
Learning to Deal with the Impostor Syndrome - anishkothari
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/26/your-money/learning-to-deal-with-the-impostor-syndrome.html?_r=1&utm_source=YNAB+Weekly+Roundup&utm_campaign=2d6f225c23-Weekly_Roundup_10_30_2015&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_8929890d04-2d6f225c23-102579533&ct=t%28Weekly_Roundup_10_30_2015%29&mtrref=undefined&gwh=01B73C24C8AC89465EDA99BC203546D8
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alsetmusic
After landing a highly prestigious position at a company with a great
reputation, I spent the first months thinking that every person I spoke to,
worked with, or passed on my way to lunch knew I didn't belong. I thought I
would be found out at every turn. This added to an already stressful
transition. Only gradually did evidence from positive interactions with others
chip away at my self doubt. I never truly believed that I was as capable as my
peers, but then again they were some of the most intelligent people I've ever
met.

Truthfully, I'd rather face perpetual self doubt than be overconfident. People
who consider themselves exceptional usually turn out to be under delusions of
grandeur and the truly gifted are often surprisingly humble. Wanting to catch
up to the latter group creates the drive that keeps me learning new skills
rather than coasting.

~~~
QuercusMax
I totally agree. We just finished our perf cycle here at the Goog, and in my
self evaluation I rated my impact as "medium" on the various projects I worked
on. (I started back in June, so I haven't been around very long, and I'm very
much still ramping up.)

The peer evaluations I got all rated my impact as "important" to "critical". I
don't feel like I did anything too outstanding; just doing what anybody would
do, and I feel like I still have a tremendous amount to learn, and the senior
personnel are still way ahead of me.

I definitely feel like a touch of impostor syndrome can be a help toward
excelling, as long as it doesn't cripple you.

~~~
bkjelden
A little imposter syndrome keeps you hungry. A lot of imposter syndrome is
paralyzing.

I had a very similar experience to you during my first performance review at
Microsoft. Thought I was just scraping by, ended up getting a promotion.

~~~
agumonkey
The 'lack of confidence' led me to mentally enjoy competitions because I then
don't have to query people to know my place.

~~~
illumen
A very interesting humble brag thread. I'm not sure it's imposter syndrome if
you think you're doing well when presented with evidence and then believe it.
Not by definition anyway.

The performance reviews remind me of this little joke (actually a common real
experience) -- "I got rated Above Average!" _' What was the average rating?'_
"Let me check... Oh. It's Exceptional".

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skadamat
Neat read, but the moment of zen if you already know a bit about imposter
syndrome is towards the end:

"One day, Buddha was teaching a large group, and Mara was moving around the
edges, looking for a way into the group. I envision Mara rushing frantically
back and forth in the bushes and trees, making plans to wreak havoc. One of
Buddha’s attendants saw Mara, ran to Buddha and warned him of Mara’s presence.
Hearing his attendant’s frantic warning, the Buddha simply replied, “Oh good,
invite her in for tea.”

This story captures beautifully how we should respond to the impostor
syndrome. We know what the feeling is called. We know others suffer from it.
We know a little bit about why we feel this way. And we now know how to handle
it: Invite it in and remind ourselves why it’s here and what it means. "

~~~
agumonkey
Quite often I have to willingly do the opposite of my reflexes to understand
or evolve. Accepting weirdness, fear, and diving into it to get more data.

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r0s
As an autodidact software developer, I've been lucky enough to avoid these
self-doubts.

I still experience them, but the difference is I don't wonder what my peers
think: For the first few years I was teaching myself how to code, the harsh
open ego of my online community tore me down every step of the way. Mainly
hackers and engineers on IRC.

There's nothing like hearing a peer or mentor tell me my work is utter crap,
with full unabashed honesty. One of my most vivid memories is a fellow
developer telling me my abilities were amateur and I wasn't qualified for the
job, straight to my face, in front of all my peers. This is only possible in a
pseudo-work online environment, with non-coworker peers. The impersonal
pragmatism of online social groups has been a valuable crucible for suspected
impostors, and it forces me to examine myself and see my failings. Harsh, and
often false, but no longer a question lingering on my mind.

