Inferiority complex?

[skiing]

.

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[chillaxbro]

---------------------

 

[dannybht]

I feel the same way. I started research the winter of my sophmore year and after a few weeks into it I felt useless. I asked so many questions (all of them I thought were stupid).

I realized that you should think of your postdocs and PI as normal human beings too. They make mistakes like you do. They may have been undergrads in a lab, having just under a few prereqs under their belt. I think you have this inferiority complex because you have to break down the notion that your coworkers and fellow postdocs are like robots. They burnout just like you. Secondly, they have more experience than you. As you know more and ask more questions you will learn the bells and whistles of your research. It takes time ( more than 1 year or 2) and commitment. Just ask them questions and ask what you can do to improve.

 

[mr chievous]

The moment you stop comparing yourself to everyone around you, you will be liberated from all of your anxiety, I guarantee it.

 

[Oo Cipher oO]

How do you deal with the very real realization of your shortcomings?

I was going to write a snarky repose but honestly you need to realize that you don't need to prove your worth to anyone else. You are only accountable to be true to yourself. The knowledge and experience will come. Dont compare youself to other people. Don't lose sight of who you are as you apply to schools. I feel you, man. I don't miss the application hell one bit.

 

[911 Turbo]

How do you deal with the very real realization of your shortcomings?

I look at funny gifs

like

 

[red doctober]

Just wondering if anyone else feels this way.

As a premed, as I get higher and higher up in my training, I am increasingly surrounded by smarter and smarter people, and I feel more and more useless/hopeless as a trainee and human being.

It's like, I go to lab, where everyday the looks on my postdocs' faces and the work they give me to do tells me, "you don't know ****. Do this stuff I am telling you to do." You may enjoy the work, but as a trainee, you cannot help but ask questions; each question you ask is another reminder/confirmation that you know nothing. You contribute peanuts to the lab's cesspool of smartness and the greater world of science.

I go to interviews, complete applications and receive waitlists and rejections; condolences
from my peers who did get into those schools, and from my parents and family, are little more than empty reminders of my failure, lack of ability, or lackluster future.

As a rational human being, I try to look forward to med school, only to come to the sobering realization that I will experience the same pattern of having shortcomings, or not knowing anything, or being thrown to the side by the competition, for the rest of my foreseeable future..

It's like science and medicine have taken all my honest effort and energy, and exposed me empty-handed. At first, it's no big deal, because I believe in myself and my ability to improve. But day in and day out, it's water wearing away a stone.

Anyway, I don't write to complain, but to highlight what (at least to me) is an important reality of this competitive, intellectual environment. How do you deal with the very real realization of your shortcomings?

Skiing, I recognize your handle from the MD/PhD forum, and I will openly say that you are not alone. Going to those interviews was one of the most humbling experiences of my life. I could not believe some of the achievements of others, and I often thought, "How am I even in the same league with some of these people?" There are remarkable people in this world, but the fact that you're still there means a whole lot. Sure there are people who may be "ahead" of you because of experience, but looking back, you are ahead of so many other people who would love to be in your shoes. You're getting multiple MD/PhD interviews; the MD/PhD-hopeful freshman sees that and thinks, "That's where I'd like to be at that stage." It is absolutely natural to see the senior graduate students, post-docs, PIs, and attendings that you look up to, but remember that they started out just as you did. I'll end this rant with a quote by a sort of obscure movie that I enjoyed: "There's no point going though all this crap if you're not going to enjoy the ride." Kudos to whoever identifies said movie.

 

[alexandertg6]

That never goes away. They call it imposter's syndrome later. Have faith in yourself and never stop learning from mistakes regardless of whether they are yours or not.

 

[drshark]

The moment you stop comparing yourself to everyone around you, you will be liberated from all of your anxiety, I guarantee it.

so true, just do you! When i began in my lab i felt like i knew nothing and when the phd students i work with would use language i wasn't familiar with while talking to me, i felt even more stupid, but after a few weeks i really got the hang of things and now I even teach some of the newer phd students techniques and things. Hang in there

 

[plumhill]

As a premed, as I get higher and higher up in my training, I am increasingly surrounded by smarter and smarter people, and I feel more and more useless/hopeless as a trainee and human being.

It's like, I go to lab, where everyday the looks on my postdocs' faces and the work they give me to do tells me, "you don't know ****. Do this stuff I am telling you to do." You may enjoy the work, but as a trainee, you cannot help but ask questions; each question you ask is another reminder/confirmation that you know nothing. You contribute peanuts to the lab's cesspool of smartness and the greater world of science.

