How astronaut Sian Proctor overcame 'imposter syndrome' after being rejected by NASA (via CNBCMakeIt)
John Kraus / Inspiration4
One example of when Proctor said she suffered from this self-doubt was after she failed to get all the way through NASA's astronaut selection process in 2009. Proctor said she could hear her inner "imposter syndrome voice saying 'see, you're not good enough, you never should have applied and all of these things. How are you going to make yourself better? Because clearly, you're not as good as you could be'."
She said that reframing that experience helped her move forward beyond that rejection to become an analog astronaut, simulating space missions on Earth. Ultimately, she said this then led her to actually go into space in September 2021, as part of theEven so, Proctor admitted that imposter syndrome wasn't "something that necessarily goes away."