Impostor Syndrome
Everywhere you look, someone is talking about impostor syndrome. It comes in 2 flavors: permission to not get mocked and destroy my self-worth.
Awhile back a competent and successful woman was asking for some advice. She started by explaining that she has impostor syndrome. She totally believed it. She thought something was wrong with her. She was defining herself with this label of brokenness. It’s bad enough to feel self-doubt, why add on a label to make yourself feel unilaterally disadvantaged.
You don’t have impostor syndrome. Here’s what you actually have: normal human thoughts. It’s totally normal to have thoughts of doubt, inadequacy, and uncertainty. Every time we take on new things and put ourselves in situations where we will learn and grow, of course these thoughts come up. This means you’re doing big things and putting yourself out there. We all feel like impostors some days. It doesn’t mean we have a syndrome. Calling it a syndrome just makes it worse. You prepare yourself to look for those thoughts and then blame yourself and tack on a bunch of additional hurtful thoughts.
As a society we aren’t very good at acknowledging our accomplishments. The moment we achieve something, we immediately have the next goal. That’s fine, but it feels so good to stop and honor your work and what you’ve done.
At the beginning, I mentioned, the other use of this phrase. It’s becoming the new softener. Just like using “I think” before an opinion, stating your impostor syndrome before admitting that you don’t know something is used to dampen the judgement. It can even be used to get others to help remind us of our worth. We’re so much better at seeing the great in others. In some ways I can see the helpfulness of the phrase to let people know you need some encouragement. So long as we remember that moments of self-doubt are natural human feelings. That feeling that you’re an impostor is just a sign that you are putting yourself out there and doing big exciting things. None of us ever know all of it. How boring would life become if we did.
If you haven’t noticed, the tech industry is inundated with new, complex things to learn. We don’t have laymen’s terms yet. The rate of what is being created is way higher than anyone could learn in a lifetime. The problem isn’t that you don’t know everything, it’s that you somehow believe that everyone else can.
If you find the label helpful for communicating and getting the validation you need, rock on, but if you’re just using it to make yourself feel worse by labeling yourself as broken, please reconsider.
