,

80 SEPTEMBER 2023 PEORIA MAGAZINE