Imposter syndrome

(bright music) - You know, when I think about imposter syndrome, I think most people feel it at some time or another. And I've 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. And it's easy, 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. - 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. - 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. I think what imposter syndrome indicates is this understanding of where you are in your current trajectory towards learning something. That you know there's more to learn here. That you can actually continue expanding your knowledge. - 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 and being new at something because you're never gonna learn X, Y and Z if you continue just running away from the fear of imposter syndrome. - And this spans the full gamut. I mean, 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. And it's the same thing with work. When I write code, right? I publish code and I'm always like (hums), someone's gonna look at the code and be like (laughs). You made a mistake, right? And it's very hard to put yourself out there because you're worried about this stuff all the time. But then, if you can push yourself past it you'll realize that making mistakes is actually the way you learn new things. You make a mistake and then you go, huh, that didn't work, why? And then that gives you an opportunity to learn the next thing. It gives you a hook that you can hang new knowledge on. - If you can get over it, if you can practice letting it go and breathing, you can use some of that energy to encourage yourself to explore whatever it is you're afraid of. - I would say try not to let it hold you back. Recognize it for what it is, that you're holding yourself to a high standard and give yourself credit for what you have accomplished. Even if all you've done that day is read an article or written three lines of code. Recognize that that's an achievement. - I look back on what I have accomplished and try and figure out okay, 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 thing. I've learned a ton on my own. And focusing on those things helps me do that and I think, again, there's always gonna be somebody who knows more about a particular topic and that's okay. That's somebody I can learn from. (bright music)