Ridding Yourself of Imposter Syndrome
The following is an excerpt from Design Is a Job: the Necessary Second Edition, available from A Book Apart.
Believing you’re good at something is hard enough. Trying to do that while a parasite in your head keeps telling you the opposite is near impossible. And that’s exactly what imposter syndrome is—a parasite. (How did it get there? I have no idea. I’m kidding. This is America. The answer is either sexism, racism, or both. C’mon!) It’s an especially onerous parasite because it feeds you nonsense and makes you believe that all the shit that’s coming from its nasty parasite mouth is actually stuff that you yourself are thinking. It hijacks your own voice. Screw that. No one gets to use your voice but you. So let’s ditch this parasite.
I’ll take you through a little exercise from the workshop I mentioned earlier. During the workshop I ask people how they got their jobs. (Students can feel free to replace this with how they got into their program. The temporarily unemployed can refer to the last job they had.) Most people will tell me stories that begin with some version of, “I had a friend at the company” or “I got really lucky,” and while both of those things might be true, they are rarely the reason you get a job.
I then ask people to dig a little deeper and talk to me about the interview process for getting that job. (Lord, I’ve heard some shit. Hiring is broken, but I’m saving that for another book.) Most people describe a scenario with multiple interviews, ranging from one-on-ones to getting interrogated by an entire team. Some of the interviews are over quickly, and some of them last the entire day. These people are grilling you.
I then ask how long the entire interview process lasted, from initial contact to offer letter. The answers range from the same day (very rare) to four months (also fairly rare), with the median being somewhere around two months. Do you know what they’re doing for those two months? They are grilling other people.
Then I ask whether the interviewers sounded like they knew what they were talking about. And aside from a few nervous jokers, everyone pretty much agrees that they were interviewed by smart people.
Then I ask if the people they interviewed with are the same people they work with on a day-to-day basis. For the most part, other than the typical HR contingent, the answer is yes. They work with these people every day. Which, of course, leads to my next question of whether these people are good to work with. Amazingly, everyone seems to like their coworkers and to believe they’re smart. This is an important piece of data. Hold on to it.
At some point we’re all going to have to decide whether we’re designers who make decisions based on research, data, and evidence, or whether we’re designers who make decisions based on pure imagination and fantasy. I think you’ve read enough that you can probably tell I swing toward the former, and since you’re still reading, I’m inclined to say you might be as well. So let me present the evidence:
You went through a grueling interview process.
The company interviewed a pool of very qualified candidates.
The interviewers were good at their task.
Your coworkers, some of whom were also interviewers, are good at their jobs.
You are still there.
At this point, the evidence leads us to two possible conclusions: either you are very good at maintaining a complex level of treachery over an extended period of time, or—and hold on to your butts, because this is out there—you are as good at your job as all those people believe you to be.
I don’t know about you, but my evidence-based self wants to point to the latter. It’s the only possibility that actually makes sense.
Think of it this way: the people who work alongside you, day in and day out, have a certain amount of work to do. You are there to help carry that load. And while we all have our bad days where someone has to help us with our share, there is a limit to how long other workers will put up with you not carrying yours. If you were not doing your job well, you would’ve heard it from them by now. Not from management; they don’t know what’s happening on the shop floor until it’s too late. It’s the other workers who keep you honest.
So while you are there, working alongside your colleagues, helping them do the work, remember that they already know you can do it. They kicked your tires during all those interviews. They kicked other people’s tires, too. They picked you. Not because your friend worked here. Not because they thought you were interesting. Not because they thought you’d be fun to have a beer with. Ultimately, they picked you because they thought you could help them get home on time.
They’re earning their paycheck, you're earning your paycheck. Imposter syndrome is not earning a paycheck and it’s living rent-free in your head. Begone.
Wanna read more? Pick up a copy of Design Is a Job: the Necessary Second Edition from A Book Apart.