Self-doubt and the impostor syndrome

In my pre-biomed days I was an engineering physicist at a major national laboratory.  I was involved in projects ranging from star wars-type projects to using lasers to destroy stuff (including biological stuff...hence part of my interest in biomed...on that note, I got an email asking about my background...thinking of making a post about this...).  Some of the coolest stuff I liked to work on was related to astronomy stuff.  I have always been obsessed with space and I still keep up to date on astronomy.  My BS and MS in physics help out with understanding astronomy.  I was looking for something related to 2014J, and this article was linked:

http://www.nature.com/naturejobs/science/articles/10.1038/nj7280-574a

This link was linked from that one:

http://www.nature.com/naturejobs/science/articles/10.1038/nj7245-468a

It's about feeling like you're not good enough when you are.  I'm not going to go into my demographic because I love secrecy (sex, race, etc.), but the impostor syndrome is very relevant.  Since I entered the science world, I constantly have to prove myself, whereas it seems other people of different backgrounds get the assumption that they know what they're talking about.  I feel like I'm constantly being challenged heavily.  I know I belong wherever I go because my publications, presentations, products, and patents speak for themselves.  I know I have the talent to do crazy things, but I often feel bullied, resulting in losses of confidence.  I've developed pretty thick-skin, starting at my national lab days.  Nothing will turn me away, and since I love to argue, I will always fight.  I really do get off on this fighting.  But I can see how people (especially women or minorities) could get turned away from the field because of this.

This is part of the reason I choose to listen to everyone.  I take everyone's opinion under consideration, since I don't want them to feel less valued and potentially turn them away.  I'm very proud of my mentorship track record.  Every student/tech/engineer I've been involved in mentorship with has stayed in the field.  And ~80% of these people are women.

Being in the midst of the academic search makes this article resonate even stronger. I know I'm good enough for a good academic post, but the fact that my top schools haven't called makes me wonder if I'm just an impostor.  My documents are solid, or so says the 10 profs that have reviewed it from multiple universities.  And these are brutally honest profs.  I'm good enough to perform well in my niche field, but I feel that I just don't know enough, or maybe I can't argue that well anymore.  I sometimes I feel I got to where I am, not because of my skills, but because of other extraneous factors.  I feel that I definitely don't argue as well anymore because I find myself losing more arguments...I feel like I'm losing steam...like all the years of constantly being on the defensive (and subsequent offensive) more than the average person has been wrecking my brain.

The impostor syndrome is tricky because younger scientists don't know exactly if they're not good enough.  We have metrics like grades, but once we're on teams or on the job, I often wonder, am I in this position because the company has to fill out some kind of statistic, or is it because I'm actually good enough.  I think I'm good enough, but we have to be more cognizant of times when we've all felt a little inadequate (there's an impotence joke somewhere in here...I just can't seem to find it).  We need to remember that we've all had self-doubt, why should we feed into it more.  The article says to just remind yourself how you're not lucky, you're talented.  But this is so much easier said than done.