Don’t let your imagination be crushed by life as a whole. Don’t try to picture everything bad that could possibly happen. Stick with the situation at hand, and ask, ‘Why is this so unbearable? Why can’t I endure it?” You’ll be embarrassed to answer. Then remind yourself that past and future have no power over you. Only present – and even that can be minimized. Just mark off its limits. - Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 8:36 (Tr. Gregory Hays)

An antidote of anxiety

Stoic strength is a central reason why I have adopted a Stoic life philosophy. It serves as an antidote to anxiety, and, importantly, to impostor syndrome.

What is impostor syndrome? It’s the feeling that your achievements might be just a fluke, and that you are out of your depth in a job, a role, in life itself. It’s the notion that others are more qualified, informed, or experienced than you. And it’s a major barrier that explains why people hold themselves back from trying to do new and difficult things, especially women.

There’s a reason why: Research has shown that women are typically judged on their performance, and men on their potential. As a corollary, men are more often encouraged to forge ahead and try something new (to fulfill that potential), whereas women are less likely to be empowered to do things that they don’t have past experience doing (and therefore, don’t have any performance metrics to rely on).

Of course, when attempting a new activity, there is always the risk that a person is not capable (at least not yet) of handling it – but impostor syndrome makes us feel that we can NEVER be capable. That’s why we have to fight it.

I’ve experienced these kinds of doubts when I embarked on a new career, a new position in a new industry, or a new activity. I wasn’t sure if I had all the answers, and I was concerned with how others would judge me. Had I learned enough? Had I prepared in the right ways? Would I be taken seriously? These are all ways of asking if I was good enough, and if I had the strength to move forward. But over and over, I pushed myself to continue.

Internalizing Stoic lessons

It has not always been easy, but it felt more possible after I internalized a few key lessons of Stoicism. My inner questioning was mitigated by the kind of thinking that Marcus spoke of in the passage above. He made clear that the past and the future have no power over you, so even if I haven’t done this thing before, and even if it doesn’t work out perfectly, it’s OK. That, and the concept that you can endure hard things and keep going. Marcus had a way of weaving pep talks into his Meditations, ones that resonate today as we work towards building a sense of Stoic strength.

Power though recognizing our limitations

At its core, Stoic strength is about recognizing that only certain things are in our power, and those are the things that matter most: our thoughts, opinions, motivations, choices, and our intentions. I turn back to intentions when I think of the questions on how others will perceive me, and if they’ll think I’m good enough. We have grown accustomed to living in the gaze and judgment of others, rather than in our own strength and power and knowledge that we are capable of more than people might think.

We are “Kenough"

This brings me back to a memorable scene in this summer’s smash hit movie Barbie: In the film’s beginning, the narrator says that Barbie’s “friend” Ken lives just to be looked at by Barbie, even for a moment. If she doesn’t look his way and see him – and, we realize, if she doesn’t approve of him – he will have a bad day. His whole sense of self and worth is based on Barbie’s thoughts. But the character of Ken evolves. By the movie’s end (and this is no spoiler if you’ve been on the Internet at all this summer!), Ken sports a bright sweatshirt that says “I am Kenough”. In other words, he is recognizing his own inherent value – one that is not dependent on the thoughts of another person, even if that person is as all-consuming as Barbie is within Barbie-land.

We are all Kenough. Let’s remember that as we work to build our Stoic strength.

Meredith Kunz is a Silicon Valley based writer. You can read her blogs at thestoicmom.com and her tweets at @meredithkunz.

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