Impostor Syndrome is something I’ve experienced a lot as a programmer. I only recently learned that it’s actually a thing, has a definition and eats at other people too. Impostor Syndrome is a psychological pattern of self-doubt accompanied by the fear of being exposed as a fake.
Its a voice in my head telling me that I’m not accomplishing very much.
That everyone else is so much better than me.
And that I’m so far behind.
I don’t know how often people from other industries experience this, or how many other programmers do as well. I don’t think it’s just me.
Why? Well, I’ve been asking myself the same question. I’m a relatively confident person with healthy self-esteem. I don’t suffer from chronic depression or anxiety. I have a loving wife, good friends, a solid support system and an amazing community around me. I also noticed that I don’t experience Impostor Syndrome outside of my professional context. Some people may have colleagues who are unpleasant human beings, but that has not been the case for me thus far. That rules out workplace rebuke and criticism.
I think we need to take a closer look at the programming industry.
Not only do programmers need to learn how to program stuff, but we also need to learn the industries that we’re programming stuff for [1]. Every new project involves having to go from knowing nothing about something to knowing all the technicalities [2]. That results in feeling like a noob on a daily basis.
The Lie: I’m a noob.
Constant learning means constant improvement which counts for something, right? Wrong. The rate of learning means that you can easily double your knowledge every few months, especially in the formative years of being a programmer. In retrospect, previous work often looks bad. So it feels like everything that I’ve done up until now is mediocre.
The Lie: I’m a noob doing mediocre work.
The programmer measuring stick is bloody huge. There are all these rock-star programmers who have quite literally changed the world. There are some seriously smart people out there - people who have accomplished more in a few weeks than the average person could accomplish in several lifetimes [3]. Wait a second, I’m average! I must not be adding much value then.
The Lie: I’m a noob doing mediocre work of comparatively little value.
Let’s get philosophical for a moment. There is a difference between actual reality and my idea of reality. There is also a difference between my idea of reality and your idea of reality. Reality is the same for all of us, but the way each person sees it can be vastly different. Impostor Syndrome seems to thrive on those differences. It’s easy to distort these differences. There is a difference between how much I know, how much I think I know and how much others think I know.
The Lie: I’m a noob doing mediocre work of comparatively little value and others think so too.
I don’t know.
I haven’t solved this conundrum yet but I think identifying it is a good start. Impostor Syndrome is quite subtle and probably affects people differently. I find that it suppresses my ambition, confidence and creativity. It causes occasional anxiety and inclines me to downplay my competence.
I need to consider that I am walking on my own path at my own pace.
I need to come to terms with the fact that I don’t know everything (and never will).
I need to realize that everyone struggles and that people have different strengths and weaknesses.
[1] I actually struggled to include myself in this sentence. I initially used “them” and “they” instead of “we” and “our”, and was very hesitant to change it. It goes to show how deeply this runs.
[2] This is where experience comes in handy as you’ll often have a solution in the bag for common problems.
[3] This is in terms of the value being added to society, and not sheer coding output.
