Overcome impostor syndrome

- You know, when I think about imposter syndrome, I think most people feel it at some time or another. - I've been in situations where I am sure on paper that I am the expert, but there's somebody else in the room who seems like more of an expert and I find myself second guessing my ability. - So challenges that I face in the tech industry, I mean, one of the big ones has just been every day questioning whether I'm doing it right, whether I belong, whether there's going to be somebody walking into the room, pointing at me and saying, "You don't know what you're doing." - I definitely have imposter syndrome. I don't know if it's debilitating, but it's always bothersome to me. - And this spans the full gamut, right? I'm a ballroom dancer. When I think of myself dancing, all I'm seeing is all the mistakes I'm doing and all the things I'm trying to learn and stuff I'm not perfecting and doing correctly. - It's a moment that happens quite often and all developers will face this, is that moment where you question your knowledge or where you question your lack of knowledge. - It's easier, I think, to look around and find somebody who's, seems, at least, smarter than you more together than you, more accomplished than you, but remember that we all have different places that we're coming from. - For anyone who's starting anything new, it's so easy to look at the person who's the best at that thing. If I want to learn how to skateboard and I watch Tony Hawk videos all day, I might feel a little intimidated. - What I would say to anyone who is feeling like they're an imposter in their field is number one, most people feel that way. It's very common to feel like you don't know what you're doing. - It was actually after I found my first job in tech, on more than one occasion, there was someone who would tell me, "Hey, maybe you should think about switching career paths." And that really got me thinking a lot, you know, do I have really what it takes? - Now, when people tell me that they have imposter syndrome, I see that as an asset. A person who does not question their own skills is a worrying person for me personally because that means they think they know everything. - When it comes to imposter syndrome, I think to some degree, for me, it's just a representation that I'm holding myself to a high standard. As long as it's not causing a crippling anxiety that you're truly not good enough, it can be useful because it's just a measure of the fact that you care about doing a good job. - You know, that anxiety is telling you something. It's telling you, you don't feel like you know, X, Y, or Z. Use that energy then to spend some time learning it and becoming okay with not knowing. - I found that a lot of times it's surprising how much there is that other people don't know as well. - Every expert was a kid at some point. They were just some fourth grader who sat on the playground and played with sand and went back to class and learned about history. We were all there at some point. - In order to know whether I had the right skill set to be a software engineer, I went through performance reviews with my employers and it's actually just that whole process about thinking my own career path. That helped me out in getting the right skill sets and getting the right way of thinking and planning for my own career. - I found that for me, when I feel it, as I certainly do, it's important for me to look back on what I have accomplished. How can I look at that and see that that kind of alleviates a little bit of this notion of being an imposter. I've accomplished these things, I've learned a ton on my own. - And so when I get the imposter syndrome, I say, "There's all these people throughout my career that have told me that I'm doing a good job and that this is working out well." Maybe they know something and so I say, "Well, if they know something then I guess I'll go along with it." - You learn how to handle it and realize that the feeling is normal, but you actually can solve problems and you can find solutions. - It's also been a question of just continuing on and doing it because as I code more, I get more confident in what I'm doing. I see that I build things, they don't break and I don't have people walking up to me in the street and saying, "You don't know what you're doing." And use that as a tool to help yourself recognize that, yes, you do know what you're doing, you do have skills and experience to bear in this industry and in the work that you're doing in development. - Maybe you'll never be a pro skateboarder, but maybe you'll be good enough to ride down the street or to go down to the coffee shop around the corner or to commute to work. And as long as you're always pushing yourself and trying new things, then there's an opportunity for you to be better than you were the day before. - I think again, there's always going to be somebody who knows more about a particular topic and that's okay. That's somebody I can learn from, not somebody that I need to feel somehow diminishes me.