~~~
bertr4nd
Sounds horrible. I came across the following quote earlier today that sums up
my reaction pretty well: "Honesty without empathy is cruelty."

~~~
r0s
It was. On the other hand I feel like I know exactly my skill level and
limitations.

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bpchaps
Slight rant. This is currently a major problem for me that I'm not entirely
sure how to handle still.

I'm young, never went to college, and my experience is entirely through work
in the financial area (with side projects). In a lot of ways, I've fallen into
the "Jack of all trades, master of none" spectrum. Give me any complex problem
and I can generally solve it, even if I don't have experience with it. I have
a very good track record and most previous bosses regard me very highly. My
skills aren't entirely traditional, but they work pretty damn well.

That changed when I followed a senior colleague into a new position as a newly
minted senior linux admin. As soon as I joined, I received an asinine amount
of anger of nepotism or where suggestions are generally viewed as naive, then
ignored. Two of those naive things were, "why does QA have root access? Why
are the root ssh keys the same as prod and QA?" and "can we fix the DNS setup
so that we don't need a CAB approval to run four root-owned scripts to push
/etc/hosts to 95% of prod servers?". If it weren't that most of the
environment isn't documented and makes our lives hell, I wouldn't bring these
things up. On top of that, we're a large web company, so it's insane that
these things are trivialized.

I'd like to get out of it, but at the same time, I feel like if I can get out
of if, I can get out of most things. It's a complete brainfuck and killed most
of my confidence at this place.

Imposter syndrome is difficult.

~~~
HolyChao
In regards to the Jack of all trades quote, the full thing is: "Jack of all
trades, master of none, though often times better than a master of one."

------
Animats
The other extreme is described in "Assholes, a Theory", by Aaron James. This
is a serious book on organizational behavior. From a review: _" James proposes
a theory of assholes (a person is an asshole when his sense of entitlement
makes him immune to complaints from other people) that explains not only why
assholes are a vital part of human society, but also how to recognize them and
coexist with them."_

Note the definition: "a person is an asshole when his sense of entitlement
makes him immune to complaints from other people." This is the clear opposite
of impostor syndrome.

 _O wad some Pow 'r the giftie gie us, To see oursels as ithers see us!_ \-
Robert Burns

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saganus
I came to the conclusion (which I later confirmed by reading a quote by
someone famous, can't remember right now), that most intelligent people will
realize that no matter how intelligent they are, there always someone else
more intelligent. And even if you look up to THE most intelligent people of
mankind's history (think polymaths, the DaVincis, Eulers, Leibnizs, etc), they
STILL knew they couldn't know everything/be the best at everything. There's
even a famous scene in a Simpsons chapter where Homer looks up to Edison as an
inventor and then he realizes that even Edison looks up to someone (I think
DaVinci in the cartoon).

So at some point when my impostor syndrome gets to me, I remember that in the
end it's really never going to go away and secondly, it will keep me reminding
me that there's still a lot to learn and that helps me stay humble because I
know any day I might meet the most improbable of persons, that will teach me
something that I didn't know.

In other words, I have found that keeping my impostor syndrome alive (but not
letting it paralyze me as another poster suggests) helps me keep my ego in
check. On one hand my ego let's me enjoy the painful fruits of frustration and
experience and then my syndrome avoids that from letting me float so high that
I burn with the flames of ego.

In the end, that still doesn't negate the fact that it's a constant drain of
energy having to balance the two. I guess that's part of the reason why they
say ignorance is bliss... although I'm not sure it's a particularly enjoyable
bliss.

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logicallee
In my opinion and experience startup founders, whether singly or in small
groups, suffer the opposite of imposter syndrome: they know exactly what they
are doing, but the world does not take them seriously, or believe it. In
essence founders of projects are considered imposters; and closing one or two
financing rounds doesn't materially affect this.

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SRSposter
What if she doesnt have Impostor syndrome and is an impostor?

~~~
McGlockenshire
Well, that leaves either intentionally being fraudulent, or Dunning-Kruger.

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DyslexicAtheist
very common among software developers too:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/2dqrmo/the_imp...](https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/2dqrmo/the_imposter_syndrome_in_software_development)

