How You Can Stop Being Your Worst Enemy: Dealing with imposter syndrome and self-doubt

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You are your worst enemy at times

There’s this little voice in your head telling you that you’re not as good as you think you are. You might have just bombed your last technical interview or have been struggling to grasp an advanced programming concept or just have failed at something in general. So you start questioning yourself… Maybe I’m not cut out for this?… Maybe I’m not that smart?… Sound familiar? Don’t worry though, you are not alone and I feel you. I personally fight this battle every day. Why are we our worst enemy? What we can do to overcome it and be a badass at life?

Fear of Failure

Most of us are such perfectionists that we won’t even attempt something unless the conditions are exactly right. We quickly learn this is never going to be the case. We feel our pride and reputation is on the line and the last thing we want to do is fail. So we’d rather avoid it all together. We find reasons to procrastinate or even start a project or goal simply because we’re terrified by the idea we won’t ever complete it or reach them.

Sadly, this gets us nowhere. So how do we overcome this fear? Maybe we should start by looking at failure differently. We should look at them as opportunities and lessons learned. You can only get better from it. Here are some of my favorite quotes about failure:

“Failure is not the opposite of success, it’s part of success” — Unknown

“I haven’t failed, I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work” — Thomas Edison

“Failure is success in progress” — Unknown

As a new web developer, I am constantly failing when writing code. Half the time my apps don’t do what they’re supposed to do or I struggle to come up with an elegant solution to a feature quick enough. I can easily get frustrated and feel like a failure, or not smart enough.

I’ll let you in on a little secret. Failure is part of life. The truth is, it’s part of the process of learning and growing. You will probably not get it right the first time. You might fall flat on your face and that’s ok! What’s important is that you pick yourself up, dust yourself off and get back on that saddle.

You must embrace failure and remind yourself that you learned something new today and heck — maybe even something about yourself. Be persistent and stay focused on the goal. Don’t let fear consume you. Punch it in the head and keep trucking along.

Remember, there are people out there who didn’t even make the effort to get out of their bed today and give themselves a chance at anything. Are you one of those? This is how I see it:

“Better to have tried and failed, than to have feared to try”

Lack of Self-Confidence

Sometimes (ok most of the time), I spend days/weeks thinking of an idea for an app because it needs to be “cool” or “perfect” or “useful”. I never get started on anything because I’m afraid it won’t be good enough.

<insert Flappy Bird here>

Maybe you’ve eyed a new job that you think you can be good at or decided to embark on a personal body transformation journey but then you start to talk yourself out of it. Self-doubt is a bitch. It creeps up on you and starts whispering in your ear, telling you that you suck and to just call it quits.

This is a daily battle for a lot of us. We hesitate to make moves in our lives purely based on the false sense of not being good enough. So how can we overcome this and build ourselves up? Here’s my list:

1. It starts with YOU: Here’s the thing… No one. I repeat. NO ONE will believe in you until you start believing in yourself.
2. Stop listening to the haters: You need to stop worrying about what others may think or say about you. Surround yourself with people who love and support you. They will remind you how awesome you are. At the end of the day #HatersGonnaHate
3. Change your attitude: Someone told you that you can’t do something? Ha. How are you going to react to that? Be fierce but humble. Stop being pessimistic about everything. Instead — go into something expecting to succeed. Even if you don’t, you gave it your best and that’s all that matters (see fear of failure above as to why).
4. Try.Fail.Succeed.Repeat: Seriously. The only way you’re going to prove to yourself you can accomplish anything is by just doing it. Kind of like coding. The only way to get better at it is to simply code. Simple as that. You are now better than you were yesterday… You’re welcome.
5. Love Yourself: Don’t seek validation from anyone to remind yourself how great you are. It’s a cruel and harsh world out there. You must first love yourself to even stand a chance.

“You, yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection” — Buddha.

Love yourself!

Imposter Syndrome

Imposter syndrome is real. It is that feeling that no matter how far you’ve come or have accomplished, you still feel like a fraud or failure. First of all, you’re not alone in this feeling. It’s a very common one that haunts a lot of us. You will get this feeling throughout your journey.

It’s my belief this feeling is especially common amongst developers/programmers while learning to code. New or seasoned developers suffer from this at times. The good news is that it’s normal to feel this way. The bad news? It prevents you from taking action and achieving your goals and dreams.

You’re afraid someone will “find out” you don’t really know what you’re talking about. You might think what you know or have to share is of no value to this world. Pretty ludicrous right? Yet it’s so common, we handcuff ourselves by believing that what we have to offer is not good enough. Well, my friend let’s end this right now.

“You’re afraid someone will “find out” you don’t really know what you’re talking about”

Want to write a small tutorial on something new you learned? Do it. Trust me, someone out there will be learning something new from YOU. You may not know the answer to more advanced topics or even incorporated advance design patterns in your code but hey that’s ok. You are learning as well and you are not claiming to be an expert. There are no experts in this world, even though some claim to be. As long as you’re honest about what you do know, there’s nothing phony about that.

You wrote an app you’re very proud of that solved a particular real-world problem and want to share it and do a talk on it? Go for it. So what the UI is not going to win any design awards anytime soon. Share it! You will thank yourself later. Plus guess what? You also now gave back to the community and that’s pretty awesome.

Chances are you know more than you give yourself credit for. Don’t sell yourself short. Imposter syndrome is here to stay and something we have to learn to live with. You have to embrace it and use it as a constant reminder that you don’t know everything but you do know something that you can share with the world.

So there you have it folks. Usually what’s keeping you from succeeding in life is you. You can be your worst enemy but I hope some of the tips I shared with you today can help you become your best friend. Now, go out there — be fearless, be a lion and be a badass. After all YOLO.

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