Rabbit Trails and Mattering: Is It All Just Imposter Syndrome?

Back in February, I offered some reflections on Rebecca Shuman's "Are You Working?" column on LinkedIn. I've decided to revisit those musings here.

I saw myself in two of Shuman's advice seekers. The first writer was derailed by bright shiny new ideas in the midst of revising a piece of writing and the second by worries that what they had to say may not really matter (the latter admittedly addressing a more existential concern--does my particular scholarly output matter in the midst of a global pandemic, the ongoing fight for racial justice, and divisions that threaten to unwind the fabric of our democracy?).

What struck me was that both worries might be driven by imposter syndrome for some writers. With respect to rabbit trails, I am reminded of that long-overdue second edition of my book. I kept finding new research, new angles that I felt I needed to incorporate. Was that need to be thorough driven by a sense of inadequacy because I was not a scholar producing research--merely the translator trying to make it meaningful to practitioners? In that case, Shuman's advice to create a pro/con list for tripping down a trail that might cause a cascading set of revisions may not be all that helpful for me.

But her response to those who worry about whether their voice, their ideas matter might. Again, when I get in a headspace where I don't feel that I have the same scholarly chops as the person I am reading at the moment or the luminary headlining the conference I am attending, I can be stymied by thinking that what I have to say really doesn't matter--at least not as much as what they have to say. Here, the advice is simply to get out of that headspace and get in touch with what matters to you. Will the work improve the lives of students on your campus? Will it enable your colleagues to serve or teach students more effectively? Will it allow you to engage with the work of scholars or practitioners whose work you admire? If so, what you have to say does matter, and it will likely matter to others.

So this may be my cue to get off the rabbit trail and revisit why I wrote the first edition of that book--who was it designed to serve and how--and recognize that the act of synthesizing research and theory and identifying the possibilities for practical applications matters a great deal.

How might imposter syndrome be derailing your own scholarly productivity?