DEV Community: Richard Donovan

💚 Free Mental Health Chats

Richard Donovan — Tue, 26 Mar 2024 16:37:06 +0000

Sometimes, we feel like there's a dark cloud following us around...

Often, a friendly chat is enough for it to dissipate...

If you'd like a friendly chat to help dissipate your dark cloud...

You can find availability here

P.S. Still some slots available for tomorrow.

Why would you want to chat with me?

I'm a mindset coach for software developers with a background in software development spanning 24 years.

I've worked as a developer, tech lead, development manager and architect.

I'm also a nice guy... if I do say so myself 😂

These chats are for anyone who wants to:
👉 Discuss their mental health
👉 Talk about mental health in software development
👉 Talk about supporting their software development team’s wellbeing
👉 Wants a friendly social interaction in their day

Mental Health Chats For Your Team

I’m offering mental health chats as a service for software development teams.

Get in touch if you’re looking for a specific and meaningful way to support your developers and leaders.

Find out more here.

Tools

Check out my Wellbeing Hub for tools such as :

🟢 Breathing Simulator

🟢 Focus Pomodoro

🟢 Thought Recursion

A Developer's Guide To Setting Boundaries

Richard Donovan — Wed, 20 Mar 2024 19:41:52 +0000

Introduction

I’ve witnessed developers and leaders work themselves into the ground.

They people-please, stay late, and don’t want to disappoint anyone.

I’ve also witnessed them turn their life around without letting people down…

How?

🟢 By Setting Boundaries.

Setting boundaries helps achieve balance, preserve mental wellbeing, and create sustainable productivity.

This article provides practical strategies for establishing and enforcing them.

Key Takeaways 🔑

✅ Understanding Boundaries:

Boundaries define acceptable behaviour, workload limits, and personal space.

✅ Importance of Boundaries:

Boundaries are crucial for safeguarding:

🟢 Time
🟢 Energy
🟢 Mental health

Setting boundaries increases productivity, reduces stress, and improves work-life balance.

They enable developers to:

👍 Avoid burnout
👍 Manage expectations
👍 Cultivate healthier relationships

✅ Setting Boundaries:

Effective boundary-setting involves assertively communicating limits and advocating for your needs.

🟢 This is a short version 🟢

Find out more about:
👉 Understanding Boundaries
👉 Identifying Boundary Violations
👉 Addressing Boundary Violations

In the full version here:

💚 A Developer's Guide To Setting Boundaries

Words < 1000 - Read time < 5 mins

tmsd.substack.com

Why It Matters 🤷

Setting boundaries is a necessity for wellbeing and productivity.

Poor Wellbeing

Without clear boundaries, you risk falling prey to a never-ending cycle of overwork, stress, and burnout.

You’ll find yourself constantly on call, staying late, and people-pleasing.

You’ll feel like you can’t say no.

Decreased Performance

Failing to enforce boundaries takes a toll on your mental and physical health.

It undermines the quality of your work.

Burnout looms…

Then…
🔴 Decreased productivity,
🔴 Diminished creativity,
🔴 Increased errors…

Toxic Culture

Boundary violations breed resentment and erode trust within teams.

When boundaries are disregarded, it sends a message that individual wellbeing is secondary to project demands.

This attitude fosters toxicity and undermines collaboration.

You reclaim control over your time, energy, and priorities by setting boundaries.

You create space for rest, reflection, and rejuvenation and bring your best self to work.

Take Action 🔥

1. Recognise Your Limits:

Start by acknowledging your own limits.

Reflect on what aspects of your work and personal life are most important to you and where you may be experiencing boundary violations.

Decide what behaviour is acceptable or unacceptable to you.

2. Establish Clear Boundaries:

Establish clear boundaries around your workload, communication channels, and personal time.

Set realistic expectations for yourself and others, and don't hesitate to say no when necessary.

You can categorise your boundaries as soft (some leeway) or hard (non-negotiable).

3. Communicate Assertively:

Assertive communication is key to effectively addressing boundary violations.

Establish your core personal values to help communicate what is important to you.

Practice with friends and family to gain confidence.

4. Set Priorities:

Prioritise tasks and responsibilities based on their importance and urgency.

Learn to delegate or renegotiate commitments.

We don’t realise it, but deadlines are often negotiable.
People are more understanding than we first think.

5. Seek Support:

If you're having trouble addressing boundary issues on your own, don't hesitate to seek support from trusted colleagues, mentors, or HR.

Sometimes, an outside perspective can offer valuable insights and support.

6. Practice Self-Care:

Finally, prioritise self-care and wellbeing.

Make time for activities that rejuvenate and replenish you, whether exercise, hobbies, or spending time with loved ones.

You'll be healthier and more productive by proactively addressing boundary violations and prioritising your wellbeing.

Rich’s Recommendations

Check out my recommendations to improve your wellbeing, mindset, leadership or tech skills:

👍 Set Boundaries, Find Peace (Audible) End the struggle, speak up for what you need and experience the freedom of being truly yourself.

👍 Personal Values Selector: Great tool to start defining your core personal values.

👍 Crushing Digital - David Roberts Get help to stand out in the market, land more interviews and get the job you deserve.

👍 NK’s weekly newsletter to learn system design:

Newsletter: System Design Newsletter

👍 Dev Leader’s weekly newsletter to help you level up as a software engineer!

From a Principal Engineering Manager at Microsoft.

Newsletter: Dev Leader Weekly

👍 John Crickett’s weekly coding challenge to help software engineers level up:

Newsletter: Coding Challenges

Closing

Setting boundaries is about reclaiming control over your time, energy, and priorities.

Remember, setting boundaries isn't selfish—it's an act of self-preservation and self-respect.

You protect yourself from burnout by prioritising your wellbeing and advocating for your needs.

You also contribute to a culture of respect, transparency, and collaboration within your team.

Take a stand for yourself and your fellow developers. 👍

Remember

There's nothing more important than your own wellbeing!

💚 Free Mental Health Chats

Richard Donovan — Tue, 19 Mar 2024 11:52:20 +0000

💚 It's your weekly reminder to look after your mental health...

Exercise is fantastic for your mental health...

🟢 Do some basic stretches...
🟢 Or try some Yoga...

🟢 Go to the gym...
🟢 Or do some squats, lunges and press-ups at home...

🟢 Go for a swim...
🟢 Or simply take a walk...

If you're feeling extra energetic...
🟢 Play some squash 😀

What's your go-to exercise when you need to de-stress? 👀

If a chat would be useful, you can find availability here (There are still some slots for tomorrow)

Why would you want to chat with me?

I'm a mindset coach for software developers with a background in software development spanning 24 years.

I've worked as a developer, tech lead, development manager and architect.

I'm also a nice guy... if I do say so myself 😂

Mental Health Chats For Your Team

I’m offering mental health chats as a service for software development teams.

Get in touch if you’re looking for a specific and meaningful way to support your developers and leaders.

Find out more here.

Tools

Check out my Wellbeing Hub for tools such as :

🟢 Breathing Simulator

🟢 Focus Pomodoro

🟢 Thought Recursion

💚 Free Mental Health Chats

Richard Donovan — Tue, 12 Mar 2024 15:26:10 +0000

You know how important mental health is in software development... but it's often overlooked...

