
Ask HN: Need help dealing with imposter syndrome - throwawayimpstr
I am a sys-admin first then &#x2F; infrastructure &#x2F; network &#x2F; network security engineer and feel like a jack of all trades and a master of none.<p>despite having a near 100% success rate in all projects&#x2F;contracts&#x2F;jobs I find myself extremely concerned about failure in every situation especially when its &#x27;new&#x27;. when I say &#x27;new&#x27; I mean something along the lines of doing something I have already done but with a new vendor, the reality is I know most of what I&#x27;m doing but often find myself in a new short term contract having to &#x27;pretend&#x27; I am an expert on a new vendor when I have little experience and I find it really frustrating.<p>looking for help in addressing this fear of failing.<p>in case anyone needs https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Impostor_syndrome
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godot
How many years have you been working? I find that feeling goes away with time.
I've felt this way for most of my 13-year software engineer career, but in
more recent years I've felt it a lot less. Perhaps the impostor syndrome
itself doesn't go away, it's more just that I no longer really care if
people/coworkers look at me and think I'm dumb. That may just come with age,
or it could also be because I started a family and now care more about the
well being of my family than how coworkers think of me ("The need to be
special or the best" has gone away).

~~~
yesenadam
Yes, I was going to say, OP, after 10 or 20 years you won't feel like that.
I've heard a variety of people say they feel this after moving into a new
field, usually impressive people. I guess it's the other extreme from the
Dunning-Kruger effect. Asking around is a good idea, you'll learn how common
that is. People put a lot of effort into looking more skilled, confident,
competent, secure, intelligent, etc than they are. Good luck.

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r3n
It seems to me that you expect:

1\. You should not fail at anything.

2\. You should not feel unfamiliar at anything.

3\. It is your faults that you could not provide best answer for your clients.

But I think you will agree these ideas are unrealistic.

You will find out things that you know nothing about, and that is fine. Maybe
next time when you are in the situation where you have to deal with
uncertainty, just admit that you will not have the best answer, but you will
have a good enough answer that is based on your experience and knowledge.

Book suggestions:

1\. Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy

2\. How to Stop Worrying and Start Living

Both books teach me how to recognize those unrealistic standards I set for
myself. I think they can help you too.

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tagh
If you'll let me play devil's advocate for a second: are you sure it's the
impostor syndrome? Is there any chance that you're (with the best of
intentions) misrepresenting your knowledge of the vendor to the client? That
would certainly induce a fear of failure and being 'found out'. Do you feel
your clients understand that while you have a great track record and are
knowledgeable in the problem domain, you don't have experience with their
specific vendor? If not, maybe explaining that and framing it as a project
risk would help with the fear?

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uptownfunk
You either know something or you don't.

When you are in a position where you don't know something, then either it is
expected of you to know that thing or it is not expected of you to know it.

If you are expected to know something that you don't know, you can either be
upfront about it or not. Your choice here really depends on the environment
you are in.

No one is expected to know everything all the time. Any basic competency that
should be expected of you as a must have is the responsibility of the hiring
team at your firm. So the fact that you're there already means you know what
you need to know, and if you don't know something then it's okay not to know
it but you may eventually have to learn it on the job.

That is, of course, if your firm hires people properly, and if not, then
you're essentially a false positive hire, however this is not your fault, but
rather the fault of a faulty "successful potential employee competency model"
with a non-zero false positive rate.

In which case, this is also not your fault, however at this point your
employer needs to determine whether they are better off letting you go and
having another go at it (usually in most cases a bad/unproductive decision) or
letting you pick up the necessary skill on the job, which in most cases is
probably the better option.

On another note, self-confidence is important, and that come what may, believe
in yourself and your skills to the point that you can whether whatever comes
your way. This doesn't mean that you need to know everything immediately, but
that you are confident enough in your learning/adaptive abilities that you can
learn whatever it is you will need to be successful in your role.

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dangerface
> having to 'pretend' I am an expert Experts don't pretend to know everything,
> because it's impossible for anyone to know everything.

When some one asks me something I don't know, I tell them ill find out the
answer then I do, this way i'm always right.

Most people wont do this, they just say "I dunno" and look dumb. Some people
will make up something, sometimes it works and they look like they know what
they are talking about, some times it doesn't and they look dumb.

