“I don’t belong here!”, “Who the hell am I to …”
You’re not alone! Imposter syndrome is widespread in our industry.
Imposter syndrome is real!
Here are 5 tips to better deal with it:
1. Talk with somebody
Be it your manager, colleague, mentor or friend.
This greatly reduces the stress this causes and you’ll realize (like really realize, not read it and nod along) that we all have it.
2. Don’t be too hard on yourself.
Progress takes time and mistakes, allow yourself to make mistakes, that’s where the learning happens. Drop perfectionism, it really exacerbates the problem.
As with many of these mindset related topics, we’ve spoken about perfectionism on our podcast:
3. Don’t compare yourself to others.
Similar to the previous point, it’s not realistic to compare yourself to experts when they’ve been doing something for 10-20 years day in day out.
See where you were 6 weeks ago and anchor your progress against that, and inspire to become an expert but be realistic about it.
We spoke about this topic on our podcast as well:
4. Track your weekly progress and successes.
We keep a wins doc ourselves we (religiously) update every week, and we do the same with each client we work with.
It’s easy to forget your past successes and have the negative side take over.
5. Recognize imposter syndrome won’t go away.
It usually is a sign that you’re about to make a growth spurt so try to embrace it as a necessary ingredient of success.
To get to the next level requires moving outside of your comfort zone.
Bonus: Pybites Confidence training
While writing this article I almost forgot that we have a 20 minutes confidence training, which I am linking here:
The faster lane – don’t go at it alone!
Even though these tips are great, it can be tough to go at this alone. In our Pybites Developer Mindset (PDM) coaching program, you’ll tackle imposter syndrome head-on in multiple ways:
- By building 2 projects end-to-end / MVP ready, you’ll gain a lot of skills in your abilities (confidence through competence as they say).
- The program includes weekly Mindset Hacking calls with none other than Julian were the current people in the program discuss their insights on the topic.
People come out of these sessions gaining clear strategies to better tackle this in their specific work / life settings.
Also with the growing coaching calls archive, you’ll have access to dozens of calls that speak about this.
Most solutions, even bootcamps, only focus on the tech side of things. We at Pybites have the unique edge of coaching you on the mindset side of things as well.
Many people come to us for the Python / developer skills, which they will vastly improve, but … surprisingly they come out identifying that the mindset was actually the unexpected hero.
If you’re interested in learning more about what we do, our program, and receive a bit of mindset coaching there are two avenues:
- Book us in for a free assessment call here.
- Join our Facebook Group where we give monthly live training about the developer mindset required to succeed as a developer. Join here.
Again, remember you don’t have to go at this alone!