This is your weekly reminder to take care of your mental health.

If a chat would be useful, you can find availability here (There are still some slots for tomorrow)

Why would you want to chat with me?

I'm a mindset coach for software developers with a background in software development spanning 24 years.

I've worked as a developer, tech lead, development manager and architect.

I'm also a nice guy... if I do say so myself 😂

Mental Health Chats For Your Team

I’m offering mental health chats as a service for software development teams.

Get in touch if you’re looking for a specific and meaningful way to support your developers and leaders.

Find out more here.

Tools

Check out my Wellbeing Hub for tools such as :

🟢 Breathing Simulator

🟢 Focus Pomodoro

🟢 Thought Recursion

The 5-5-5 of Active Listening

Richard Donovan — Tue, 12 Mar 2024 14:42:39 +0000

Introduction

Effective communication is the linchpin of success in software development.

We often see communication as an outward activity:

🟢 Showing
🟢 Writing
🟢 Speaking

We often overlook the most crucial aspect of communication.

🟢 Active listening.

Check out the key takeaways, or keep reading to dive deeper into the 5-5-5 of active listening.

👉 5 Benefits

👉 5 Do’s

👉 5 Don’ts

Key Takeaways 🔑

✅ Active listening goes beyond the surface-level exchange of words and entails genuine connection and empathy.

✅ Active listening can streamline communication, mitigate misunderstandings, and cultivate team trust and collaboration.

✅ Active listening can lead to improved project outcomes, enhanced team dynamics and improved wellbeing for all involved.

Active Listening

Active listening is more than remembering what is being said and then responding.

It involves engaging with the speaker, grasping the nuances of their message, and responding thoughtfully.

You must hear the words and interpret the speaker's tone, body language, and emotions.

Mastering active listening can elevate team dynamics and project outcomes to unprecedented heights.

And increase your stock as an individual to an all-time high.

The Old Me

For a long time, I didn’t know what active listening was.

I broke all the rules.

🔴 I interrupted when there was a short pause.

🔴 I assumed I knew what was going to be said.

🔴 I finished sentences and was often dismissive…

It makes me cringe to think back to some of these examples.

It must have been very annoying for some of my colleagues!

The New Me

As a coach, active listening has become super important to me.

I still have to work at it though.

It requires conscious effort.

I sometimes have the urge to jump in when a silence borders on uncomfortable.

But I’ve learned to endure them by recognising it’s not about me.

Active listening is not just about words.

There’s a lot to listen to during a silence.

Something I’ve learned a lot about during my many mental health chats.

This is a full issue from my newsletter, The Modern Software Developer.

To get future issues straight to your inbox, You can sign up here:

The Modern Software Developer | Richard Donovan | Substack

Sign up for mindset and wellbeing advice in software development and free mental health chats 💚. Click to read The Modern Software Developer, by Richard Donovan, a Substack publication with thousands of subscribers.

tmsd.substack.com

Why It Matters 🤷‍♂️

Active listening benefits software development teams, enhancing collaboration, productivity, and overall project success.

Benefits can be individual and collective.

Active listening improves your relationships and contributes to your wellbeing and the wellbeing of those around you.

5 Benefits of Active Listening

1 - Improved Problem-Solving:

Listening to other perspectives and ideas allows you to gain valuable insights contributing to more innovative solutions.

Active listening encourages open dialogue and brainstorming, leading to creative problem-solving approaches.

2 - Enhanced Client Satisfaction:

Active listening enables you to better understand clients' needs, preferences, and concerns.

You can deliver solutions that meet expectations by actively engaging with clients and addressing their feedback and requests, resulting in higher client satisfaction and loyalty.

3 - Strengthened Team Dynamics:

Active listening fosters a culture of respect, trust, and collaboration.

People who feel heard and valued contribute their ideas, collaborate effectively, and support one another, leading to stronger team cohesion and morale.

You can navigate conflicts with empathy and diplomacy by attentively listening to conflicting viewpoints, acknowledging differing perspectives, and seeking common ground.

4 - Reduced Errors and Misunderstandings:

Misunderstandings can lead to costly errors and delays in software development projects.

Active listening mitigates risks by ensuring team members are aligned and clearly understand project requirements, expectations, and deliverables.

5 - Increased Efficiency:

By actively listening to stakeholders' feedback and concerns, you can identify potential roadblocks or inefficiencies early on and address them proactively.

This proactive approach can help streamline project workflows, reduce rework, and improve overall project efficiency.

Take Action 🔥

Active listening takes conscious effort and practice.

Many of these suggestions might not feel natural, especially if you class yourself as an introvert.

I should know… This was me a few years ago.

With practice, the unnatural becomes natural…

Or at least, more natural… and less unnatural… 🤷‍♂️

5 Do’s of Active Listening

1 - Give Your Full Attention:

When speaking with colleagues, clients, or stakeholders, consciously give them your undivided attention.

Minimise distractions, such as checking emails or browsing the web, and focus on actively listening to what they say.

2 - Practice Empathy:

Put yourself in the speaker's shoes and try to understand their perspective.

Empathising with their thoughts, feelings, and concerns allows you to connect deeper and build rapport.

3 - Ask Clarifying Questions:

Don't hesitate to ask clarifying questions.

This demonstrates your interest and commitment to understanding their point of view.

4 - Paraphrase and Summarise:

After listening to someone speak, paraphrase their key points in your own words.

This confirms your understanding and shows you’re actively engaged in the conversation while allowing the opportunity for clarification.

5 - Practice Nonverbal Communication:

Pay attention to your body language and nonverbal cues, which can convey attentiveness and interest.

🟢 An open posture indicates a willingness to listen
🟢 Nod occasionally to show understanding
🟢 Lean forward slightly to show interest
🟢 Maintain eye contact

5 Don’ts of Active Listening

Active listening involves resisting the urge to do things that might feel natural to you.

Although you might not realise you do them…

1 - Don't Interrupt:

Interruptions can disrupt flow of thought and signal a lack of respect.

Allow the speaker to finish before responding.

2 - Don't Judge or Criticise:

Avoid passing judgment or criticising the speaker's opinions, ideas, or experiences.

Active listening requires empathy and understanding, regardless of whether you agree with the speaker's viewpoint.

3 - Don't Assume Understanding:

Don't assume you understand the speaker's message without seeking clarification.

Assumptions can lead to misunderstandings.

4 - Don't Multitask:

Multitasking while someone is speaking can signal disinterest and detract from your ability to listen actively.

For in-person meetings, avoid taking your laptop.

For remote meetings, minimise all other applications… especially your browser.

5 - Don't Formulate Responses Prematurely:

Resist the urge to formulate your response while the speaker is still talking.

Thinking about your response stops you from listening.

Instead, fully comprehend their message before formulating your response.

This is a full issue from my newsletter, The Modern Software Developer.

