Causes and Tips to Overcome Imposter Syndrome
Imposter Syndrome — You’re Not Alone, Here’s My Advice
I scream, you scream, we all scream… ’cause we feel like imposters.
You’ve gotten yourself to this current {Insert job title here } position in your career, but when looking at surrounding peers there’s an overwhelming feeling that you don’t deserve it — I’m here to tell you, you’re not alone.
In fact, it’s a lot more common than you think, depending on the field you’re in. For myself, in software engineering, this phenomenon is running rampant, crushing the spirits of many great developers.
If you’re reading this I assume it’s because you have felt the effects of imposter syndrome in some ways and have come to the internet for answers on how to mitigate those detrimental feelings — I’m here to tell you that you are not alone.
What is Imposter Syndrome?
The inability to believe that one’s own success is deserved or has been legitimately achieved as a result of one’s own efforts or skills.
Basically, it’s the feelings of doubt that we have about our abilities to perform well, compared to our peers. Some might chalk up your achievements to ‘luck’ or ‘charm’ even the fact that you got hired into your current role was due to the fact that you charmed the interviewer
It’s a known fact that highly successful people are commonly affected by this phenomenon, many incredible celebrities who appear to be very confident have admitted to being sufferers of impostorism.
Causes of Impostor Syndrome
Did your parents' value achievement more than anything else? Were there high levels of conflict with little support in your family unit? These sorts of familial behaviors have been known to cause the imposter phenomenon in children as they enter their academic and professional careers.
When I learned this it resonated strongly with me, did your parents only care about achievements too? Mine sure did, I was raised in a household where praise was a rare commodity only given out when I was recognized for a major accomplishment. A bad grade on a test led to scolding, which set the bare minimum bar of achievement at constantly getting good grades. This led to the feeling that getting high grades throughout school was not at all impressive, this was just the status quo. In order to be praised I would need to go above and beyond such a “simple” achievement — write a book, win a spelling bee, or win the chess tournament — 3rd place was not worth a mention.
Yikes, can open, worms every — I feel like there’s a lot to unpack there, hopefully, if you feel you had a similar upbringing you don’t feel alone in that experience like I did for many years.
The way I see it, imposter syndrome can be directly related to our human compulsion to compare ourselves to others. That’s a hot topic right now, mainly because of social media, but it certainly applies to this idea as well. When you compare yourself to others you see the mask that they present to the world which is often the best qualities of themselves. Of course, it’s easy to see someone else’s accomplishments and think that yours are much less meaningful because why would anyone care about the things I’ve done?
I’ve certainly thought this exact thing before — why would any employer care that I built a website, so have thousands of other developers applying to this job, mine is probably the ugliest, or slowest. This line of thinking has halted me from applying to many jobs, and writing many different articles about technical topics. It’s important to remember, and I constantly try to remind myself, that our perception of the people around us is not true to what they have actually accomplished — remember the mask!
This is especially true in professional settings, it’s likely that everyone in the office (I guess this sentiment isn’t as applicable these days), is constantly wanting to show off their best achievements to everyone around them because this is how people get promoted!
Comparing yourself to someone who is actively “promoting” their achievement can lead to putting unnecessary pressure on yourself to outperform the peers around you. This may feel like you need to “prove” that you deserve to be in the same place as them which can be damaging to your mental well-being, and lead to further feelings of imposter syndrome if the task you try to complete feels more difficult for you than how you perceive your peers are doing.
Remember, People Have Different Skills in Different Areas
Everyone learns differently, some topics come more naturally to certain people depending on the way their brains are wired. When I was in university I was in a microprocessors course where we learned about assembly code (a very low-level programming language) which just did not make sense in my head. The weekly assignments would take me hours to finish because I would always need to re-read the textbook a couple of times to grasp the concepts before I could successfully complete the work.
My friend in the course was always able to complete the assignment in just an hour or so, most weeks he was done with the assignment the day it was handed out! This made me feel so incompetent, I often thought “why is it that I struggle so hard when clearly this is a very simple course?” Which inevitably led to feeling like I wasn’t good enough to be in this course, in this program, or even at this university!
Imposter syndrome is a dark hole that feels soul-crushing at the moment and can make you question your entire reality, questioning whether you just got lucky getting to where you are.
In reality, I went through the same screening process as my friend in order to get accepted to university, I passed all the same prerequisite courses in order to enroll in this third-year microprocessing course. I was clearly doing a fine job in the course, as I was learning the material, completing assignments, and ended with a pretty strong grade. That being said, it’s incredibly hard in the moment of despair to remember these details and remind yourself that you are good enough.
Tips — How to Overcome Imposter Syndrome
- Teach Others — They say if you are able to teach something to someone, that means you truly understand it. I strongly believe this, especially if the thing you’re teaching is a technical topic or skill. This can help soothe your impostorism by reinforcing that you DO know this, you actually understand the concept well enough to teach somebody!
- Remember the Praise — Take a look back through some of those chat messages/emails from work colleagues praising your work, or thanking you for completing a task. Remembering the feeling of having someone recognize your work while in the moment of feeling like a fraud can help pull you out of that thought pattern.
- Talking to Someone — If you’re feeling this phenomenon, open up to work colleagues or friends about it, odds are, they have experienced the same feeling of fraudulence. If these thoughts are detrimental to your career, well-being or relationships seek professional aid from a therapist.
- Stop Comparing — I think this is the most obvious solution, yet the absolute hardest to actually do. Comparing yourself to others is the fuel that feeds this syndrome, so try your best to limit the amount of comparison you allow for. Don’t measure your accomplishments next to those of your peers, every time you compare yourself to others you’ll find fault in yourself. In social situations avoid comparison by focusing on learning from other people, and genuinely listening to what they are saying.
If you are a sufferer of impostor syndrome like me, I hope this provides some comfort in knowing that you are not alone. I genuinely wish you all the best in overcoming this fear, don’t let it hold you back from striving toward any accomplishment.