I've been in my lab for almost two years and I still feel like this sometimes, especially now that I'm helping out with another more advanced project. Face it: you're an undergrad. You aren't supposed to be at the same level of knowledge as grad students and post docs. All that matters right now is that you learn as much as you can. And as you get to a more advanced level of education, you'll catch up and maybe have clueless undergrads working with you

But I talked to my post-doc about this, and she and her peers now feel the same way we do around faculty members and their own PIs. They feel like they'll never become a competent faculty member, or get grants, or get tenure...but it all works out in the end. So relax and just keep working hard!

 

[hobbity]

I mentioned this before in a different thread, but I feel it's worth bringing up again since it's relevant.

Dr. Denton Cooley, a pioneering heart surgeon who after being inducted into the Academy of Achievement, said, "I've always felt that maybe one of the reasons that I did well as a student and made such good grades was because I lacked confidence. Lacked self-confidence, and I never felt that I was prepared to take an examination, and I had to study a little bit extra."

http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/printmember/coo0int-1

Dr. Cooley also mentions somewhere that his accomplishments as he got older eventually helped his self-confidence...

To answer the OP - yeah, there are times when I feel inferior and inevitably, something happens to make me happy or give me an ego boost. But that's a temporary consolation. I agree with above posters that, in the end, accepting who you are and ending the whole comparing yourself to others thing will help. And maybe redefine the criteria by which you want to base your accomplishments on - if you keep defining your intellectual worth with lab work or publications and what others have done, it's depressing. But if there are other things you enjoy doing (music, video games, athletics, spending time with friends and family, etc) - it's good to find personal, short, attainable goals (in addition to the big ones) because then you'll be happy once you reach them and feel more accomplished.

A successful end to the whole application cycle would help (temporarily, maybe) with the inferiority thing, though
Good luck

 

[PreMedJock]

The moment you stop comparing yourself to everyone around you, you will be liberated from all of your anxiety, I guarantee it.

Key to happiness, right there.

 

[Freesia88]

I look at funny gifs

like

Thats bad ass!

OP, there will always be people smarter than you...and dumber people. Be happy with what you have. If opportunity for improvement comes, take it and run. And as has been said, do not compare yourself with others. Sure way to misery.

 

[IncognitoGuy]

The moment you stop comparing yourself to everyone around you, you will be liberated from all of your anxiety, I guarantee it.

Best thing to internalize, ever. I stopped comparing myself to others when I decided to do what I wanted. Think about it his way - in experiments, you compare things - but only where you change one variable.

Now imagine if you changed only one aspect of your life, and try and imagine that this is how things are. It's not. So much more of you is different, thus it's not feasible nor accurate to compare yourself to others. Let it go, it's definitely not worth your time.

 

[pre med 2014]

You are a failure and you should give up now. Haha, jk.

I know what you mean. Ex/ I always feel like people are studying more efficiently than me.

 

[Abagnale]

I know exactly what you are feeling, and I posted a thread about this a while ago myself. There is a quote that keeps me going:

"When life gets harder, it means you just leveled up."

For everything you do, there is always someone in this world who is better at it than you are. This applies to everyone. That post-doc in your lab that looks at you like he's saying you ain't ****? He probably feels the same way you do whenever he goes to conferences and listens to the invited speakers. Those guys make the entire room feel that way.

Look at it as an opportunity to get better. I, for one, look forward to med school and beyond BECAUSE I will be surrounded by people leagues smarter than myself. I'd much rather work tirelessly to catch up, and in the process, improve myself drastically, than be stuck somewhere where I'm already near the top, and just coast.

It's all in your mindset. There's absolutely nothing that will ever change externally, and unless you are comfortable with yourself, you'll never get rid of those people that make you feel like nothing.

 

[sinombre]

Skiing, I recognize your handle from the MD/PhD forum, and I will openly say that you are not alone. Going to those interviews was one of the most humbling experiences of my life. I could not believe some of the achievements of others, and I often thought, "How am I even in the same league with some of these people?" There are remarkable people in this world, but the fact that you're still there means a whole lot. Sure there are people who may be "ahead" of you because of experience, but looking back, you are ahead of so many other people who would love to be in your shoes. You're getting multiple MD/PhD interviews; the MD/PhD-hopeful freshman sees that and thinks, "That's where I'd like to be at that stage." It is absolutely natural to see the senior graduate students, post-docs, PIs, and attendings that you look up to, but remember that they started out just as you did. I'll end this rant with a quote by a sort of obscure movie that I enjoyed: "There's no point going though all this crap if you're not going to enjoy the ride." Kudos to whoever identifies said movie.

Nice response

Said movie: Along Came Polly

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0343135/quotes