To get future issues straight to your inbox, You can sign up here:

The Modern Software Developer | Richard Donovan | Substack

tmsd.substack.com

Rich’s Recommendations

Check out my recommendations to improve your wellbeing, mindset, leadership or tech skills:

👍 Nonviolent Communication

👍 NK’s weekly newsletter to learn system design:

Newsletter: System Design Newsletter

👍 Dev Leader’s weekly newsletter to help you level up as a software engineer!

From a Principal Engineering Manager at Microsoft.

Newsletter: Dev Leader Weekly

👍 John Crickett’s weekly coding challenge to help software engineers level up:

Newsletter: Coding Challenges

Closing

Effective communication is not just a nice-to-have; it's essential for success.

In an extremely tough market where everyone is looking for an edge, active listening could be a real differentiator between you and your competitors.

By prioritising active listening and embracing its principles, you can unlock new levels of collaboration, innovation, and success in your projects and careers.

Remember

There's nothing more important than your own wellbeing!

How To Beat Imposter Syndrome

Richard Donovan — Fri, 14 Apr 2023 13:47:58 +0000

Welcome back to The Modern Software Developer. This is the final part of my mini-series as we talk about how to beat imposter syndrome.

Let’s briefly recap what Imposter syndrome is with a definition and a brief summary.

Imposter Syndrome: A psychological pattern in which an individual doubts their skills, talents, or accomplishments and has a persistent internalised fear of being exposed as a “fraud”, despite evidence of their competence.

To Summarise Imposter Syndrome
👉 It’s caused by HOW you think.
👉 This way of thinking is persistent.
👉 Evidence exists of your competence.

With that covered, let’s kick on…

It might just be the holy grail for software developers and the companies they work for to beat imposter syndrome and fulfil their potential.

We’ve discussed what imposter syndrome is and what it’s not, and we’ve touched on how damaging it can be for software developers.

We’ve talked about the 5 key influences of imposter syndrome. We’ll revisit them here as we dive deeper than the usual top-level advice so that you understand why you are following that advice and how it links to the low-level details.

Now let’s remind ourselves of the 5 influences and how we can use each one to beat imposter syndrome.

The Subconscious Mind

Starting with the subconscious mind, I previously explained how it contributes to imposter syndrome through unhelpful thought patterns and beliefs in an earlier issue.

We need to reemphasise that your subconscious mind doesn’t filter the content you expose it to; that’s important because you’ve essentially been programming or training your subconscious mind without realising it.

Knowing this, you can be more purposeful about what you expose your subconscious mind to.

You can actively avoid negative and unhelpful content and program your subconscious mind with more of what you’d like to get back from it; positive and helpful thoughts.

The rest of this issue is focused on (re)programming your subconscious mind with tips from high-level actions to low-level thoughts.

It takes time and patience, but for me, this is how to beat imposter syndrome.

Habits

Habits are the invisible architecture of everyday life and are a key driver of your success and happiness. Habits can be big or small; they’re most powerful when we are aware of them and most dangerous when we don’t even realise we have them.

Self-Talk

Self-talk plays a primary role in imposter syndrome as it’s the mechanism by which we tell ourselves stories about our own capabilities and how others perceive us.

I always say there are two types of people in this world, those who talk to themselves and those who don’t realise they talk to themselves.

Self-talk is a critical tool for programming your subconscious mind; unfortunately, most people’s self-talk is just that, critical… of themselves.

It’s estimated that you’re engaged in some form of self-talk for up to 70% of your waking day!
That’s a lot of repetition.

So what are you saying to yourself?

Look out for three main types of self-talk:

Informal self-talk:

This consists of informal statements you make to yourself and others.

Here are some examples of self-talk and how they could be improved:
From:
👉 “I was just lucky…”
👉 “Everyone else is smashing it…”
👉 “Everyone knows more than me…”

To:
👉 “I created this opportunity”
👉 “I just need to focus on me”
👉 “I’m improving; that’s what matters”

Primary Questions:

Questions do a great job directing your thoughts; we do this when we ask ourselves questions.

When you ask questions like:
👉 “Why am I so stupid?”
👉 “Why do I always mess up the interview?”
👉 “Why would anyone follow me as a leader?”

You send your brain off on a little mission to find evidence of all the times you’ve been stupid, messed up an interview or failed an attempt at leadership as if trying to prove your suspicion correct.

However, replace them with questions such as:
👉 “How can I be better next time?”
👉 “What can I learn from this interview?”
👉 “How do I improve as a leader?”

And you’ll send your brain on a very different mission, a more positive and helpful one.

Affirmations:

Affirmations are statements about yourself.
If you recognise these:
👉 “I’m a failure.”
👉 “I am always late.”
👉 “I’m not good enough at…”

Try switching them for these:
👉 “When I fail, I always learn.”
👉 “I’m improving my punctuality.”
👉 “I’m trying my best.”

With enough repetition, you’ll start to convince yourself and start to believe it.

So look for and build awareness of what you say to yourself, either out loud or in your head, and if you don’t think you talk to yourself, pay extra attention…

When you’ve identified the more unhelpful elements of your self-talk, it’s time to build a habit of recognising and interrupting them and replacing them with more helpful and constructive statements.

Here are a few more examples of more constructive self-talk.
👉 “I can learn”
👉 “I can improve”
👉 “I tried my best”
👉 “I’m a hard worker”
👉 “I have a history of great work”
👉 “I worked hard to get where I am”
👉 “My skills are an asset to any company”
👉 “I worked hard to create that opportunity”
👉 “Becoming a senior or leader is a journey”

Negativity

Another habit many of us find ourselves with is entertaining too much negativity. It can take various forms:
👉 Always complaining
👉 Scrolling social media
👉 Constantly checking the news
👉 Listening to conspiracy theories
👉 Always looking to blame someone
👉 Talking about others behind their backs

It’s no wonder that your subconscious mind projects all of this onto those around you; you start to think other people think ill of you and your abilities, or you jump straight to worst-case scenarios.

Think about your subconscious mind like your own version of ChatGPT. If you train it on data such as the above, you can imagine the kind of answers you’ll get back from it when asking questions – negative and unhelpful ones.

However, if you train your own version of ChatGPT on data based on concepts such as positivity, support, encouragement, improvement, learning, growth, respect, humility… You’ll get very different answers to the questions you pose… Far more helpful answers.

So how do you do that? (There are so many more ways…)
👉 Don’t speak ill of others.
👉 Stop complaining all the time.
👉 Spend less time watching the news.
👉 Spend more time supporting others.
👉 Spend less time with negative people.
👉 Spend more time with positive people.
👉 Spend more time learning and improving.
👉 Focus on what you can control, not what you can’t.
👉 Seek out good news and opportunities to congratulate others.
👉 Spend more time with people who encourage and support you.
👉 Don’t go looking for people to blame; try to improve the situation.
👉 Spend more time with people who have done what you want to do.

Beliefs

Your beliefs have much to answer for; they inform many of your decisions and shape how you see yourself and the people and world around you.

Many people don’t realise this:
YOU CHOOSE what YOU BELIEVE.
And you can choose not to believe something in an instant.

Remember that 👆👆. It’s super powerful when you realise just how true it is.

To help yourself here, you must build awareness about what you believe about yourself.

I’m the sort of person who…

Try this exercise; finish the sentence “I’m the sort of person who…” in as many ways as possible about yourself.

