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I guess I just don't really believe this. It sounds nice, and it might even be a good falsehood to tell yourself for personal motivation—but that doesn't make i

I guess I just don't really believe this. It sounds nice, and it might even be a good falsehood to tell yourself for personal motivation—but that doesn't make it true. Yes, of course if you're an actual fraudster intending to commit fraud, you're probably comfortable with committing fraud. But feeling "impostor syndrome" colloquially means second-guessing whether you're good enough to deserve your position. There are absolutely lots of people who are better at their jobs than they think they are. But I have to imagine there are also lots of people who are just as bad as they think they are, if not worse.

vasco 5y ago
Agree, specially because everyone has above average IQ. That being said this conversation always feels to me like "are soldiers afraid before a battle" type discussion. Either they are or they aren't has no bearing on what they do. They have to be brave and get out there. Same here, just realise everyone has doubts, and instead of spending time making a big thing of it and "dealing with it", just put your head down and work hard. Everyone has doubts, focusing on them is pointless.
- mewpmewp2 5y ago
  The issue in these cases is that you have a hard time not focusing on them. These intrusive thoughts come all the time, take up mental energy and time. It would be best to just focus on actually building things, but it's not always as simple. It may alleviate the thoughts if you knew for sure that you are not an impostor from a source you can trust or perhaps it will require therapy. Or maybe you can actually push through it, as you said. Anxiety, depression and low self esteem however can take a strong enough toll that simply pushing through and dealing with it may be too difficult without help.
  - onjectic 5y ago
    Having a very hard time not focusing on intrusive thoughts is a symptom of OCD.
    - mewpmewp2 5y ago
      Yeah, but this is depression and anxiety too. Constantly having to deal with negative thoughts. In theory, just change brain chemistry slightly and you will have fewer negative thoughts and more positive. Not everyone has similar amount of doubts. So an outsider who says "just deal with it", won't know the ratio and magnitude of negative to positive thoughts, someone else might have. Everyone has doubts, but frequency and strength may vary.
- puchatek 5y ago
  Ah yes, keep it all bottled up and under no circumstances talk about it. Totally leads to improved quality of life.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
nonbirithm 5y ago
I also believe this. I think "imposter syndrome" has been associated with actual abilities not aligning with lower expectations, with the implication that if you match the description of someone with imposter syndrome, you're just overthinking things and will be just fine. I cannot see how this logically follows in every circumstance that someone feels like an imposter. If you're expected to learn something by someone but don't learn it, because of motivation or other reasoning, but are then put in front of other people by your superior with the assumption that you have gained that knowledge in the meantime, you'd both feel like an imposter and actually be one. My bias is to believe that if I don't feel that I'm qualified for something, then claiming that it will all be fine in the end is dishonest, and a fully realized version of the imposter syndrome with actual consequences for failure. The bias itself, as in most always feeling like an imposter no matter what your qualifications are, is what I would consider the intent of a concept like imposter syndrome. But it is still possible to go too far in the other direction and mistakenly believe you're simply worrying too much. I feel that hiding behind a notion of imposter syndrome erases notions of personal responsibility when things actually go wrong, e.g. when one really is an imposter, or acted similarly without awareness or ill intent. The word "imposter" itself seems to imply that you must have ill intent to be a true imposter, which almost nobody actually is. "Unqualified" would probably be a more appropriate word, and would probably make people more hesistant to use this kind of terminology when discussing a lack of skills or confidence.
- wombatmobile 5y ago
  > I feel that hiding behind a notion of imposter syndrome erases notions of personal responsibility when things actually go wrong Can you say where your sense of personal responsibility comes from? Did you have any personal influences or role models who taught you this protocol? Are there any examples that come to mind that you can succinctly describe here, in a way that shows relevance to the main points you are making?
  - nonbirithm 5y ago
    Succinctly, writing this response. I don't always feel that I have the necessary skills to make properly reasoned arguments in general, but instead tend to have a habitual drive to just say whatever is on my mind in the hopes that it will be heard but not necessarily challenged, maybe in the way some bloggers treat their content as a feed of stream-of-consciousness thought. When someone does want to discuss what I say, the dynamic for me changes and I feel the urge to respond more carefully, which wasn't usually something I considered when first commenting. In many cases, I am tempted to just not respond because it is the easiest option, but I feel that would essentially mean not taking responsibility for my own words. Actually debating someone is not something I'm used to, and is at times frightening to me, but I still feel that I ought not to ignore it when I am the cause. Also, I think that I have a tendency to try not to say things with the intention of starting arguments, leaving the more subjective statements to the people that happen to find something relatable in what I consider to have actually happened to me, regardless of value or intent. But, as in this case, there are exceptions. So my sense of responsibility has a long way to go, admittedly. And I might or might not be justified in my anxiety in wondering if what I'm typing out right now makes enough sense in the context of my other comment, but the way I'm feeling right now, it's hard to tell. This is also one of the reasons I'm rather disillusioned with journaling if what I journal isn't my lived experience, which so