How to Live with Imposter Syndrome and Use It to Your Advantage
I spent my entire career doubting myself, never knowing how to continue working, and thinking that my work was worthless. In short, I devalued myself as much as I could.
As time went on, I adapted to living with impostor syndrome. No, I didn’t overcome it, but I learned to live with it. What’s more, I discovered that the syndrome is a gift that can be used to your advantage.
Hello! My name is Oleg Mereutsa. I am not a practicing psychologist (I don’t have the relevant education), but a digital product designer at Alfa-Bank. The impostor syndrome has haunted me all my life. During this time, I have accumulated some useful experience that I want to share with you.
“Say a good word about the syndrome”
I'll give my definition right away:
Imposter syndrome is the fear of not measuring up.
In this regard, I really like the translation of the term from English. In English, it is called Impostor (imposter) syndrome. The word impostor is translated as “fraudster” or “impostor”.
And you know, the translation quite accurately and succinctly describes the feelings of a person with the syndrome. As a person with the syndrome, I feel exactly the same way: “What if someone reveals me? What if someone finds out that I’m an impostor? What if everyone finds out that I’m not really worth it?”
I once gave a short talk about a problem at a small event for 12 people. And each participant spoke about it after the talk.
Everyone (!) has encountered this pain in one way or another.
Then I gave a speech inside the corporate design department for 40+ people. And there was no end to the designers' personal stories in the general chat. The most surprising thing for me was that even those designers and leads whom I considered cool, even mastodons in their field, shared stories about how they overcame the syndrome, fought it, and directed it in a positive direction.
And when I was denied a chance to speak on this topic at a meetup, I realized that the topic was relevant — it was an abscess on the body of the design community. The thing is that there were a lot of applications for similar topics, about a fifth of all the others.
It turns out that impostor syndrome is a widespread problem.
Let's try to figure it out together?
How does the syndrome work?
There is such a thing as locus of control.
In short, locus of control is a person's perception of how much influence they have over their own lives.
There are external and internal loci of control. Impostors belong to the external locus. With this type of locus of control, people believe that their life goes with the flow due to certain circumstances, accidents, luck, and whatever. Accordingly, the impostor does not belong to himself.
As a result, he ignores all his achievements, devalues his actions, underestimates his capabilities, because: “If I ended up here, it means it was some kind of accident, a coincidence.”
But the impostor needs to understand who he is in the coordinate system. That's why he compares himself to others. For example, I recently spoke at a meetup. There were three speakers in front of me. All of them are experts in their field. The thought automatically arose that my report was not up to par, and the presentation was so-so. These thoughts gave birth to a feeling of constant uncertainty, and from it – fear.
But…
Fear is not scary.
There is nothing scary about fear as such, no matter how strange it may sound. It is a natural biological reaction to something new. Accordingly, fear is an opportunity. An opportunity to get/learn something new.
As a rule, if you are afraid of something in your work, it means that there is a door to new opportunities. However, if the fear is not controlled, the door is sealed. And each time it becomes more difficult to use new opportunities.
Causes
There are many reasons for the occurrence of the syndrome.
No. 1. The first group of reasons is related to childhood and a person’s role in the family.
Firstly, there is a confrontation between older and younger children. On the one hand, older children are usually excellent students and role models in the family. But when excellent students encounter real life, it turns out that achieving success is not so easy.
Secondly, there are younger children who are being tried to fit into a certain ideal. But the puzzle does not fit together, because each of us has our own set of characteristics, our own interests, our own goals, and so on. Therefore, the younger child, who is compared to the older one, also develops insecurity.
There are also middle children who have both.
There are also only children in the family. But they also have it tough – they are usually compared to “mother's friend's son”.
№2. Stereotypes. There is a large group of features associated with gender stereotypes and social standards, with a person’s position in society.
For example, let's take the stereotype that a man should have achieved something by the age of 30, otherwise he is a loser. Women are pestered with questions about when they will have children, or they think that she herself could not have achieved any position, because she is a woman.
Such stereotypes create pressure on a person, uncertainty grows, a syndrome develops. Due to the standards imposed by society, a person is not free, does not belong to himself, does not live the life that would suit him specifically. Instead, he chases someone else's ideal. Naturally, there are no winners in this race.
№3. Social networks. I would like to dwell on social networks separately. Social networks are a distorted mirror of our reality. They create a glamorous picture that is inadequate to reality.