Consider the way you are, act, think and feel. Consider the things you like to do and things that are important to you.
Be honest with yourself.

Now reflect on your list. What you’re looking at is several things that you believe about yourself.
Consider how many of those sentences are helpful ways to think about yourself…

You’ll no doubt recognise that some of those beliefs are not helpful; they’re likely holding you back.
Here are some options to turn those limiting beliefs into something more helpful.

Validating

It’s essential to validate what you’ve written down.
Just because you think it and wrote it doesn’t make it true.
Look for any evidence at all that contradicts what you’ve written. It could be something recent, or it could be something from your past.

On top of that, seek feedback from other people. Do they see things the way you do? Or do they have a different perspective on things? This is important; many of us are our own worst critics, and we are often far too harsh on ourselves.

If you can find any evidence to contradict what you’ve written down, scribble it out and don’t accept it.

Reframing

If you’ve tried validating your beliefs and are still left with limiting beliefs, you can try reframing.
Reframing is simply exploring different perspectives of something and choosing a perspective that is more helpful to you.

For example:
Given the belief: “I’m the sort of person who never finishes things”, holding this belief will probably be limiting, holding you back from starting new projects because you ‘know’ you’ll probably never finish them.

You could reframe this: “I’m the sort of person who loves to experiment and learn”. Suddenly, all those things you never finished can be seen as experiments and learnings. Moreover, you probably won’t hesitate to start a new project since you love experimenting and learning.

The reality of the situation hasn’t changed; what’s changed is your perspective and the way you think about it, with the second way being so much more helpful to you.

The Thinking Cycle

The thinking cycle is in motion every second of every day, and it’s how you come to feel the effects of all that we’ve discussed to this point.

When you’re not consciously thinking, your thoughts will be supplied by your subconscious mind and will be based on your beliefs, values and whatever kind of data you’ve trained your subconscious mind on to date.

This is why it’s so important to train your subconscious mind to supply thoughts that will be positive and helpful.
When you get the importance of the thinking cycle, you’ll recognise the extra influence you now have over your emotions, behaviours and outcomes.

This leads us to an important realisation:
YOU are NOT your thoughts…

That’s right; you’re not your thoughts. The best way to think of this is that you are the observer of thoughts served up by your brain.

Your brain has made millions of connections between different subjects and concepts over the years and throws thoughts your way that it thinks you want.

However, you can:
👉 Look at them
👉 You can question them
👉 You can give them your full attention and believe them
👉 Or, you can treat them with distrust and ignore them entirely…

More importantly, you can inject your own thoughts into this cycle and observe how they impact your emotions, behaviours and outcomes.

With a little trial and error, you’ll soon see how powerful being more purposeful about your thinking can be and how much more in control you feel.

Thinking Spirals

No alt text provided for this image
We’ve talked about negative thinking spirals and how they have you catastrophising and heading towards the ‘Red Zone’.

But thinking spirals can also be positive and, over time, can send you spiralling upwards towards the ‘Green Zone’, a far more positive and constructive state.

The key here is to spot downward thinking spirals as early as possible, interrupt them and inject thoughts that will send you spiralling toward the ‘Green Zone’.

We can use Mindspan’s “3 Steps to Reframing” method.

3 Steps to Reframing

Step one:
STOP – When you recognise a downward thinking spiral, shout STOP! Don’t worry, you can do this in your head, you might get a few funny looks if you do it out loud!
This is an interrupt; it interrupts that downward negative flow of thinking.

Step two:
BREATHE – Now that we’ve interrupted those thoughts, you can create some space by taking a deep breath.
This will reverse some of the physiology associated with downward thinking spirals, such as shallow breathing and sweating.

Step three:
REFRAME – Now, ask yourself the ‘Thinking Question’.

How do I WANT/NEED to think about this?

Look back at the thinking cycle and decide whether there is a way to think about your current situation that might drive a way of feeling and behaving that is more constructive.

How might someone more compassionate, empathetic, confident or successful think about this?

By Answering the ‘Thinking Question’, you will inject those thoughts into the thinking cycle, training your subconscious mind on how you’d like to think with every repetition…

High-Level > Low-Level

We’ve covered a lot of low-level detail here, so here are a few examples of how some common high-level advice essentially maps back to the low-level details we’ve discussed.

High-Level
Speak to a manager, colleague, friend, family member or coach for support.
Low-Level
Improving your habit of surrounding yourself with positive people rather than negative.
You can use other peoples’ perspectives to validate or reframe your unhelpful thoughts or beliefs – training your subconscious mind with alternative perspectives.

High-Level
Acknowledge your hard work and achievements by creating an achievement log or positivity log, and give yourself credit for what you’ve done to get here.
Low-Level
By documenting your achievements and giving yourself credit, you’re acknowledging your success and ability and producing evidence to counteract those initial thoughts of “I’m not good enough…” – training your subconscious mind with evidence of your competence.

High-Level
Be kind to yourself, and stop trying to be perfect.
Low-Level
Change the voice in your head that puts you down when things don’t go your way – create more positive and constructive self-talk – training your subconscious mind on what you want it to produce more of.

High-Level
Seek feedback
Low-Level
Validate or question your own thoughts and beliefs with different perspectives – training your subconscious mind with alternative perspectives.

High-Level
Build self-awareness.
Low-Level
Recognise people, situations, events, thoughts, self-talk and beliefs that trigger you so that you can validate or reframe them and spot thinking spirals as early as possible, training your subconscious with every repetition.

Conclusion

To wrap this up, I’m sure you’ll agree this hasn’t been your typical “How to Beat Imposter Syndrome” article.

I wanted to give you the low-level detail so you can understand why the high-level advice is essential and how it can ultimately help you.

The power of what I’ve discussed here is that it can be used in any situation you find yourself in, not just to beat imposter syndrome.

There’s not much in this world that you can control, but you have much more control over your thoughts than you realise.

I’ll leave you with a quote that sums things up pretty well…

People who don’t feel like impostors are no more intelligent or capable or talented or qualified than those who do. The only difference between them and us is that in the exact situation that triggers an impostor response in us… they are thinking different thoughts. That’s it.

VALERIE YOUNG – co-founder of Impostor Syndrome Institute.

Remember

It's not selfish to put yourself first; there's nothing more important than your own wellbeing!

Know someone that might find this helpful? Do them a favour and share it with them.

Until next time...

Software Developer Stereotype

Richard Donovan — Mon, 27 Mar 2023 14:38:19 +0000

Gratitude isn’t a word I hear often in software development.

We can be perceived as being ungrateful, moody, and we can fail to acknowledge the contribution of teammates...

This behaviour is associated with the stereotypical software developer and not The Modern Software Developer.

A Modern Software Developer:

👉 Is kind to their colleagues…
👉 Appreciates the tech around them…
👉 Supports those with less experience…
👉 Expresses gratitude for the contribution of teammates…

𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝗜 𝗺𝗶𝘀𝘀𝗲𝗱?

You don’t have to be a stereotypical software developer…

👉 You get to choose the type of software developer you want to be.