long as my memory is capable enough usually isn't something that someone else would question. If it's something that can be debated, writing down my thoughts or opinions and leaving them in the confines of my private journal makes it sound like I'm just agreeing with myself. My guess for how I developed this way of thinking would be my upbringing. There were no labels I could use that carried any value as far as protecting my sense of self-worth went. I wouldn't even consider the people I knew to be role models. Success or failure was solely determined based on whether I did something correctly or not, not how I approached the problem. Even with the labels that I've been given today, ones that are in my mind much more justifiable than the ones I gave myself long ago, that mindset continues to rule a lot of my life. I tend to accept the mistakes I make as my responsibility to correct, but because I prevent myself from entering into situations where mistakes are likely (as in, areas where I feel unqualified), I'm less tolerant to getting over mistakes after they've happened, because I've insulated myself from mistakes and their impact. If none of this supports my original points, my belief is that it would be because of my lack of knowledge, regardless of what I was thinking when I impulsively wrote my first comment. By commenting, I tend to think that whatever fears I have about speaking in a public space are outweighed by me contributing another viewpoint or experience to the conversation, so I look past my fears and decide to comment. If my expectation was to have my thoughts taken seriously by others, maybe I would feel more justified in believing that initial anxiety was actually warranted the next time I intend to press "reply", and I would be better off not trying to be a part of a conversation I myself am not prepared to take seriously. Anyway, I hope that, in some sense, this response was worth listening to. And I don't intend to come off as condescending or unwilling to converse with you; that was just the first thing that entered my mind.
andrewaylett 5y ago
>second-guessing whether you're good enough to deserve your position. Often with an element of "what will they do when they realise". I've come to understand, though, that I'd been worrying about the answer to the wrong problem. I know I'm not as good as I could (maybe should) be, and I know that for any given metric I have peers who can and do outperform me. But the word "expectations" is a loaded one: when suffering from imposter syndrome it's important to stop worrying about what expectations I have for myself and instead look at the expectations set in the specification for my role. I also remember that the company spends quite a lot of money on me every single month. So when they tell me that they're really happy with that arrangement and that they believe that I'm meeting their expectations, that helps me to set aside my expectations. Conversely, if your manager tells you that there's a problem and you're not meeting their expectations, they are definitely correct that there's a problem. They might not be correct in their diagnosis, but you can't simply ignore the issue.
- XorNot 5y ago
  > Conversely, if your manager tells you that there's a problem and you're not meeting their expectations, they are definitely correct that there's a problem. They might not be correct in their diagnosis, but you can't simply ignore the issue. But there may also be nothing you can do about it either. I think a huge part of the problem is that I suspect the typical experience of hearing "there's a problem" is that by the time anyone is saying that, things are already in motion you may not be able to fix anyway.
  - bertr4nd 5y ago
    This. This actually hits the nail of my imposter syndrome precisely on the head. I've advanced to a pretty good position, and I'm definitely good at a fair number of things; but there are also things I am very much not good at, and I often worry that I got promoted to this point by "lucky" breaks that leveraged my strengths, but keeping the position will require me to do things that I don't even know how to develop.
armchairhacker 5y ago
> good enough to deserve your position What does this mean? What qualifies as "good enough"? If you're not fired, you're good enough for your boss. There are billions of people from poor regions who would put in way more effort than you. Many of them are smarter too. You make $100K / year to spend 35 hours / week drinking coffee and writing JavaScript, they make like $10K / year to spend 60 hours / week physical labor and getting yelled at. You'll never be good enough for them. Also, there are 7+ billion people in the world. That means there are millions if not billions more talented than you. You're probably not even the most talented in your group. But why does any of that matter? Literally nobody is good enough by those standards. There's no objective "good enough". Those people from poor regions who work their asses off deserve more, you don't deserve less. In my eyes, don't be an asshole, contribute to society in some way, and you're good enough. Except maybe one objective "good enough": if you're not fired, you're good enough for your boss. Honestly, some bosses have unrealistic standards so even that doesn't count.
- gavodavo 5y ago
  So in the end what's important is if you're good enough for _yourself_
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- blub 5y ago
  It means that the employee is able to fulfill their tasks firstly according to industry and then company standards. Having a job or even launching a successful project does not mean that one is good enough - especially in software where having a job doesn’t convince anyone to offer one a job without grueling interviews and where most of the software produced is riddled with bugs and security holes. If one considers the hiring practices of top companies, they are absolutely claiming that the great majority of applicants are imposters.
  - aiisjustanif 5y ago
    What if the industry doesn’t even know how that task should be fulfilled or the company. There are some many projects/experiments/products are companies that good be delivered in some many ways. > If one considers the hiring practices of top companies, they are absolutely claiming that the great majority of applicants are imposters. It’s a logical fallacy that leetcode is only to filter imposters. And separately, gamification of interviews can definitely lead to real imposters.

