Definition - Imposter Syndrome involves the feelings of self-doubt and personal incompetence that persist on your mind despite your education, experience and accomplishments.
"What am I doing here"
"I'm not good enough for this job"
"I'm unqualified and incapable and sooner or later everyone will find out"
Some of those sentences are what I first thought of myself in my first few months within my job as a web developer.
I started out as a web developer who was hired not because of my experience but because of my education and from my interview alone. I am not some super skilled developer or even remotely experienced as a web developer.
I was given a start in this industry before most and I am still studying alongside my full time job so I am still learning technologies that my colleagues are already skilled and experienced with.
My first experience with imposter syndrome happened when I was tasked with building a website for a restaurant, my colleague/senior developer was off and had tasked me with finishing off this project which focused mainly on Bootstrap (A framework I had only just been introduced too earlier that month) I was so assured that I'd be able to focus and finish it off easily but one day when I was working on the task I was stuck with error after error and soon I started to panic that I wasn't any further on with the dev work on the site.
I started to think that I had fooled my employers and I wasn't suited for the position and that I would be in trouble for not being able to carry on the development of the project any further.
This was my first experience of feeling like an imposter, I had read about it before but hadn't experienced it personally which was a learning curve for myself.
I had to hold my hands up and ask for help and just be honest to say that i was indeed struggling and needed help from my team, my worries were soon put to rest and I got advice from my team and my senior that I was hired on the basis that there would be alot to learn.
For anyone beginning out there or in the same position as I was just know that it is expected to have doubts at times but that you will be able to overcome any barriers and seek help, something I found helpful was chatting to other developers who had some doubts and it all is a learning experience.
We are in a constantly changing world especially within development of tech.
All it takes is patience and consistency in your learning.
Keep it up!
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