Make impostor syndrome your best friend

If you are like me, a lot of times you doubt yourself and how capable you are at doing your job, no matter how hard you have pushed yourself, no matter how much anyone has told you how good you are.

You could be like:

"Hey guys, I did this thing because I was asked to do X,
but I recognized the person's problem was Y, so I just went ahead and made
something that helps this person but could also help more people and that is
why I'm telling you guys about it"

People see it

People tell you:

"This is so awesome, I never thought about this in this way, YOU ARE SO AWESOME"

You hear this and then impostor syndrome kicks in and tells you all the things that are wrong with your approach and all the time it will take you to make something that is better

Then you start telling people how awful your thing is because you just now realized how terrible it is.

If I am describing something you’ve felt, I’ve felt it too, you are not alone.

For the longest time, I thought impostor syndrome was an asshole who didn’t wanted me to ever be happy about anything I did or accomplished, but I was wrong.

I never took the time to actually think through what my impostor syndrome was actually trying to tell me.

"Hey, dude. Set expectations, communicate clearly, it might be a good idea to
tell people the use cases in which your thing may not work or the time/effort it
would/will take to make your thing do what they want."

My impostor syndrome, was trying to make me a better engineer, but I never allowed it to take over and let it "drive" for a little bit. See things from his point of view.

I never actually realized that the impostor syndrome WAS ME.

Me trying to be better. Me trying to get better. Me trying to improve. Me trying to empathize with someone. Me trying to be selfless and helpful. Me trying to work better with others. Me trying SO HARD TO MAKE PEOPLE SEE ME THE SAME WAY I SEE MYSELF.

But now after much thought, I realized I was focusing on the wrong things. I didn’t see the pattern. The pattern was:

Me trying

I never took the time to step back and actually see all the things I’ve achieved because I want to be something more, because I want to improve, because I want to belong, because I want to have a purpose.

But my impostor syndrome knew all this, my impostor syndrome was right there with me, I was never alone in this journey. I always had someone else’s perspective but I never gave my impostor syndrome a chance.

I would like to finish this post with this:

"Give your impostor syndrome a chance, listen to him/her, it is a part of you"

Thanks for reading.