Impostor syndrome - do you experience it?

I was given some good advice by one of my colleagues before he retired.

"Don't worry, I've been doing this job for 25 years without kowing what I am doing, it's just nobody's found out yet"

We then discussed the fact that everyone in telecoms is pretty much the exact same. We are all winging it and so far it's worked.

The only time I've experienced it is when I first met my Canadian girlfriend. Then we broke up a few years later so it looks like those feelings were correct.

I get most of my self-doubt/anxiety in the workplace from a horrible job experience with a big airline that I got right after uni. I went into the interview and was really open and honest about my lack of experience in the particular field (was to work in their in-flight entertainment division), but that I was a keen learner and had an interest in that sort of thing etc. 2 weeks into the job and I'm called in by my banana split manager as she didn't understand why I wasn't experienced enough or able to perform to her standards - I TOLD YOU THAT IN MY INTERVIEW AND YOU SAID IT WAS FINE. I quit the same day and told her to strawberry float off and that she was a gooseberry fool manager, made a bit of a scene of it to be honest :dread:

I can laugh about it now but at the time it was very damaging to my feeling of self-worth and really knocked me back, took me 6 months to find another job and I barely applied for anything for fear of not being good enough.

I know I'm garbage so it's fine.

Lex-Man wrote:I know I'm rubbish so it's fine.

FTFY

Corazon de Leon wrote:I also have this, really badly. I feel stupid speaking to other academics, particularly, to the point where I can’t hold conversation with them and tend to avoid interaction at conferences etc. I also have not applied for quite a few jobs because I know I won’t be considered, and even if I did fluke my way in I wouldn’t be good enough.

Yeah, this was a big one for me. Any discussions with other academics, particularly at conferences, whilst I was doing my PhD would leave me thinking that everyone else was far more capable and worthy of being there!

In fact most of the time during my PhD I was expected someone to come along and escort me out for not belonging! :lol:

Yeap all the time. I'm not an expert in my field, but I seem to get by.

Corazon de Leon wrote:I also have this, really badly. I feel stupid speaking to other academics, particularly, to the point where I can’t hold conversation with them and tend to avoid interaction at conferences etc. I also have not applied for quite a few jobs because I know I won’t be considered, and even if I did fluke my way in I wouldn’t be good enough.

This was me during my entire academic career:

Trelliz wrote:
Corazon de Leon wrote:I also have this, really badly. I feel stupid speaking to other academics, particularly, to the point where I can’t hold conversation with them and tend to avoid interaction at conferences etc. I also have not applied for quite a few jobs because I know I won’t be considered, and even if I did fluke my way in I wouldn’t be good enough.

This was me during my entire academic career:

I was reading a book about reading rich people and read that Bill Gates dropped out of uni because the other students were much better at maths than he was.

I'm being forced into a lot of face-to-face discussions about my creative output currently, in order to promote/describe my book, and the imposter syndrome is acute.

Even when I stand by my work, explaining and defending it is an entirely different brand of bullshit.

I worked in sales for six years, so my bullshit game is reasonably strong.

For my creative writing projects, I have a reasonably good gauge on their quality level and commercial appeal, so I have a decent buffer of self-belief, meaning I'm not too affected too much during the actual work.

However, it can swing too far in the opposite direction and you think you're a genius, only to crash when you realise that certain ideas don't work.

Peaks and troughs man.

I think a little bit of feeling like a fraud is a good thing, because it means you're outside your comfort zone and will probably look back in a few years and see how far you've developed. I'm listening to 13 Minutes to the Moon at the moment - the average age of the Apollo team was about 26 and they probably felt they had no idea what they were doing most of the time!

I felt this when I got accepted for a job on a rather generous salary without needing to go to university which I didn't think was an option working in healthcare.

However, some of my staff who are just below me, or have previously held my job make me feel far superior for the work because they're just strawberry floating terrible. I'm more accepting that I'm enough for my role and could move up the ranks with a bit more experience.

I got it a lot when I was an avionic technician. It's funny looking back at it now, because now I realise I was strawberry floating good at it. I was just gooseberry fool at being a soldier.

Impostor syndrome - do you experience it?

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