To deal with inferiority, don't take yourself seriously. First off, there are signs fear is good in helping you choose what to do next. Fear is good. Like s

To deal with inferiority, don't take yourself seriously. First off, there are signs fear is good in helping you choose what to do next. Fear is good. Like self-doubt, fear is an indicator. Fear tells us what we have to do. Remember our rule of thumb: The more scared we are of a work or calling, the more sure we can be that we have to do it. - Steven Pressfield I try never to be governed by fear; that's how I choose things. If I ever feel that this is dangerous or I'm scared of it, then that probably draws me more towards it. - Nicole Kidman If you're not worrying that something you're making will come out badly, or that you won't be able to understand something you're studying, then it isn't hard enough. There has to be suspense. - Paul Graham But like other people in this thread said, it's important to not be afraid of making mistakes. Nothing will stop you being creative so effectively as the fear of making a mistake. - John Cleese So how do you deal with inferiority? Pressure yourself to not have expectations. Expectations kill creativity. Creative people might have a childlike state partly to counteract pressure of expectations, which then frees them to have thoughts their unconscious felt it wasn't allowed to have otherwise. (low EQ) I'm going on a limb here, but personally I make a lot of programming decisions emotionally. When something smells off with the design of a solution it makes me grow uncomfortable in playing along, and that turns out to be a good thing because it leads to a better solution. I wonder how many other programmers either are, or choose to confess they are, emotional in how they choose what to program.