Scaling insecurities: overcoming imposter syndrome through climbing

Clinging onto the rough hold of a jug, I struggle to secure my rope to the carabiner above. My hands sweat as the rope slips out of the safety clip attached to the wall. My arms begin to lose traction on the hold as the strain of gripping on for too long overpowers my strength.

At last, I close my eyes and let go of the jug. As I feel the rebound of the rope pulling on my harness, I feel a wave of shame seep through my body because I didn’t make it to the top of this fairly easy climb.

I peer down to see my teammates gazing up at me, but a second later they look away and continue their conversations with one another. My coach shouts out a eeting “Good job,” but I feel the shallow words of encouragement wash over me. I feel a pang of guilt as I am on an advanced rock climbing team, and couldn’t even nish the climb. I let my team down and gave them one more reason to question why I’m even on this team.

Ever since I was accepted into Movement gym’s advanced rock climbing team, I feel like an outsider. In comparison to my teammates who have been climbing for well over a decade, I possess a mere fraction of their experience. Not only that, but they surpass me in technique, from a better sense of balance to body positions on the wall. Although I love this sport and my team to death, I can’t shake o the feeling that I don’t belong.

It turns out this feeling is known as imposter syndrome, characterized by the Merriam-Webster Dictionary as doubting one’s abilities or accomplishments paired with the fear of being exposed as a fraud despite evidence of success.

Despite these feelings of self doubt, I have made tremendous improvements since I rst mounted a climbing wall with trembling hands. At rst, I could barely make it a couple feet o the ground before my fear of heights overwhelmed me, but now I am just as strong as my teammates and am able to nd unique ways to solve problems others don’t see. Although I feel proud for achieving so much in such a short time, I can’t help but notice that I am still way behind my teammates. is fact has caused a wave of panic in me any time we do climbing challenges, as I immediately assume I won’t perform as well as them. is sti ing mentality began to hold me back as I started to give up before I had used all my energy and doubted myself in the middle of climbs. e 60th election for a President of the United States is approaching next year, and the candidate options look bleak. ere’s a few major reasons why the current crop of presi dential candidates is so bad. e United States’s prob lematic voting system is one issue. One-third of eligible voters did not vote in the 2020 election for a variety of reasons. Some faced cross-pressure, or pressure from di erent people to vote for di erent candidates. Others perceived they had low voter e cacy, thinking their e most important lesson they taught me was to step back and acknowledge my progress. When put into perspective, I was surprised to nd my achievements were impressive. I had made signi cant advances and was fully deserving of being on the team despite my negative thoughts. e advice to step back is a useful strategy that can be applied to all kinds of situations. Any time you feel like you don’t belong or aren’t worthy of something, it is important to look at yourself from a fresh perspective and reevaluate your progress.

I came to the conclusion that I either needed to quit the team or resolve my mental block.

Realizing I would be giving up something I loved and I had worked hard for, I decided to nd a solution.

First, I approached my coaches about my mental state. ey o ered me helpful insight into why I was feeling this way and what I could do to build up my con dence.

While several people have announced their intentions to run for the o ce, the only people who stand a chance are former President Donald Trump, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and current President Joe Biden.

Trump has been accused of committing at least 56 criminal o enses and has been indicted in New York, DeSantis has banned more than 40% of math text books in his state because of “woke ideology” and Biden may or may not have an issue with his cognitive capabilities.

While the checks and balances of the U.S. government prevent any individual from holding extreme power, as execu tive o cer of one of the world’s leading superpowers, the president is still the single most powerful person in the country — and arguably the world.

And yet our presidents have become nothing more than glori dolls for the political parties’ shelves (when is the last time you remem ber Biden making a signi change?) — and Barbie dolls are better at looking pretty than these candidates are.

For example, when attending a rigorous and competitive school like Paly, it can be hard to not compare yourself to others. Students easily lose perspective of how far they have come and fall into a pit of self doubt.

So, by changing my mindset, I nally began to relax on the wall and let my brain turn o individual vote would not a ect anything, thus removing their incentive to vote. e current group of presidential candidates show just how bad the American political system has gotten, with three men of very questionable competence and mental ability being the frontrunners. e next president needs to step up and enforce more in uential and radical reforms if they truly want to change the country for the better. from stress at school. Of course, I still beat myself up when I fall o the wall, but I am now able to identify when I begin thinking this way.

And even if everybody does vote, assuming the coming presidential election is not one of the rare years where one candidate is a heavy favorite, around half the U.S. population will be left unsatis ed with the result. More Americans are united in liking dogs over cats than they are over the choice of president.

Another reason we have such poor presidential candidates is the requirements to run. Candidates must raise at least $5,000 in 20 states in order to run. In other words, they have to raise enough money to buy a contemporary home in North Carolina (or half a shed is prevents the majority of the population, who do not have the money or the charisma to obtain that much money, from running.

Also, the divide between the ideological viewpoints of the two main political parties is increasing, according to Pew Research Center. Good candidates cannot be moderate if they wish to secure votes. ey must lean heavily to one side or the other — by attempting to appeal to both sides, they appeal to neither.

Furthermore, the presidents have a … precedent of doing a lot of nothing. According to rm Gallup, 79% of U.S. registered voters are dissatis ed with the current state of the United States, and this number has remained consistent for the last few years. e presidents could take it upon themselves to make more radical and broadly uential policies in an attempt to alleviate some of this unhappiness, but they have not.

In addition, my coaches have taught me strategies to improve my success on the wall, such as planning out how I will climb a speci c route or nding places on the wall to rest so that I can conserve my energy and keep going.

So any time you nd yourself doubting your capabilities, remind yourself of your achievements. You most likely will nd you are much more impressive than you give yourself credit for.

Although more than a third of the student body checks the “Asian American” box on the census form, no one would suspect that demographic after scanning our curriculum.

In light of the escalating hostility toward Asian Americans, starting in the “China virus” years of COVID-19, Paly should diversify its curriculum to include more about the Asian American experience. In such a milieu, it is natural young Asian Americans would internalize hostility toward them and blame themselves. For example, racial microaggressions constantly carry messages with negative connotations; at school, we are burdened with the expectation of being pictureperfect model minorities who excel academically, and in the media, we are portrayed as passive and submissive.

Worst of all, in politics, we are vastly underrepresented and the frequent subject of racially charged rhetoric — what started as a pandemic with origins in China has turned into a “kung u.” And social media apps such as Tiktok have turned into “tools for the Chinese government to spy on us. ese experiences can be cumulative and ultimately contribute to feelings of invisibility, invalidation and rejection.

Ignoring these experiences is particularly dangerous, especially to teenagers, who already grapple with clashing identities and self-discovery. As we struggle to determine exactly who we want to be, how we should present ourselves to be both authentic and accepted, Asian Americans are also uniquely navigating how our ethnic identities collide with what is mainstream.

When Asian American representation is absent from the curriculum, this erasure exacerbates existing feelings of invisibility or being undesired, which plants the seeds of an even deeper mental health crisis than the one our community faces. Internalized self-hatred erodes self-worth, and when classes barely touch on American tragedies such as the Chinese Exclusion Act or Japanese Internment, feelings of inferiority and irrelevancy are only reinforced. It is as if nothing that happens to us matters.

Where Asians make up less than 17% of the population, students are not even given the tools and frameworks needed to understand and emotionally process their lived experiences within the larger context of American hegemony. As a rst step, Paly should introduce at least one Asian American author on the reading list of English curriculum and include more of the Asian American experience in the social studies curriculum. At a school that should represent 35% of its demographic, this step would promote the message that Asian Americans’ stories matter enough to be told.