💫 I used to struggle with Imposter Syndrome a ton earlier in my career. I don't anymore, part of that is just from experience and proving to myself I can Do The Thing, but there was another piece of understanding that helped me resolve the feeling.
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FIRST OFF: This idea likely won't work for everyone. People experience things in different ways, I'm speaking from a position of privilege, Twitter is not a good place for nuance. I'm just offering this way of thinking because it helped ME.
In my experience, the feeling of Imposter Syndrome was the feeling that I didn't deserve/hadn't earned/hadn't learned enough to be in the position I was in. That somehow I had tricked my boss(es) into thinking I was smart or qualified enough for the job.
But hang on just a sec. If we take that to be true — that I somehow subconsciously deceived my way through interviews, etc., and convinced all these extremely smart people around me that I was at least a peer....wouldn't I have to be at least very clever to do that successfully?
If I'm smart enough to trick so many smart people into thinking I was their contemporary, I'm probably just smart enough to be their contemporary.
What's significantly more likely than this, though, is that I'm actually just qualified enough, or showed enough potential in interviews that folks thought I was the right person for the job.
💛 TL;DR — I’m not clever enough to fake it, which must mean that I am good enough to be doing what I am.
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@round
distilled this idea and that's why he RTd)