Single point of failure

Richard Donovan — Sat, 25 Mar 2023 21:11:01 +0000

Is it a database? → Is it a component? → Is it an API…?

👉 No… it’s a software developer…

👉 A single point of failure can be a disaster for your software system, but when that single point of failure is a developer, it could be a disaster for your whole team and potentially your business...

It might look a bit like this:

Only [Chris] knows how that feature/system works... The rest of the team doesn't understand it and are scared they'll break it if they change it...

[Chris] wants to share his knowledge, but he's just so busy all the time...

The team and business dread [Chris] taking time off - or even worse, handing in his notice.

👉 They don't realise the impact on [Chris].
👉 [Chris] is a "top developer":
→ He stays late,
→ Tackles hard tasks
→ and helps non-tech areas of the team too.

👉 [Chris] doesn't take much time off:
→ He feels pressure,
→ Stress
→ and responsibility for the team - although this might not show.

👉 When [Chris] takes time off, it's short, and he worries things will go wrong at work.
👉 [Chris] doesn't relax:
→ He checks his emails
→ and is distracted by his phone in case work calls.

👉 [Chris] can't go on like this forever... He's not:
→ Recovering
→ De-stressing
→ Relaxing
→ Recharging...

Having a software developer as a single point of failure is a massive business risk, but more importantly, it's disastrous for the wellbeing and performance of your software developer.

👉 How can we help [Chris]?

👉 How can [Chris] help himself?

My Imposter Syndrome Story (One of...)

Richard Donovan — Tue, 14 Mar 2023 19:03:01 +0000

This is the third part of my mini-series on Imposter syndrome. In this issue, we discover the very real impacts of imposter syndrome on software developers by weaving through my own imposter syndrome story.

You can delve into more detail about what imposter syndrome is in part 1 - Is it really Imposter Syndrome?.

And you can deep dive into where it comes from and how it takes hold in part 2 - Peeling Back the Layers: 5 Key Influences Behind Imposter Syndrome

Let’s recap briefly on what Imposter syndrome is with a definition and a brief summary.

Imposter Syndrome: A psychological pattern in which an individual doubts their skills, talents, or accomplishments and has a persistent internalised fear of being exposed as a "fraud", despite evidence of their competence.

To Summarise Imposter Syndrome

👉 It’s caused by HOW you think.
👉 This way of thinking is persistent.
👉 Evidence exists of your competence.

With that covered, let’s kick on.

My Story

My imposter syndrome story is a cocktail of a new job, smart developers, huge expectations, and a less-than-optimal environment and culture…

👉 And, of course, my own thinking!

New Job

It started with the interview; it went really well, maybe too well.

I’d worked for this guy several years earlier, and it was clear that he really respected me and my talents as a software engineer.

Of course, this should have been a massive positive, but instead,

I started down the rabbit hole of:

👉 “What if he thinks I’m better than I am?”

Next, the salary was higher than I’d ever earned before…

👉 They’ll be expecting perfection for that money; I’d better not mess up.

Then… “you’ll be working with some of the best developers around”…

This should be awesome right?

Lots to learn from awesome devs…

But…

👉 What if they all know way more than me?
👉 I’ll look stupid if my solutions don’t match up to theirs…
👉 If I ask for help, they might think I'm not good enough...

It’s fair to say I was on edge. I’d been battling all kinds of thinking spirals for days before I arrived at the office…

Huge Expectations

In my first meeting about my work with my boss, who is also super smart, by the way, I was told about how there have already been two attempts at this project from two different developers, and both attempts have been thrown away because they couldn’t get it to work…

Now it was my turn… from scratch… gulp…

👉 If two developers have failed, how will I do any better?

👉 Can I even do this from scratch?

I’ll be honest, I was bricking it, even though it wasn’t my first time in an environment like this, and it wasn’t my first time taking on a project from scratch...

But I had conveniently forgotten that…

Environment

The physical environment was a fairly new office building but felt quite dark; I’m not sure if it was actually dark or whether this was just a reflection of my thinking at the time.

With an open plan, it felt like everyone could see my screen and felt paranoid that others were watching what I was doing.

There was a huge image projected on the wall in the centre of the room; it had 7 or 8 rectangles on it, all green.

It was the current build status of our frameworks projects.

My first thought:
👉 Ah, that’s cool…

My second thought:
👉 Oh god, everyone will know if I break the build…

Smart Developers

The office is quiet; all the devs are head down, headphones on, cracking on with their work, like the “best developers around” would be!

Before I started coding, I had to plan it out with a tech spec that had to be approved by two other members of the team…

You know, the team of some of the “best developers around”…

It felt like a test; I spent far too long writing it and just as long avoiding sharing it…

The judgement I felt at the time was crushing.

The same happened when it came to pushing my code. I was sitting at my desk, sweating at the thought of breaking the build and someone pointing it out as if it had never been broken before…

I delayed it, and delayed it, and delayed it…

Until I pushed it and left the room as I couldn’t bear to sit and watch the build turn red…

After getting through the first few tech specs and code commits, I felt a little more comfortable, but the weight of expectation was still heavy.

I found myself staying later, constantly thinking about issues while not at work and eventually dreaming about everything failing disastrously over and over…

I know what you're probably thinking, but you were a junior, right?

Nope, I had close to 10 years of experience at this point...

The Result

For a good while, I was anxious, stressed, and felt out of my depth. I was just waiting for my boss to call me into the office and tell me how things were not working out and how I wasn’t as good as he had thought.

In the office, I worked alone, kept my head down, and made little contribution to the wider team. I didn’t socialise much; I kept quiet during meetings, and any updates were as short as I could make them.

Outside of work, I was distracted, my relationships suffered, and I leaned heavily on physical exercise for an escape.

I felt:

👉 Insecure about myself and my job
👉 Consumed by self doubt
👉 Like I wasn’t in control
👉 A lack of confidence
👉 Anxious & Stressed
👉 Paranoid
👉 Lonely
👉 Sad

Spoiler Alert

Some of this sounds like this was just a horrible job role, and although it was far from perfect, much of what I’ve described was largely down to my own mindset and ways of thinking.

I wasn’t doing it on purpose; I guess I didn’t know any better.

And just to add, I’m making this statement in hindsight; it’s not a blanket statement and definitely doesn’t excuse poor working practices and a poor culture.

The spoiler is that before leaving this role, it turned out to be one of my most challenging and enjoyable roles. It was a real turning point for me in terms of personal growth and prioritising my wellbeing.

Software Development Factors

It doesn’t take an awful lot of digging to see why so many people in software development might feel this way.

Software development has many factors that seem quite adept at triggering thought spirals which often lead to many of the feelings associated with imposter syndrome.

For example:

👉 Our field is huge, and there’s always more to learn - approached in the wrong way, this can be overwhelming and make you feel like you don’t know enough.

👉 It’s a rapidly changing environment - Easy to feel like you’re getting left behind.

👉 It’s competitive - It’s inevitable that you’ll end up comparing yourself to others.

👉 Aiming for high performance and productivity - Often creates an overly stressful environment.

And in many cases:

👉 Blame culture - Contributes massively to anxiety
👉 A lack of Empathy - Results in a lack of support
👉 Poor communication - Creates uncertainty

None of these causes imposter syndrome on their own, but they certainly contribute towards it.