vasco 5y ago

Agree, specially because everyone has above average IQ. That being said this conversation always feels to me like "are soldiers afraid before a battle" type discussion. Either they are or they aren't has no bearing on what they do. They have to be brave and get out there. Same here, just realise everyone has doubts, and instead of spending time making a big thing of it and "dealing with it", just put your head down and work hard. Everyone has doubts, focusing on them is pointless.

mewpmewp2 5y ago
The issue in these cases is that you have a hard time not focusing on them. These intrusive thoughts come all the time, take up mental energy and time. It would be best to just focus on actually building things, but it's not always as simple. It may alleviate the thoughts if you knew for sure that you are not an impostor from a source you can trust or perhaps it will require therapy. Or maybe you can actually push through it, as you said. Anxiety, depression and low self esteem however can take a strong enough toll that simply pushing through and dealing with it may be too difficult without help.
- onjectic 5y ago
  Having a very hard time not focusing on intrusive thoughts is a symptom of OCD.
  - mewpmewp2 5y ago
    Yeah, but this is depression and anxiety too. Constantly having to deal with negative thoughts. In theory, just change brain chemistry slightly and you will have fewer negative thoughts and more positive. Not everyone has similar amount of doubts. So an outsider who says "just deal with it", won't know the ratio and magnitude of negative to positive thoughts, someone else might have. Everyone has doubts, but frequency and strength may vary.
puchatek 5y ago
Ah yes, keep it all bottled up and under no circumstances talk about it. Totally leads to improved quality of life.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

nonbirithm 5y ago

I also believe this. I think "imposter syndrome" has been associated with actual abilities not aligning with lower expectations, with the implication that if you match the description of someone with imposter syndrome, you're just overthinking things and will be just fine. I cannot see how this logically follows in every circumstance that someone feels like an imposter. If you're expected to learn something by someone but don't learn it, because of motivation or other reasoning, but are then put in front of other people by your superior with the assumption that you have gained that knowledge in the meantime, you'd both feel like an imposter and actually be one. My bias is to believe that if I don't feel that I'm qualified for something, then claiming that it will all be fine in the end is dishonest, and a fully realized version of the imposter syndrome with actual consequences for failure. The bias itself, as in most always feeling like an imposter no matter what your qualifications are, is what I would consider the intent of a concept like imposter syndrome. But it is still possible to go too far in the other direction and mistakenly believe you're simply worrying too much. I feel that hiding behind a notion of imposter syndrome erases notions of personal responsibility when things actually go wrong, e.g. when one really is an imposter, or acted similarly without awareness or ill intent. The word "imposter" itself seems to imply that you must have ill intent to be a true imposter, which almost nobody actually is. "Unqualified" would probably be a more appropriate word, and would probably make people more hesistant to use this kind of terminology when discussing a lack of skills or confidence.

wombatmobile 5y ago
> I feel that hiding behind a notion of imposter syndrome erases notions of personal responsibility when things actually go wrong Can you say where your sense of personal responsibility comes from? Did you have any personal influences or role models who taught you this protocol? Are there any examples that come to mind that you can succinctly describe here, in a way that shows relevance to the main points you are making?
- nonbirithm 5y ago
  Succinctly, writing this response. I don't always feel that I have the necessary skills to make properly reasoned arguments in general, but instead tend to have a habitual drive to just say whatever is on my mind in the hopes that it will be heard but not necessarily challenged, maybe in the way some bloggers treat their content as a feed of stream-of-consciousness thought. When someone does want to discuss what I say, the dynamic for me changes and I feel the urge to respond more carefully, which wasn't usually something I considered when first commenting. In many cases, I am tempted to just not respond because it is the easiest option, but I feel that would essentially mean not taking responsibility for my own words. Actually debating someone is not something I'm used to, and is at times frightening to me, but I still feel that I ought not to ignore it when I am the cause. Also, I think that I have a tendency to try not to say things with the intention of starting arguments, leaving the more subjective statements to the people that happen to find something relatable in what I consider to have actually happened to me, regardless of value or intent. But, as in this case, there are exceptions. So my sense of responsibility has a long way to go, admittedly. And I might or might not be justified in my anxiety in wondering if what I'm typing out right now makes enough sense in the context of my other comment, but the way I'm feeling right now, it's hard to tell. This is also one of the reasons I'm rather disillusioned with journaling if what I journal isn't my lived experience, which so long as my memory is capable enough usually isn't something that someone else would question. If it's something that can be debated, writing down my thoughts or opinions and leaving them in the confines of my private journal makes it sound like I'm just agreeing with myself. My guess for how I developed this way of thinking would be my upbringing. There were no labels I could use that carried any value as far as protecting my sense of self-worth went. I wouldn't even consider the people I knew to be role models. Success or failure was solely determined based on whether I did something correctly or not, not how I approached the problem. Even with the labels that I've been given today, ones that are in my mind much more justifiable than the ones I gave myself long ago, that mindset continues to rule a lot of my life. I tend to accept the mistakes I make as my responsibility to correct, but because I prevent myself from entering into situations where mistakes are likely (as in, areas where I feel unqualified), I'm less tolerant to getting over mistakes after they've happened, because I've insulated myself from mistakes and their impact. If none of this supports my original points, my belief is that it would be because of my lack of knowledge, regardless of what I was thinking when I impulsively wrote my first comment. By commenting, I tend to think that whatever fears I have about speaking in a public space are outweighed by me contributing another viewpoint or experience to the conversation, so I look past my fears and decide to comment. If my expectation was to have my thoughts taken seriously by others, maybe I would feel more justified in believing that initial anxiety was actually warranted the next time I intend to press "reply", and I would be better off not trying to be a part of a conversation I myself am not prepared to take seriously. Anyway, I hope that, in some sense, this response was worth listening to. And I don't intend to come off as condescending or unwilling to converse with you; that was just the first thing that entered my mind.

