Have you ever felt like you just aren’t smart enough or like you’re incapable of being a programmer? Have you ever felt like an imposter and that s...
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In this description: 'evident success' is key / and well, subjective!
We teach many students who have worked for years to learn programming through online courses that gave them the 'feeling of success' - but really... they didn't learn anything they could use outside of the proprietary IDE. It seems like this industry's education platforms are giving people a false sense of security and success - instead of real-world tools and experience to actually build things. Once you've spent hundreds of hours in tutorial purgatory, you feel like you're owed some success. Just because you spin up some netlify portfolio site from github... doesn't mean you know what the heck just happened. There are a lot of people who feel like impostors - because / they are. "I learned HTML and CSS, now what should I do..." - is a clear giveaway. That's a bummer.
And then - for sure - there are people who are well above in their skills who are just too humble to realize their $ value to companies. In another way / that's because they also haven't been taught how to measure that value. That's a very key part in the design process - so, in both cases - we are seeing the people in this field under prepared.
These are all helpful tips to navigate those feelings. At the end of the day - you should be able to measure your value at any point in your career - and stick to the facts instead of your feelings.
If people read these books:
and used MDN as a toolbox / they'd be able to measure their success in an objective way.
Bakers don't wonder "can I really bake a cake?" - because you can just - see if there is a cake on the counter or not.
Be kind to yourself. By being kind - you should also tell yourself the truth - and get the tools to find that truth.
Started my first job as an intern full-stack dev one month ago, I feel like I don't know anything every morning I wake up feeling like what if I'm not able to fix that bug or create that feature, imposter syndrome is really hard to get around with as it takes a lot of energy. When I fix a bug I feel fine but if a bug takes time to fix it feels like I'm not going to make it.
As an intern you should focus on absorbing as much knowledge and "tricks" from other developers and learning the ways of the business. I am pretty sure that you have higher expectations of yourself and your skills than the company is expecting from you, so try not to focus on how much time a bug takes to fix, but on what is the best apporach for identifying and resolving it.
Good luck!
I have started an internship three weeks ago as a Full-stack developer and Passing from the same situation. Daily, I wake up and start thinking, how much I have completed that task. Have I resolve this error or not. and this feature takes a lot of time to implement. This post helps me a lot and comments. Now, I realized the only thing i have to think is that how much I learned not how much it takes. Thanks to you all.
As an intern, it isn't your job to know the answer. So don't worry about it if you don't, because your job is just to learn and absorb. If you've learned anything, then you've done your job!
Really nice written article.
I'm programming for 20 years and still learning.
Programming is a journey, you can't know everything and never will.
One of my teacher at the time told us that we would need to keep updating our skills continuously, so he said that the whole focus of what he would be teaching us was to learn how to learn.
That was the most usefull skill i learned.
At some point in our career, perhaps even daily; when we are learning new things, there is a sick feeling of "I don't know this, I'm tired of constant learning, Everybody but me knows this, I feel dumb...etc."
The constant change of the latest best practice, best way, best framework, best tool, best thing since chewing gum is ultimately disheartening. There's too much to know. Don't waste time on noise, rather...
Follow the StackOverflow surveys and focus on just one or two languages, a CSS tool, and 1 other thing for 6 months. Repeat forever...
Today the top techs are.
-React
-Javascript and Typescript
-SCSS
-And Cloud
While the feelings of inadequacy are real, stay laser focused on these areas.
The best skill is, learning to learn and staying persistent. Don't let anyone fool you it takes at least 8-10 weeks to get comfortable and 1 year to become a Subject Matter Expert.
Finally don't compare yourself with anyone else just keep improving.
Thank you for this. I graduated from a vocational university 6 months ago and got a job pretty fast at a fairly big corporation and everyone in my team have 10+ years of experience. I feel the negative side of imposter syndrome everyday, not only because I KNOW that I know less than everyone, but also because the project im in have thousands of files and several different side projects which makes it really intimidating to make changes or add something new.
And because of the situation in the world right now I'm working from home which makes it even harder to ask for help when needed, or to get someone who can show me the ropes so to speak.
I needed to see that even seniors can feel the same way. So once again, thank you for this.
Really interesting post. The growth mindset is pretty effective, I find - have any resources about that?
Yeah! Here's a whole book on it
Ah - great resource, thanks!
Hello Ali, I am glad that you now recognize how talented you are as a developer, a writer and a teacher.
I kept your article 3 years in mind before writing this follow up
The Real Imposter is The Inner Judge - On Imposter Symdrome
Jean-Michel Fayard 🇫🇷🇩🇪🇬🇧🇪🇸🇨🇴 ・ May 22 ・ 9 min read
💖💖, This is so helpful.
Thank you for writing the tips you listed.
For me, I show myself what I’ve learned because every time I review the Web Design track at Team Treehouse, I’ve started skipping certain videos and going through to the objectives I have to complete.
If I can do so without needing to rewatch the video, then I’m knowledgeable about this part of the eventual project.
Thank you so much for this thoughtful article and these tips! I have definitely been going through this recently
Excellent tips Ali, this part has proven true for me many times - "imposter syndrome may act as a motivator for you and drive you to keep learning". Thank you for sharing :)
I still have this after 21 years working pretty much 7 days a week!
Cool topic and helps to evolve
Thank you
I adore this article and really needed to read it today! Thank you
I still get imposter syndrome every now and again.
For me, the way I overcome it is by meeting the internal adversity head-on: proving to myself and others that yes, I actually CAN walk the walk.
Thanks for the message
Merci pour cet article. Il est venue à point nommé. Je suis en formation et j'ai l'impression de n'avoir rien appris pourtant il nous reste peu de mois.
My comment was just deleted and I really feel like crying. I was right in the middle of an explanation and suddenly, the page recycled. I can't find it now. I'm really upset.
What does this part mean?
Nobody is perfect, and your error messages are