They can encourage poor thinking habits that seep into your subconscious mind and spring to life when you least want them to.

The Impact On Software Developers

I’ve probably covered a lot of these in my story, but it’s important to highlight them front and centre. The impact on software developers is very real and can be extremely damaging.

If you are not mentally prepared to think about some of these factors in a way that is helpful to you, then you’ll naturally go the other way…

Your thoughts will ultimately manifest as feeling and behaviours, and this can lead to software developers who:

👉 Overwork to “catch up” with expectation
👉 Shy away from new projects
👉 Often doubt themselves
👉 Take enforced time off
👉 Experience Anxiety
👉 Never feel fulfilled
👉 Don’t speak up
👉 Feel stressed
👉 Burnout
👉 Leave…

With this in mind, it’s obvious that software developers are not going to build lasting relationships, contribute to a thriving culture, innovate or produce quality software while they’re feeling anxious, stressed and burned out…

They’re more likely to:

👉 Seem like they have a poor attitude
👉 Be difficult to get along with
👉 Avoid communication
👉 Want to work alone
👉 Not be very happy
👉 Be ill more often
👉 Feel victimised
👉 Be distracted
👉 Leave…

It’s not a recipe for a successful software developer, a high-performing and productive team, or a quality software product.

Conclusion

Imposter syndrome has a very real impact on software developers, and it’s not just a professional impact.

The thoughts, feelings and behaviours that ensue spill over into our personal lives too, impacting our ability to show up as our natural selves in our relationships with family and friends.

It not only sucks the life and enjoyment out of work, but it can do the same for your personal hobbies too.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. Imposter syndrome isn't inevitable.

In part 4, I’ll discuss how you can go about tackling imposter syndrome and what’s more, you can take this approach before imposter syndrome ever comes knocking.

Prevention is better than treatment.

Remember

It's not selfish to put yourself first; there's nothing more important than your own wellbeing!

Know someone that might find this helpful? Do them a favour and share it with them.

Until next time...

Is there a simpler way?

Richard Donovan — Wed, 08 Mar 2023 13:52:20 +0000

I recently saved a company 𝗮 𝘄𝗵𝗼𝗽𝗽𝗶𝗻𝗴 £𝟭𝟵,𝟮𝟬𝟬 𝗽𝗲𝗿 𝘆𝗲𝗮𝗿 by reviewing their caching strategy.

👉 Here's how I did it...

First, I planned a comprehensive approach to review the company's caching strategy.

This involved assessing their current suite of applications to determine how they were currently caching, the blast radius of any change, and whether they needed to cache at all.

Next, I would document the possible caching strategies available and explain why they would or wouldn't be suitable for their needs.

After narrowing down the options, I'd recommend a change to the strategy based on suitability, simplicity, blast radius, and development effort.

I was eager to get my hands on the code, but there was much anxiety around code changes of this nature due to some recent production issues... and I was new to the code base...

👉 I asked myself - "Is there a simpler way to achieve this?"

I needed some more information:

👉 What was the current load on the system?
👉 What was the future expected load on the system?
👉 How equipped was the current infrastructure to handle this?

To cut a long story short:

👉 There was no clever caching strategy implementation.
👉 There was no exceptionally performant code - in fact, no code was changed at all.

It turns out the infrastructure was extremely well equipped, so much so that reducing the tiers to bring it in line with the reality of the load on the system and future expectations was enough to achieve these savings...

It's amazing how sometimes the simplest solutions can have the biggest impact.

That infrastructure may or may not have been configured that way for the previous 12 months... 🤷‍♂️

Peeling Back the Layers: 5 Key Influences Behind Imposter Syndrome

Richard Donovan — Sun, 05 Mar 2023 17:48:12 +0000

This is the second part of my mini-series on Imposter syndrome.

In this issue, we peel back the layers and discuss 5 key influences behind Imposter Syndrome and how it could be getting worse.

You can delve into more detail in part 1 – Is it really Imposter Syndrome? But let’s recap briefly here with a definition and a brief summary.

Imposter Syndrome: A psychological pattern in which an individual doubts their skills, talents, or accomplishments and has a persistent internalised fear of being exposed as a “fraud”, despite evidence of their competence.

To Summarise Imposter Syndrome
👉 It’s caused by HOW you think.
👉 This way of thinking is persistent.
👉 Evidence exists of your competence.

With that covered, let’s kick on.

How does imposter syndrome take hold in your mind?
To discover how imposter syndrome takes hold, we need to consider five key influences that, when combined in the “wrong” way, can lead to feelings of imposter syndrome and the consequences that come along with it.

The five key influences behind imposter syndrome as I see it:
👉 Habits
👉 Beliefs
👉 The Subconscious Mind
👉 The Thinking Cycle
👉 Thinking Spirals

Let’s dig a little deeper into each one.

Habits

It might sound strange, but your habits are a key influence behind imposter syndrome. Ok, maybe not the habits you’re thinking of; I’m referring to your brain and its habitual thought patterns.

Your brain is highly habitual, which can be a great power, but also a terrible curse.

One such habit is how often you lean on your beliefs. Your beliefs practically define you, so you’re going to encounter them a lot.

The more you think about them, the stronger they become. the stronger they become, the more you think about them… you get the idea. We’ll discuss why this is important shortly.

In addition to our strongly held beliefs, many of us neglect to pay attention to what we expose our brains to and through sheer repetition; we’ve learnt quite negative or unhelpful patterns of thinking.

Unfortunately, your brain has held on to these unhelpful thought patterns, and they contribute to what you believe about yourself and the world around you.

I want to stress that you haven’t done anything wrong here.

Our attention is constantly being tugged in multiple directions by powerful forces such as the government, the news, societal expectations, television programs, and social media.

These forces are so pervasive that we often fail to acknowledge their influence on us and the beliefs we can form based on them.

Beliefs

The beliefs you hold about yourself are a key influence behind imposter syndrome. Probably one of the more obvious influences, right?

If you believed with absolute certainty that your skills were totally up to scratch, that you worked hard for every opportunity, and you deserved to be where you are right now…

You probably wouldn’t be reading about imposter syndrome.

Your beliefs are a powerful concept, so much so that by definition, you accept them as true or real. You rarely question them, and this is where things can get a bit sticky.

Some of those beliefs might not reflect who you are now or the context in which you currently live, and yet, they are playing a significant role in shaping your reality.

Beliefs can be formed in a number of ways, and I go into more detail about that here – Are your Beliefs holding you back?

The main thing to recognise here is that just like your habitual thoughts, your beliefs have found themselves embedded in your subconscious mind and are given priority status.

The Subconscious Mind

Another key influence behind imposter syndrome is your subconscious mind and, in this context, is effectively responsible for holding on to those unhelpful, habitual thoughts.

Your subconscious programming

Your subconscious mind is your computer; it’s got plenty of storage and is ultimately programmed by your conscious mind.

It is unquestioning, so everything you expose your conscious mind to seeps down into your subconscious mind, like sending programming instructions to a compiler, telling it how to react in a similar future scenario. Your subconscious mind processes those instructions regardless of whether they are good for you or bad.

