Design with Confidence

Whenever our design leadership group discusses design team members, I often hear comments like: “She is a brilliant designer but lacks confidence in her ability” or “He is great at creating solutions but doesn’t have the self-confidence to persuade people that his idea is great” or that “She has no trust in her ability even though she consistently produces great work.”

All of us have experienced feelings of doubt and unworthiness at some point in our lives. But when we feel inadequate despite our accomplishments being a result of our own hard work, knowledge, and preparation — we’re probably experiencing something called impostor syndrome.

Two American psychologists, Pauline Clance and Suzanne Imes, gave it its name in 1978. They described it as a feeling of “phoniness in people who believe that they are not intelligent, capable or creative despite evidence of high achievement.”

Have you ever had any of these thoughts?
“I got lucky.”
“I don’t deserve this.”
“I don’t belong here.”
“I’m a fraud, and it’s just a matter of time before everyone finds out.”

Despite being smart, skilled, capable people who actually deserve whatever praise we’re given, when we experience impostor syndrome we often feel like frauds. Rather than celebrating our accomplishments, we worry that we’ve somehow tricked people into thinking we’re good enough. As a result, we live in fear of being “found out” or “exposed”.

One of the causes of these feelings is that when we have a skill or talent that comes naturally to us, we tend to discount its value. Often we can’t bring ourselves to believe that what’s natural, maybe even easy for us, can offer any value to the world. In fact, the very act of being really good at something can lead us to discount its value.

Impostor syndrome is actually very common. Researchers believe that up to 70% of people have suffered from it at one point. Ironically, it disproportionately affects high-achieving people, who find it difficult to accept their accomplishments.

With many of us now working remotely, these feelings are being exacerbated. We’re not reading signals the same way as we are used to in face-to-face situations, and that can lead to misinterpretation of intentions and feedback.

Impostor syndrome can affect our confidence in our ability and negatively affect our career growth. This is because building a successful career comes from having a growth mindset. This usually involves taking risks, putting ourselves forward for difficult tasks and projects, and having the confidence to sell our ideas. All of these things are negatively affected when we’re experiencing impostor syndrome.

Now that we know what impostor syndrome is, and how common it seems to be, let’s look at seven practical ways in which we can curb these feelings in a healthy, proactive way and boost our confidence in our ability.

Know you’re not alone

Some of the best encouragement comes from realising how many successful people have built great careers despite regularly battling with impostor syndrome.

Maya Angelou said, “I have written eleven books, but each time I think, ‘uh oh, they’re going to find out now. I’ve run a game on everybody, and they’re going to find me out.’”

Another best-selling author, Neil Gaiman, described his feelings of impostor syndrome as follows: “In my case, I was convinced that there would be a knock on the door, and a man with a clipboard (I don’t know why he had a clipboard, but in my head he always had a clipboard) would be there, to tell me it was all over, and they had caught up with me, and now I would have to go and get a real job.”

We’re all projecting an image of calm competence while inside we’re improvising in a mad panic — like the duck’s feet thrashing below the water. But don’t forget that everyone else is doing the same thing — the only difference is that THEY think it’s YOU who’s the competent one.

Let go of your inner perfectionist

Many people who experience impostor syndrome are high achievers and perfectionists; people who set extremely high standards for themselves and are committed to being the best.

But perfectionism often feeds into our impostor syndrome. When we feel like a fraud, it’s usually because we’re comparing ourselves to some so-called perfect outcome that’s either impossible or unrealistic.

Not only can no-one do everything perfectly, but holding ourselves to that standard can actually be counterproductive. At some point, we need to take a step back and ask ourselves: When is good enough good enough?

Be kind to yourself

Impostor syndrome often manifests itself as a voice in our heads, berating us with negative messages. Negative self-talk is a bad habit, and it can heavily influence our stress and anxiety levels.

We can overcome this by changing the way we talk to ourselves in our heads by practicing positive self-talk. Not only can it help us become less stressed and anxious, but it can also help build the courage to do things that’ll bring us greater rewards.

Track and measure your successes

When we feel like impostors, one of the hardest things to accept is how much of a role we have in our own successes. We might write them off as lucky or as a result of others’ hard work, when in fact, our own work, knowledge, and preparation had a lot to do with it.

To help show ourselves that we’re actually doing well, it helps to keep track of our wins in a private document.

Talk about it

Our mentor or manager should be able to help us talk openly about our struggles with impostor syndrome, while giving us a more objective point of view. When we share our experience with them, we might ask if they’ve ever felt that way, or if they know someone who has.

The best mentors will always share the struggles they’ve gone through and the mistakes they’ve made in their careers, and they often have some helpful stories or advice for how to deal with what we’re feeling.

Try to say “yes”

It’s impossible to say “yes” to everything, especially when we’re feeling stressed, but it’s all too common for people experiencing impostor syndrome to turn down career-making opportunities because they don’t feel like they’d be any good.

When we’re presented with a new opportunity, it’s important to distinguish between the voice in our head saying “you can’t do it because you’re not worthy” and the one saying “you can’t do it because you have too much on your plate.” The former is our impostor syndrome speaking.

We shouldn’t be intimidated by job titles either. Senior designer George Visan explains it well: “I’m not my job title — I am a human who has a skillset and can deliver. The anxiety lives in what I think the job title means, and not in what I’m able to actually produce.”

At the end of the day our colleagues only care about how we treat them, and what we can produce. Job titles don’t matter.

Use the feeling

The best way to tackle impostor syndrome isn’t by getting rid of it completely; it’s by stopping it from holding us back from our success.

Whenever we hear that negative voice in our head, we can pause for a minute, take a deep breath, and say to ourselves, “Welcome back, old friend. I’m glad you’re here. Now, let’s get to work.”

In her book “Feel the Fear and do it Anyway”, Susan Jeffers writes about embracing fear and using it to our advantage. One of the greatest insights is that fear is our in-built ability to identify exactly where we need to be heading and what we need to be doing. Life is all about learning and growing through our experiences and it turns out that fear is a great indicator as to where those experiences lie.

I’ll let Andrew Doherty, a former Product Design Manager at Google, have the last word.

“At Google, impostor syndrome is a real thing, it can be measured, and there is a lot of data on how it changes people and causes problems in the workplace. Google tends to hire people who are prone to impostor syndrome, rather than hire those who think they are the best. Why? Because who wants to work with a know-it-all? Know-it-all’s leave little room to learn new things.

To those suffering from impostor syndrome, my advice to you is this:
Do not try to convince yourself that you’re the best designer in the world. The cure for impostor syndrome is to realise that the best designers in the world are all faking it, just like you. The only difference between you and some famous designer is that they stopped worrying about the fact they were faking it for long enough to let themselves be amazing.”