andrewaylett 5y ago

>second-guessing whether you're good enough to deserve your position. Often with an element of "what will they do when they realise". I've come to understand, though, that I'd been worrying about the answer to the wrong problem. I know I'm not as good as I could (maybe should) be, and I know that for any given metric I have peers who can and do outperform me. But the word "expectations" is a loaded one: when suffering from imposter syndrome it's important to stop worrying about what expectations I have for myself and instead look at the expectations set in the specification for my role. I also remember that the company spends quite a lot of money on me every single month. So when they tell me that they're really happy with that arrangement and that they believe that I'm meeting their expectations, that helps me to set aside my expectations. Conversely, if your manager tells you that there's a problem and you're not meeting their expectations, they are definitely correct that there's a problem. They might not be correct in their diagnosis, but you can't simply ignore the issue.

XorNot 5y ago
> Conversely, if your manager tells you that there's a problem and you're not meeting their expectations, they are definitely correct that there's a problem. They might not be correct in their diagnosis, but you can't simply ignore the issue. But there may also be nothing you can do about it either. I think a huge part of the problem is that I suspect the typical experience of hearing "there's a problem" is that by the time anyone is saying that, things are already in motion you may not be able to fix anyway.
- bertr4nd 5y ago
  This. This actually hits the nail of my imposter syndrome precisely on the head. I've advanced to a pretty good position, and I'm definitely good at a fair number of things; but there are also things I am very much not good at, and I often worry that I got promoted to this point by "lucky" breaks that leveraged my strengths, but keeping the position will require me to do things that I don't even know how to develop.

armchairhacker 5y ago

> good enough to deserve your position What does this mean? What qualifies as "good enough"? If you're not fired, you're good enough for your boss. There are billions of people from poor regions who would put in way more effort than you. Many of them are smarter too. You make $100K / year to spend 35 hours / week drinking coffee and writing JavaScript, they make like $10K / year to spend 60 hours / week physical labor and getting yelled at. You'll never be good enough for them. Also, there are 7+ billion people in the world. That means there are millions if not billions more talented than you. You're probably not even the most talented in your group. But why does any of that matter? Literally nobody is good enough by those standards. There's no objective "good enough". Those people from poor regions who work their asses off deserve more, you don't deserve less. In my eyes, don't be an asshole, contribute to society in some way, and you're good enough. Except maybe one objective "good enough": if you're not fired, you're good enough for your boss. Honestly, some bosses have unrealistic standards so even that doesn't count.

gavodavo 5y ago
So in the end what's important is if you're good enough for _yourself_
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
blub 5y ago
It means that the employee is able to fulfill their tasks firstly according to industry and then company standards. Having a job or even launching a successful project does not mean that one is good enough - especially in software where having a job doesn’t convince anyone to offer one a job without grueling interviews and where most of the software produced is riddled with bugs and security holes. If one considers the hiring practices of top companies, they are absolutely claiming that the great majority of applicants are imposters.
- aiisjustanif 5y ago
  What if the industry doesn’t even know how that task should be fulfilled or the company. There are some many projects/experiments/products are companies that good be delivered in some many ways. > If one considers the hiring practices of top companies, they are absolutely claiming that the great majority of applicants are imposters. It’s a logical fallacy that leetcode is only to filter imposters. And separately, gamification of interviews can definitely lead to real imposters.