In other words, Garbage In, Garbage Out…

If you surround yourself with negativity and constantly consume negative, unhelpful content, that is what your subconscious mind will deliver back out for you.

Storage & retrieval

With its vast storage capacity, your subconscious mind needs a way of indexing its data for fast retrieval. As such, you can imagine that it creates a whole host of shortcuts linking together ideas, concepts, opinions, beliefs, places, people and anything else you can think of.

These shortcuts are called neural pathways.

The more these neural pathways are accessed, the higher their priority becomes and the ease and speed of access increase.

To aid its mission of super-fast retrieval, your subconscious mind employs a cache of sorts to save you from having to dig deeper than necessary. But there’s a problem with this cache, at least in this context.

Every time it accesses something from the cache, rather than just resetting its time to live, it seems to increase it exponentially…

The result?

You’re left with unhelpful thoughts that are really efficient to access, and because they’ve been accessed so often, they have a really long expiration date.

Resource management

Thinking it’s doing you a favour, your subconscious mind gets involved in resource management too. It recognises the extra effort it takes your conscious mind to context switch when repeatedly accessing these entries and decides to take on the load so your conscious mind can think about other things.

Autopilot

What makes the subconscious mind so important is this:

Some studies suggest that between 60% and up to 98% of your brain’s activity takes place in your subconscious mind. In other words, your subconscious mind is your autopilot, constantly firing away in the background, and is responsible for so much of what you think, feel and do.

For example, think about when you’ve been driving for a while, and suddenly you think, how did I get here? The reason you didn’t crash was that your subconscious mind has performed those actions to drive your car so many times; it just knew what to do and didn’t need to bother your conscious mind with it…

Your autopilot took over, and this happens with your thinking too.

The Thinking Cycle

The thinking cycle is a Mindspan model for helping you make sense of how your thoughts ultimately impact the outcomes you achieve in life.

It’s how you experience the outcomes of our prior discussions and is so essential to understand, as it helps you to build a solid foundation for improving your mental wellbeing.

This highlights the negative and unhelpful side of the thinking cycle due to the context. However, I’ll explain how we can make it work more positively for us in the next part of this mini-series.

So let’s dive in.

You have thoughts every second of every day, even while you sleep.

A small fraction of those thoughts are conscious thoughts, meaning that you actively choose to think them.

However, as we’ve already mentioned, a huge number of those thoughts are supplied by, you guessed it, your subconscious mind, which is filled with those unhelpful and sometimes damaging thoughts…

You feel the full force of these thoughts when you give them your full attention, link them to your identity and believe them unquestioningly, which many of us do without realising.

So, when you have thoughts such as:

👉 I’m not as good as they think I am…
👉 They’re going to find me out…
👉 I don’t deserve my current role…

Those thoughts are driving feelings of a similar sentiment, that is to say, a cocktail of negative or unhelpful emotions.

Following that around the cycle, this cocktail of emotions triggered by those kinds of thoughts is likely to drive a particular way of behaving too.

For example, If you’re having thoughts about not performing as well as you should be, these thoughts could lead to you feeling (emotions) under pressure, anxiety and stress.

Feeling this way could trigger you to put in extra hours to “catch up” (behaviour), quite possibly at the expense of your mental health and even family relationships (outcome).

It’s fair to say that the outcome in this situation isn’t a positive one. You’ll then have thoughts about your outcomes, too, and the cycle continues…

A quick recap

You have mental habits that have filled your subconscious mind with thoughts, many of them unhelpful.

You’re also harbouring strongly held beliefs that could be outdated and no longer relevant.

Your subconscious mind is trying to be helpful by making these really fast and easy to access. It supplies you with many of these thoughts, you inevitably pay attention to them and you feel the full force of them via the thinking cycle.

Sounds pretty gloomy, and unfortunately, there’s one more piece of the gloomy puzzle to come…

Thinking Spirals

Thinking spirals are an extension of the thinking cycle. To keep it simple, sometimes we let negative or unhelpful thoughts take hold and repeat in our heads.

This can lead us to spiral downward into negativity, which we describe as heading toward the Red Zone in Mindspan.

As you spiral deeper, you add another layer of doom…

You start to entertain “What ifs”, introduce fears, worst case scenarios, and as you spiral down, they become bigger and more damning…

You’re catastrophising now, and the problem is that you start to feel the emotions associated with the catastrophes you’ve thought up.

Look, we’ve all done this once in a while, but our brains are super habitual. If you find yourself thinking like this frequently, it could become harder and harder to recognise. This is a big part of imposter syndrome, thinking a particular way without realising it.

And as we’ve described above, you’ll start to behave in a particular way based on those feelings too.

I probably don’t need to tell you that your behaviour is unlikely to be super positive and productive when you’re feeling the results of negative, downward thinking spirals.

As with most things in life, the first step to changing something is awareness.

Hopefully, you know a bit more than you did before you started reading, and you can start to look out for some of those less-than-helpful thought patterns and beliefs.

Conclusion

We’ve peeled back the 5 key influences behind imposter syndrome and detailed the role each plays in how it takes hold and even grows due to the habitual nature of your brain.

In part 3, I’ll cover more about the impacts imposter syndrome has on software developers and of course, I’ll cover how you can go about tackling imposter syndrome too, although that might end up being a part 4.

In the meantime, be more purposeful about what you expose your conscious mind to, and consider the impact it could be having on your subconscious mind (autopilot)…

Remember

It’s not selfish to put yourself first; there’s nothing more important than your own wellbeing!

Know someone that might find this helpful? Do them a favour and share it with them.

Until next time…

Is It Really Imposter Syndrome?

Richard Donovan — Wed, 01 Mar 2023 23:08:49 +0000

Welcome to my mini-series on imposter syndrome. Part two will follow shortly.

Many people were unfamiliar with imposter syndrome until relatively recently, but now it’s all over social media.

Most of what is written is well-intentioned, much of it is useful, and some of it is misguided.

If anything, there is almost too much of it out there now (he says while writing yet another blog on the topic!), and I feel that the lines of what imposter syndrome actually is are getting blurred by the day.

What is Imposter Syndrome?

Let’s kick off with a fairly common definition:

Imposter Syndrome: A psychological pattern in which an individual doubts their skills, talents, or accomplishments and has a persistent internalised fear of being exposed as a “fraud”, despite evidence of their competence.

Let’s break this down.

A psychological pattern

Firstly, pay attention to the term “A psychological pattern”, in other words, ways of thinking.

So imposter syndrome is caused by doubts or, more generally, thoughts that you have about your skills, talents, accomplishments etc.

But everyone has doubts, right? So, does everyone have imposter syndrome?

Not so fast.

Part of what makes those feelings imposter syndrome is that those thoughts are inaccurate when compared to the reality of your skills, talents and accomplishments.

So to be clear, you definitely don’t have imposter syndrome if you think your skills, talents, and accomplishments aren’t up to scratch and that thinking matches the reality…

I see so many people self-diagnosing with imposter syndrome. When you self-diagnose with imposter syndrome, by definition, you're accepting that your thoughts are inaccurate when compared to the reality of your skills, talents and accomplishments; remember this when you come to trying to tackle it later...

