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My Imposter Cure

bob.ts on October 21, 2019

The first company I worked for (that is, actually writing code) was many years after leaving college. Prior to that, I taught computers, starting w...
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John Funk

Thanks for sharing. I had some pretty bad imposter syndrome as the result of being self employed, working on projects start to finish for my clients totally solo, and being self taught.

I recently started teaching a friend of mine how to program and started talking to people about programming, and I started to realize that I know more than I thought I knew.

I think it's often hard to see our value because we live with ourselves and see our own skills as common place. I was really surprised how much perspective teaching brought. I highly recommend it to developers of any level.

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bob.ts • Edited

John, I believe you nailed it in these comments ... "we live within ourselves" and the "perspective teaching brought."

I actually taught computers for many years before getting back to development ... so, when I had the opportunity, it came naturally to get back to teaching. I just wish I had the opportunity earlier; my sense of worth was much lower than it should have been.

Excellent points!

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bob.ts

LOL ... yeah ... assuming retirement is in your future. At 51, I have a daughter coming ... I'll be working until she's at least out of college. Also, I can't see myself without fingers on keys ... one of my valuable lessons throughout my career challenges was being reminded of how much I LOVE writing code. I don't see that ever going away.

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Jennifer Bradford

My manager at my last job is amazing. She has so many awards she kicks most of them under her desk in a box. She still gets nervous in her own code base. I'm pretty sure I'm never going to fully shake imposter syndrome

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bob.ts

Jennifer, I agree that none of us will ever "fully shake imposter syndrome." It's an effect of being in an industry where the structure of what we do is constantly evolving. Because of this, even those of us with decades of experience are having to learn new things almost daily ... hence, Imposter Syndrome kicks in all over again.

I would use your previous manager as an example, only for the fact that we all get there ... make sure you're not comparing yourself to anyone else. Everything from skillset to how you handle pressure come in to play and we each handle the pressures differently.

Most of what I am getting at in the article, from my perspective, is that while Imposter Syndrome is always there, we can mitigate its impact and decrease our stress over time.

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Victor Darkes

Perspective helps a lot to do with imposter syndrome. As I just hit my year anniversary at work, I feel like there are things I know and there are things I don't know but I can learn.

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bob.ts

Victor ... awesome perspective. What you do and don't know will change and evolve over time. Sometimes it's easy to miss how much value your knowledge should bring to the table. To me, the knowledge is only part of the equation ... don't forget that your ability to learn and grow is equally as important as sheer knowledge itself.