Current Events > Anyone else get imposter syndrome?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Impostor syndrome (also known as impostor phenomenon or fraud syndrome or the impostor experience) is a concept describing individuals who are marked by an inability to internalize their accomplishments and a persistent fear of being exposed as a "fraud".

I made a topic about this the other day but it got ignored.

I go through life with this problem, career wise. I forget all the things I've done and only seem to remember the times I felt confused or stressed or out of my element. So when it comes to stuff I'm doing now I have this anxiety that people are going to discover I'm a fraud and I'll get fired.

Have an interview coming up, I didn't think I'd have a chance because it's a 10k payrise and slightly out of my level of experience. I sent through a bunch of case studies I'd worked on. Their reply was that I'm overqualified for the position but they want to go ahead with an interview anyway.
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yes
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I get this pretty regularly.
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It is more important to feel confident in your ability to figure things out than in the value of your experience
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gandalfl0 posted...

It is more important to feel confident in your ability to figure things out than in the value of your experience

This is what I try to remember. I can usually suss things out with a bit of time and thought. I just panic when I don't know something instantly.
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adulthood is just what we call perpetually negotiating feelings of inadequacy
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every damn day. i try and convince myself its a good thing, that it means im out of my comfort zone and challenging myself.

cant grow if you always feel like you're hot shit, it's cool to be the bitchin 8th grader with the dirt bike but eventually you gotta graduate and move onto 9th grade ya dig
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I'm sure that if I ever accomplished something I would finally be able to internalize it, right?
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Yes I do. And it sucks. But I am trying to know my worth and know that i am qualified.
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Good to see all these people I respect on CE with the same problem.

Romulox28 posted...

every damn day. i try and convince myself its a good thing, that it means im out of my comfort zone and challenging myself.

cant grow if you always feel like you're hot shit, it's cool to be the bitchin 8th grader with the dirt bike but eventually you gotta graduate and move onto 9th grade ya dig

Yeah, I tend to feel that if something appealing makes you feel terrified then it's probably a good thing.
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Sure, but I'm also pretentious, so it balances out.
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pretty often, but sometimes it turns out not to be justified anyway
i had to start a series of meetings yesterday and was in way over my head in a lot of respects
i'm often one of the youngest guys in the room with the least experience
and i have way too much responsibility compared to my qualification from time to time
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I mean most of adulthood is just pretending you know things until you actually know things. I think the problem is our generation was brought up thinking of adults as these all knowing infallible beings (at least I was) and then once I became one the realization that they're just older children set in. It'll be interesting to see how the social media generation transitions into adulthood.
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Asherlee10 posted...

justaguy3492 posted...

I mean most of adulthood is just pretending you know things until you actually know things. I think the problem is our generation was brought up thinking of adults as these all knowing infallible beings (at least I was) and then once I became one the realization that they're just older children set in. It'll be interesting to see how the social media generation transitions into adulthood.

I agree to a point.

I've found that as I get older in adulthood, it gets easier to manage. I feel like I have a good grasp on what I should be doing today and tomorrow.

My imposter syndrome is strictly related to work and it's not every day.

It's only about work for me. I feel an immense amount of pressure to be the person with the most creative ideas, coming up with them the most quickly and never having a deer-in-headlights look in my face even if the question being asked is so far outfield it's in another stadium altogether.

I think this problem got much worse after I was fired from a job. Despite the fact that there were so many factors that contributed to that problem (toxic work environment, psycho director, impossible workload) - I still feel like I totally failed at it.
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listen to some rap music to boost your confidence
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Asherlee10 posted...

Absolutely relatable. Getting fired just once in your life will damage your confidence in yourself.

I am also familiar with those pressures you mentioned, too. Not to be creative, but to be an authority and know what in the hell I'm doing all the time. People around me tend to look to me when shit gets stressful. I can generally hold me own under pressure and be a leader, but sometimes I don't know what the fuck I'm doing.

Maybe this is a project/account manager kind of thing? I mean I assume my role is like yours, so I'm surrounded by specialists who have deep knowledge of various things but very little knowledge of anything else and no clue of the entire picture. So my job is to hold it all together and resolve all those problems despite not necessarily understanding everything completely.

I present an authoritative face but there are times I go and lock myself in the bathroom and bite my knuckles.
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Every damn day.
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Yup. Doesn't help that every new job I get is a step up in my career so I'm always out of my comfort zone.
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All the time, I'm always having to go back and compare myself now to where I was before for reassurance
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Every day at work. Felt a little better about it last week where after a meeting I asked for a link to my mentor's thesis since we were starting a project in an area I was unfamiliar with. This dude got his PhD from an Ivy League school under a world-renowned professor, collaborates with labs across the country, and is one of the Big 3 robotic software development guys in our group. Yet as he was pulling up the link he kept on talking about how he didn't like his thesis and felt like he was just guessing everything the entire time before throwing it together.

I felt the exact same way about my thesis which is why I haven't looked at a page of it since my final submission. So it kinda helps me to realize that even someone like this, easily in the top 5 smartest people I've ever met, also feels like he doesn't know what he's doing at times.

But I'm probably an actual imposter since I haven't first-authored a paper in over a year ;_;. Just tagging along on projects nowadays
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I've had it ever since graduating from medical school, and it's getting worse. I actively tell people not to call me "doctor" because I don't deserve it.
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No, I've worked very hard to be where i am today, and i continue to work hard and push myself to do more.

Self actualization is a key aspect that most of my peers lack that I take pride in having accomplished so far in my life.
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I can't feel any sense of pride or accomplishment in anything I do if I follow the rules and do things the way I'm "supposed to." I can only feel pride and accomplishment if I succeed at something and in the process bend rules, cut corners and essentially "beat the system." If I just do what I'm supposed to do, I feel like I'm staying inside the box and anything I do is just mundane and bullshit. I can't even accept praise.
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All the time. I put so little effort into life compared to people I see hustling and struggling all the time that it just feels like everything has to come crashing down sooner or later.
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