Tackling my imposter syndrome with the support of Collaborative Future’s work placement programme
Laura, our intern shares her experience of joining the programme straight out of college, tackling self-doubt and seeing her skills, confidence and mindset thrive.
Being a part of the Collaborative future has been a positive journey for me, full of growth and learning, but I have also had to force myself to unlearn certain ways of thinking.
The problem was that I had been conditioned to think you had to be a ‘certain way’ to thrive in the workplace.
I blame the education system for making us think if we didn't have 10 A* at GCSE and A level and got a 1st class degree at a Russel group university, we would be cast into the abyss of unemployment and seen as undesirable candidates for employers. So you can imagine how nerve-wracking it was for me as a young girl straight out of college. I felt severely unqualified, to say the least, since every job I had previously applied for asked for 5 years minimum experience. Whilst job hunting I quickly became frustrated at the fact that I didn't know how to gain experience when nobody would offer me experience. Tackling this paradox left me with a long list of rejection emails and severely bruised self-esteem.
However, since being accepted into the Collaborative Future work placement programme, I have become more confident in my ability to succeed.
The programme really allowed me to explore my strengths and weaknesses and take pride in what I have achieved.
The fact that this internship pays a living wage also showed me that I was valued. In addition, working within a close-knit cohort and having Prisca as a mentor, provided me with a network of people I could rely on for support, whenever I needed it. Furthermore, I was able to constantly build up my skill- set, through informative training sessions and workshops such as an ‘Introduction to PR’ with Big Old House, ‘What you need to know about self-employment’ with Emma Torrence and ‘Disability in the Workplace’ with Josh Hepple. These are things I most likely would have never been exposed to if it wasn’t for Collaborative Future.
Despite taking on the role of ‘intern’, I was never forced to do the typical ‘intern stuff’ - like sending emails all day. Instead, I was challenged to push past what I thought were my capabilities. Whilst working with companies like Big Old House, I was paired with Rachel who had years and years of experience compared to me but never made me feel like it. She would ask me to do things I had never done before like draft press releases or create a social media content plan.
Seeing someone not question my ability like that made me realise that I was my biggest enemy.
To tackle my imposter syndrome I needed to tackle my own internal monologue first. Thoughts like “I don't deserve to be here” or “I am not qualified enough” are examples of when we let our own thoughts create barriers to what we can achieve. To combat these feelings of imposter syndrome I began to say yes to things that scare me and every time I completed a task that scared me, it was like I was proving to myself that “I can do it” and that “I do deserve to be here”. My advice to anyone suffering from imposter syndrome like I was is: don’t be afraid and prove to yourself that you deserve everything you have worked hard for.
YOU CAN see lauras’ work & get in touch with her VIA:
Website : http://laurazuwa.com/
Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/laura_zuwa/
Inspired by Laura’s story?
You can support our work by joining our next work placement programme, purely focussed on young creative talent in Nottingham. Find out more by emailing hello@collaborativefuture.co.uk or by booking in for a chat here. Or, you can always buy our team a ko-fi!