On my first day as a Family Nurse Practitioner, I walked into the clinic, put on my white coat, looked at my badge, and felt — I am not exaggerating — like an actor in a costume. Like someone was going to round the corner any moment, look at my chart-writing, and ask me to leave.
Never mind that I had finished a master’s program. Never mind that I had passed boards. Never mind that I had taken thousands of practice questions and survived a year of brutal clinicals. The voice in my head said: they’re going to find out. You don’t actually belong here.
If you’ve ever heard that voice, you’re in good company. It even has a name. Imposter syndrome was first described by psychologists Pauline Clance and Suzanne Imes in 1978, and the research since then has shown it disproportionately affects women, women of color, and first-generation professionals.
Which means — if you’re a woman in nursing reading this — there’s a very good chance you’ve felt it. And there’s a very good chance it’s affecting how you study, how you take practice exams, and how you’ll perform on test day.
The voice that says you don’t belong is not your voice. It’s a script you were handed. You can hand it back.
How Imposter Syndrome Shows Up in NCLEX Prep
It’s subtle. It hides inside what looks like diligence. Let me show you.
You take a practice test and score 78%. Instead of celebrating, you focus on the 22% you missed. You decide you have to start over. You buy another resource. You add another two weeks to your study timeline.
You answer a question, you feel confident, you select your choice — and then a tiny voice says, but what if you’re wrong? You change your answer. It was right the first time.
You watch other nursing students post about how confident they feel, how prepared they are, how much they’re crushing it — and you decide you’re behind, you’re not enough, you’re going to be the one who doesn’t make it.
None of that is reality. All of it is imposter syndrome dressing up as humility, perfectionism, or comparison. And all of it is hurting your performance.
Studies on test-taking consistently show that informed first instincts tend to be correct. Changed answers are often changes in the wrong direction. When you second-guess yourself, you’re not being careful — you’re feeding the imposter.
The Reframe
Here’s what I want you to do. I want you to make a list — actually make it, on paper, with a pen, somewhere you’ll see it — of every piece of evidence that contradicts the imposter voice.
You got into nursing school. You showed up to clinicals when you were exhausted. You held the hand of a stranger as they took their last breath. You inserted IVs in patients who’d been stuck six times before you. You passed pharmacology. You can name twenty drug classes off the top of your head right now.
That’s not nothing. That’s a record of competence built over years.
The imposter voice will tell you any of those things were luck, or you barely scraped by, or it doesn’t count. Notice when it does that. That’s the distortion. That’s not data — that’s the disease.
Cognitive Defusion: A Tool for Test Day
Here’s a technique borrowed from acceptance and commitment therapy, but useful in any clinical or testing context. When the imposter voice shows up, instead of fighting it, name it.
“I’m noticing the thought that I don’t know enough.”
“There’s that story again — the one where I’m going to fail.”
This small linguistic move — adding “I’m noticing” or “there’s that thought” — creates a tiny gap between you and the thought. You stop being inside the thought. You become someone observing it. And from that observer position, you can choose whether to act on it or let it pass.
On test day, when you feel the panic rise mid-question, try this: “There’s the imposter again. Hello. I see you. I’m going to keep working anyway.” Then return to the question.
Try This Tonight: Write down one piece of evidence that contradicts the imposter voice. Tape it somewhere you’ll see when you sit down to study. Read it before every session. You are building a counter-narrative — and that work matters.
What I Wish Someone Had Told Me
On that first day, in that white coat, what I wish someone had said to me is this: feeling like an imposter is not the same as being one. Real imposters don’t worry about being imposters. They proceed with confidence.
The fact that you care this much, that you’re doubting yourself, that you want to do this right — that is the signature of a person who belongs in nursing. That care is not a weakness. It’s the whole reason you’ll be a good nurse.
You belong here. Now go study like someone who knows it.