How does it happen? We have little extracts, artifacts that they agreed to share with us, but they usually share only successes. And we look at all this with all our problems, experiences, ups and downs: someone ate, someone was born, someone got married, someone quit, someone got a job.
A false impression is created (a cognitive distortion occurs) that everyone around us has a brighter life than we, “imposters.”
So social media should be treated with caution. It contains only a small part of the truth about the lives of others.
#4. Perfectionism. Included in ICD-11 (International Classification of Diseases 11th revision) under the code MB28.C.
“The main feature of anankasticity as a personality trait is a focus on rigid standards of perfection, on ideas about what is good and what is bad, on controlling one’s own and others’ behavior, and on controlling situations to ensure compliance with these standards.
Typical manifestations of anankastic personality, not all of which may be present in a given person at any given time, include: perfectionism (e.g., preoccupation with social rules, obligations, and norms of behavior; meticulous attention to detail; rigid, systematic, daily routines; strict adherence to routines and planning; emphasis on organization, orderliness, and neatness); and emotional and behavioral restrictions (e.g., tight control over emotional expression; stubbornness and inflexibility; risk aversion; persistence and rationality).”
Source: ICD-11. Chapter 06. Mental, behavioral and neurodevelopmental disorders.
Since the impostor is not confident in his abilities, he strives to do the job immediately as fully, healthily and coolly as possible. Why? Fear of mistakes, fear of condemnation.
I recommend using the methods of “progressive JPEG” and the Pareto law. It is better to do something imperfectly, than to polish your idea to perfection, but not release it. Product thinking and the MVP concept will help.
Most of the “impostors” reading this article now work with the product approach, or have worked with it, or know what it is. So why not transfer this approach to our career as a whole? Nothing prevents us. Let's do at least something, even if it is not perfect, get criticism and feedback.
No. 5. Criticism and negative perceptions of it.
Speaking of criticism. Negative feedback about our work is, of course, painful. But here it is worth stepping back: take it into account, but do not dwell on it. Let's focus on constructive criticism: it is bad not because it is bad, but for a certain reason.
No. 6. Geographical aspect.
Eternal classics in literature. People from the provinces most often have an idea that they are unworthy in terms of level. The advantage of IT is that your origin and other aspects do not matter here, only your skills, abilities, knowledge and software.
№7. Rapid career growth.
This is especially true in situations where a person is rapidly advancing in their career or receiving greater responsibility. Such changes can cause fear of not being up to the new responsibilities and cause impostor syndrome.
Did you recognize it? Do you agree?
In general, there are many triggers for the emergence of impostor syndrome. What to do about it?
How to use the syndrome for good
Tell your loved ones/friends/colleagues about the syndrome.
I didn't admit it at work. Again – what if they fire me? 🙂 But the support of my loved ones helped me a lot. I have a Telegram chat where my friends and I constantly exchange voice messages. It's a kind of psychotherapy.
It is important to have the support of loved ones, colleagues, perhaps former colleagues – to whom you will not be afraid to open up. The main thing is not to keep it to yourself.
Psychotherapy.
If you can't cope on your own, or don't have an understanding environment, therapy can help a person recognize and process their feelings.
Recognition of your achievements.
It's much easier to express negativity. We all know that. Praising is harder. Here you have to gather your will into a fist and squeeze out “Well done”. Therefore, if someone praises you – that's already cool!
The person pulled himself together, thought, found something to praise you for and said a kind word. In nine cases out of ten, it’s not just like that. The person is truly grateful to you if he or she noted your work.
You can write down situations when someone praised you and return to them in difficult moments of life.
Positive self-reflection. Praising yourself, in other words.
Since we work in a routine, all our achievements are washed away. And the bottom line is that we have done nothing significant.
But you need to do the opposite – take a certain period and pull up all the archives: correspondence, product backlog, notes, bookmarks, and so on. Collect information, find something to praise yourself for, and praise. Through force, through pain and tears, through clenched teeth, but praise.
But even if the goals are not achieved or the layouts are “not very good”, and it seems to you that there is nothing to praise yourself for, there is always support in the form of personal achievements. It can be anything.
You went on vacation for the first time in 10 years? Cool! Praise yourself.
Had a meal at a new place? Cool!
You've taken care of your health! Absolutely awesome.
Decided to learn a foreign language? Magnifiquement! For example, I am especially proud that for 10 years I tried to start using my “burr” not as a bug, but as a feature – to learn French. Now I have started and am already doing a little bit well. And that means I have something to praise myself for.
