How To Deal With Imposter Syndrome
Tips on dealing with imposter syndrome as a techie
In the interim, WHAT'S IMPOSTER SYNDROME?
Impostor syndrome is a psychological occurrence in which an individual doubts their skills, talents, or accomplishments and has a persistent internalized fear of not doing enough. Despite external evidence of their competence, those experiencing this phenomenon do not believe they deserve their success or luck.
Imposter syndrome involves unfounded feelings of self doubt and incompetence.
What it feels like
Imposter syndrome represents a conflict between your own self-perception and the way others perceive you.
Even as others praise your talents, you write off your successes to timing and good luck. You don’t believe you earned them on your own merits, and you fear others will eventually realize the same thing.
Consequently, you pressure yourself to work harder in order to:
- Keep others from recognizing your shortcomings or failures.
- Become worthy of roles you believe you don’t deserve.
- Make up for what you consider your lack of intelligence.
Living in constant fear of discovery, you strive for perfection in everything you do. You might feel guilty or worthless when you can’t achieve it, not to mention burned out and overwhelmed by your continued efforts.
TYPES OF IMPOSTER SYNDROME
The perfectionist
You focus primarily on how you do things, you often demand perfection from yourself in every aspect of life.
Yet, since perfection isn’t always a realistic goal, you can’t meet these standards. Instead of acknowledging the hard work you’ve put in after completing a task, you might criticize yourself for small mistakes and feel ashamed of your “failure.” You might even avoid trying new things if you believe you can’t do them perfectly the first time.
The natural genius
You’ve spent your life picking up new skills with little effort and believe you should understand new material and processes right away. If something doesn’t come easily to you or you fail to succeed on your first try, you might feel ashamed and embarrassed.
The rugged individualist (or soloist)
You believe you should be able to handle everything alone. If you can’t achieve success independently, you consider yourself unworthy.
Asking someone for help, or accepting support when it’s offered doesn’t just mean failing your own high standards. It also means admitting your inadequacies and showing yourself as a failure.
The expert
Before you can consider your work a success, you want to learn everything there is to know on the topic. You might spend so much time pursuing your quest for more information that you end up having to devote more time to your main task.
Since you believe you should have all the answers, you might consider yourself a failure when you can’t answer a question or encounter some knowledge you previously missed.
The Superhero
You link competence to your ability to succeed in every role you hold: student, friend, employee, or parent. Failing to successfully navigate the demands of these roles simply proves, in your opinion, #your inadequacy.#
To succeed, then, you push yourself to the limit, expending as much energy as possible in every role.
Still, even this maximum effort may not resolve your imposter feelings. You might think, “I should be able to do more,” or “This should be easier.”
In Tech, Or, as a Developer,
Imposter syndrome applies to you if and when you can't find a niche to develop yourself in, particularly as a newbie. You want to learn and try all the programing language there is, and at the end of the day, you realize you're unable to perfect your skills, neither are you able to have the basic knowledge of one language, resulting to you floating in the tech space.
NOTE: it's different from those who are full stack developers
HOW TO DEAL WITH IMPOSTER SYNDROME AS A TECHIE
1. Acknowledge your feelings
Identifying imposter feelings and bringing them out into the light of day can accomplish several goals.
- Talking to a trusted friend or mentor about your distress can help you get some outside context on the situation.
- Sharing imposter feelings can help them feel less overwhelmed.
- Opening up to peers about how you feel encourages them to do the same, helping you realize you aren’t the only one who feels like an imposter.
2. Build connections
Avoid giving in to the urge to do everything yourself. Instead, turn to classmates, academic peers, and coworkers to create a network of mutual support.
Remember, you can’t achieve everything alone. Your network can:
-Offer guidance and support -Validate your strengths -Encourage your efforts to grow
Sharing imposter feelings also creates the opportunity to share strategies for overcoming these feelings and related challenges you might encounter.
3. Avoid comparing yourself to others
Everyone has unique abilities. You are where you are because someone recognized your talents and your potential. You may not excel in every task you attempt, but you don’t have to. Almost no one can “do it all.” Even when it seems like someone has everything under control, you may not know the full story. It’s OK to need a little time to learn something new, even if someone else seems to grasp that skill immediately.
Instead of allowing others’ successes to highlight your flaws, consider exploring ways to develop the abilities that interest you.
4. Learn, and practice
Learn one programming language and practice it. Be good at what you've learnt before deciding to venture into another language. It's good to want to understand the basics or have an idea of other languages so you can have an edge when the need arises. However, attempting to learn a new language when you haven't perfected a previous language may lead you to experience imposter syndrome as you end up without knowledge of either of the two languages. Also, be sure of the stack you want to be in before learning. If you want to be in the front-end stack, take relevant lessons on front-end stack only, same applies to other stacks and roles in the tech space.
5. Learn the facts that you have imposter syndrome
6. Celebrate your wins, successes, achievements
7. Let go of perfectionism
8. Share your failures
9. Accept it
it will probably interfere less with your well-being. But taming impostor feelings doesn’t mean they’ll never show up again. It’s common for them to arise at any career shift: from school to an internship, an internship to a postdoc, a postdoc to a career, and so on.
“We’re always going to be faced with new experiences or roles, and that’s when this will really come out”. “So it’s good to recognize that even if you’re making progress, you might be in a position next year where these things come up again.”
Remember that impostor feelings can arise at any career shift, especially if the people you are surrounded by have different achievements.
IN CONCLUSION,
Success doesn’t require perfection. True perfection is practically impossible, so failing to achieve it doesn’t make you a failure. Offering yourself kindness and compassion instead of judgment and self-doubt can help you maintain a realistic perspective and motivate you to pursue healthy self-growth.