It’s fair to say that how you think about yourself and the world around you has a massive impact on how you feel and behave. We’ll delve deeper into this later in the series, but to give you a hint, you have more control over how you think than most people realise.

Persistent thoughts

Secondly, the use of the word persistent indicates that you have these thoughts often and potentially over a significant time period.

We are not talking about fleeting thoughts of self-doubt here; that’s not the same thing.

Taking that a little further, you could experience imposter-like feelings, but that doesn’t automatically mean you have or suffer from imposter syndrome.

Labelling yourself as having imposter syndrome in this situation could be quite damaging, especially if you subscribe to a common belief that imposter syndrome never goes away. (More on this later)

Evidence of competency

Thirdly, on top of these thoughts being persistent, what makes this different from a bout of self-doubt is the fact that there exists evidence of your competence.

You have a track record, you’ve done this before, you’ve proved that you’re capable, and even other people recognise your skills and accomplishments.

To Summarise Imposter Syndrome:

👉 It’s caused by thoughts that don’t match reality.

👉 Those thoughts are persistent.

👉 Evidence exists of your competence.

Everyone has self-doubt and limiting beliefs about what we can and can’t do, and although this may contribute to it, it isn’t, as many people claim, automatically a case of imposter syndrome.

Feeling fear, doubt or a lack of confidence because you’re doing something outside your comfort zone is not necessarily imposter syndrome either.

When you’re outside your comfort zone, you may lack evidence of your competence in that situation. Is that an opportunity for growth? Absolutely. Are those feelings imposter syndrome? Not necessarily…

Before assigning yourself such a label, ask yourself:

Is it really Imposter Syndrome?

Five Types of “Imposters”

Many people don’t realise, but if we dig a little deeper, we find that there are some common types of “imposters”, which might explain why we see so much of it mentioned in software development.

Consider whether you relate to any of these or if you know someone that does.

According to leading imposter syndrome researcher Dr. Valerie Young, there are five main types of identified “imposters”.

The Natural Genius

The Natural Genius is an imposter who easily picks up new skills and expects to understand new concepts quickly. They set massive goals and become discouraged when they don’t succeed immediately.

They believe that competent people can handle anything easily, leading them to feel like a fraud when they struggle. They may feel ashamed and embarrassed when things don’t come easily on their first try, even if they ultimately succeed.

The Perfectionist

The Perfectionist imposter sets super high standards for themselves but is unable to meet them as perfection is unattainable.

They focus on their mistakes instead of their hard work and accomplishments and feel ashamed of what they perceive as failure.

This can lead to avoiding new experiences out of fear of not being able to achieve perfection.

The Soloist

The Soloist imposter prefers to work alone and believes they should be able to handle everything independently. They base their self-worth on their productivity and reject offers of help, seeing it as a sign of weakness.

Asking for help or accepting support means admitting inadequacies and failure to meet their own high standards.

The Superhero

The Superhero imposter links competence to success in all roles they perform, feeling inadequate if they can’t navigate them all successfully.

They push themselves to the limit to prove their worth but still may not be satisfied. They may think they should be able to do more and that it should be easier.

The Expert

The Expert imposter believes they must know everything about a topic before considering their work a success. They can spend too much time in pursuit of knowledge and neglect their main tasks.

Despite their skills, they undervalue their expertise and regard themselves as a fraud when they can’t answer a question or encounter new information.

They are never satisfied with their level of understanding.

There’s more…

In addition to all of this, people suffering from imposter syndrome often attribute their achievements or success to external factors, such as coincidence, luck or the actions of others, rather than their own talent, experience, work ethic or self-worth.

You might say they have an external locus of control, and this is a huge contributing factor in how they explain away the body of evidence of their competency that would otherwise back up their current position.

You can read more on External Locus of Control, and its counterpart, Internal Locus of Control, in my previous newsletter issue on the importance of taking responsibility here.

Does Imposter Syndrome ever go away?

As well as being thrown around somewhat too liberally in my opinion, there are also a few other ideas related to imposter syndrome that could be quite damaging.

Here’s something I see a lot…

Imposter syndrome never goes away, so get used to feeling like that…

It’s well-intentioned and is often accompanied by sentiments about reframing those thoughts as seeing it as proof that you’re growing…

But I don’t buy it.

I'm not saying reframing the situation isn't useful though, if it works for you, that's great!

But you need to be careful.

If you believe that imposter syndrome never goes away, it probably never will. You won’t try to do anything about it, and it will become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

You don’t need to feel like an imposter to prove you’re growing…

There’s a much easier way:

👉 Set goals…

👉 Create a plan…

👉 Take action…

Conclusion

This was a bit of a deep dive into what I think Imposter Syndrome is and how I think it’s thrown around far too liberally.

Some people even suggest that it never goes away and that we should just accept it and get used to it…

I completely disagree and believe it could be damaging for you to believe this.

In part two, I’ll discuss specifics about how imposter syndrome shows up in software development, how it takes hold in your mind, and its impact on software developers.

In part three, I’ll dive into how you can start to tackle it.

Remember

It's not selfish to put yourself first; there's nothing more important than your own wellbeing!

Know someone that might find this helpful? Do them a favour and share it with them.

Until next time...

DEV Community: Richard Donovan

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A Developer's Guide To Setting Boundaries

Introduction

Key Takeaways 🔑

✅ Understanding Boundaries:

✅ Importance of Boundaries:

✅ Setting Boundaries:

💚 A Developer's Guide To Setting Boundaries

Why It Matters 🤷

Poor Wellbeing

Decreased Performance

Toxic Culture

Take Action 🔥

1. Recognise Your Limits:

2. Establish Clear Boundaries:

3. Communicate Assertively:

4. Set Priorities:

5. Seek Support:

6. Practice Self-Care:

Rich’s Recommendations

Closing

Remember

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Why would you want to chat with me?

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The 5-5-5 of Active Listening

Introduction

Key Takeaways 🔑

Active Listening

The Old Me

The New Me

The Modern Software Developer | Richard Donovan | Substack

Why It Matters 🤷‍♂️

5 Benefits of Active Listening

1 - Improved Problem-Solving:

2 - Enhanced Client Satisfaction:

3 - Strengthened Team Dynamics:

4 - Reduced Errors and Misunderstandings:

5 - Increased Efficiency:

Take Action 🔥

5 Do’s of Active Listening

1 - Give Your Full Attention:

2 - Practice Empathy:

3 - Ask Clarifying Questions:

4 - Paraphrase and Summarise:

5 - Practice Nonverbal Communication:

5 Don’ts of Active Listening

1 - Don't Interrupt:

2 - Don't Judge or Criticise:

3 - Don't Assume Understanding:

4 - Don't Multitask:

5 - Don't Formulate Responses Prematurely:

The Modern Software Developer | Richard Donovan | Substack

Rich’s Recommendations

Closing

Remember

How To Beat Imposter Syndrome

The Subconscious Mind

Habits

Self-Talk

Informal self-talk:

Primary Questions:

Affirmations:

Negativity

Beliefs

Validating

Reframing

The Thinking Cycle