Compare yourself to others.
The attentive reader has already noticed how at the beginning I wrote that comparing yourself to others is not so good, it is one of the signs and causes of impostor syndrome. How so?
But…
№1. You can compare yourself with colleagues within your company. This can be any activity, for example, participation in a workshop or their organization. When I first came to Alpha, I took part in a procedure called a design sprint. And when I worked side by side with other designers, I realized that I correspond to the level – I show a very good result. This helped me a lot.
#2. You can go to the market. No, not look for a new job. I mean go to the market outside your internal community – exchange expertise and experience with other companies. This increases our confidence that we are not alone with a problem, no matter if it is psychological or related to the use of a framework.
#3. You can enter the market as a job seeker. This has many advantages.
This is free mentoring. You are being evaluated by people who are ready to hire you.
You receive a certain level of skill development to the level of the market and its requirements.
In this regard, I believe in game theory that when market participants improve, the market itself improves. So it is worthwhile here Link to Alpha vacanciesgo ahead and try your hand at interviewing. Native advertising:)
And if you don't want to go to the market, you can ask the hiring manager to participate in interviews. There are several advantages:
learn how to write test assignments;
improve your feedback skills for these tests (in this case, you act as the face of the company);
update your knowledge to communicate with designers;
learn about new trends in the hiring (or design) market.
The interesting thing about this method is that you most likely won't develop these skills on the candidate's part.
Remove the metrics
But why is all this necessary?
In work tasks, we collect certain information, no matter in the product or studio. We make our design based on business requirements, metrics, technical specifications, etc.
It works the same way in life – collect metrics to evaluate yourself adequately.
For example, you can turn to your career path. Before writing this article, I looked for the results of my work. Like all of the “impostors”, I thought that I would not find anything over the past six months. But it turned out that no, there was quite a lot.
So here it is, one of the recommendations – to conduct a retrospective. Ideally, it would be great if you approach this task systematically: you set goals, they are achieved, you write down the process and the result. But even if the goals are not achieved – it is not so important, the main thing is that you have something to compare with.
Don't sit alone with your syndrome – it's a bad friend. Try your hand. It doesn't matter how: on the market, inside the company, whatever. You can also conduct self-analysis. And if you can't cope with the syndrome – consult a psychologist.
Now there will be an unexpected conclusion.
Imposter syndrome is a gift.
It becomes a gift when you can use it as fuel that moves you, motivates you, spurs you to become better, more successful, more competitive in the marketplace, and learn new skills.
For example, when I came to other companies, I often thought: “Wow, everyone here is so cool, I want to be like that too.” And I grew. I used interviews as a tool for growth – I asked for feedback, and if there was none, I did self-analysis to know where I could improve.
Each time, as with a product, the interview skill (after all, it is also a product) improved. A couple dozen interviews and I understand when the recruiter will start asking questions, when there will be a test, and by the phrases and tone I understand whether they will write to me again or not.
Just some friendly advice
Career is career, but finally I would like to say that do not forget about your personal life, about Work and Life Balance. Together with my cat I will give very simple and banal advice. And although they are banal, they work.
Eat a lot, eat tasty food.
Sleep well.
Don't be afraid to experiment and get out of your comfort zone. Yes, it may hurt and it's not a fact that you'll succeed the first time (but you'll definitely succeed later).
Listen to music, watch movies: arthouse if you like Marvel, or Marvel if you like arthouse. It is important for us to improve not only UI, as product designers, but also to draw knowledge from other areas – to train our visual acuity.
Travel, no matter whether abroad or to Altai. Even if you go to a new area where you have never been before, you can see a lot of new things.
Cherish the moments.
Appreciate what you have. Appreciate the support of your loved ones. Love yourself. Be filled with the simple joys of life.
Remember yourself as a child. After all, as children we were not afraid to break our knees, climb a tree, we experimented, we became better. This is the essence of childhood.
Remember the beginning of your path in IT: you asked stupid questions, made mistakes, learned. Nobody died from that, did they?
And you are where you are now precisely because you weren't afraid to experiment. I'm sure each of you has a story about how you, for example, switched from one area. Here I am, a former teacher, and the last time I spoke to children in a classroom. And now I speak at meetups for designers.
Remember more often, do a retrospective to shape your future.
In general, love yourself – you are alone or alone.
