Dealing with Imposter Syndrome

This one hits particularly close to home. I think it's safe to say everyone's felt some form of this at some point in their lives. I know I have. I felt it the day I switched majors. I felt it when I was first elected to any position of leadership. Heck I've felt it writing this blog post. I think it's important to talk about it because it's something we all deal with.

I think part of this stems from the performative nature of society we live in. It feels like to get in front of everyone else you have to market yourself as the best. That often means you're going to oversell your strengths/capabilities and undersell your flaws.

In reality (save for a few truly exceptional folks), we're all about the same. The person claiming to know 10 programming languages probably only properly knows 3 and has worked in projects where the others were used. The person claiming to have raised $1M for their startup realistically went through a few different rounds of funding and had a whole team of other people helping them get to that number. We emphasize the best parts of our achievements and conveniently sweep the details that got us there.

And we all do it. So it seems dumb to suffer from imposter syndrome when we know that everyone else is playing the same game we are. If we don't reveal the full story ourselves, how can we expect that the story we see from others is the full story either?

We also heavily discount the importance of time in picking up these skills.

I remember coming into my first database lab as a newly transferred IS student. There were students around me who stood up and walked out of the class in the first 10 min because they finished the entire lab session already.

And I remember sitting there feeling like such a fraud for not knowing anything. I felt like I was so far behind everyone else. It's especially easy to feel that when you're surrounded by people who've had such a head start on you in terms of learning these concepts.

But that's just it. They had a head start because they were exposed to a certain subset of ideas or skills earlier in their lives. Why should anyone discount their experiences and their ability simply because someone else is better than them in what they're trying to do?

It doesn't mean that you can't get there. It just means that you're not there yet. And who's to say they won't feel the same way attempting to do something that you already have some experience in?? They're going to look at you and think the exact same thoughts you're thinking right now. I guarantee it.

Your brain is probably telling you at this point, "Yeah but what I'm good at isn't useful and what they're good at is exactly what I should be good at". Here's the thing. It doesn't matter. You're not them. You're you. And you're good at what you're good at.

If you look at it another way, they did ALL that just to end up in the same place as you are right now. You being there means you did something right even if you don't know what that is yet.

And again, it doesn't mean you can't ever get to their level but it takes time and you have to be realistic about it.

It took me a while to internalize that message so let me repeat.

It takes time and you have to be realistic about how long it's going to take for you to get there.

I had to learn to stop putting myself down, and on the converse also stop putting others on a pedestal. Imposter Syndrome is very much a self-fulfilling prophecy. Everyone's doing their own thing and if you spend too much time wondering if you're good enough or if you deserve to be in the same place as the people around you, you start fulfilling that prophecy of not being good enough.

And learning to take praise at face value without letting it get to my head was such a struggle. I oscillate so frequently between feeling like a complete imposter or feeling like I'm better than the people around me. It's a constant battle of trying to find the middle ground between the two and understanding that you are not above or beneath the people around you. You're just exhibiting different strengths and weaknesses in different scenarios.

So if someone is praising you or admiring you for something you did or accomplished, take it at face value. If you winged your way there, trust me you're not the first and you won't be the last to have done it.