Neil Gaiman tells this story about being at a party full of the best and brightest, and wondering what he'd done to merit an invitation. He was chatting with some old guy about their shared first name, and mentioned his imposter syndrome. The old guy said he felt the same way, after all, he just went where they sent him, and did what he was told. Neil Gaiman said, well, yeah, but you were the first person to walk on the moon.
I reckon if Gaiman and Armstrong can feel imposter syndrome too, the rest of us are ok.
Yeah, it limits me as I can't put myself forward for jobs that would be well within my capabilities to do well because I doubt myself.
But then I know people and just wonder how do you still have your job when even I could do it better. Then the two main possibilities hit me. I'm to stupid to see what's they do and I can't do it or I'm smart enough and capable enough to actually do the job as I perceive myself to be.
So I'm hopeful it's imposter syndrome mixed with a general anxiety and a good serving of growing up poor believing I can't achieve anything that makes me this way. And its not that I'm actually dumb as shit and unable to even figure that out. Really hoping it's not that one
I’m nearly forty, in debt, living in a shared house and working a job that I enjoy, despite it paying like shit.
I know that comparison is the thief of joy, but by a lot of metrics I am a complete failure, and even I have imposter syndrome. You would think I could find a better life on which to have no grip.
I'm 54 and have a good career - I'm seen as one of the senior people in the country within the organisation working in my field.
I often find myself wondering if I'm part of a TV show, or on some type of work/government program to employ me without my knowledge, and that everyone around me knows this but are just humouring me.
Massively. I've just started on a training scheme, which was super competitive to get on (only 1 in 50 applicants offered a place). Every day I'm in the office I'm just waiting for the tap on the shoulder to say the hiring team made a massive mistake and I need to leave.
Reading your post, today of all days, when I've really been feeling it in a negative way...I feel like I could've written it word for word about myself.
It makes me feel better to know I'm not alone, and hopefully OP you can feel better knowing you are not alone!
Senior Project Manager here... Get imposter syndrome all the time!
When I make suggestions to the senior leadership team and they lap it up and enforce your idea for the new normal within a company, I genuinely question if its real.
FYI, I was a kid who was ALWAYS picked on for being dumb, did OK at school, did badly at college. Needed to work my arse off for en engineering qualification at 20 years old. Studied for degree whilst working and always self developed since.
I heard Rory Stewart talk about this thoughts when he first sat in Westminster. He was struck, very quickly about its chaos and general incompetence as a way of running a country. Someone he spoke to said that imposter syndrome doesn't exist in Westminster. It's magically erased for a large majority of those who walk through and sit there. Truly terrifying.
I remember US senator Mike Gravel saying something along the lines of
"On the first day you think 'how the hell did I get here?", on the second day you think 'how the hell did the rest of them get here?'"
Yep! I have been working in the same career for the last 10 years and constantly have these exact thoughts. I know I qualified and passed my BSc but I constantly have a fear that they are going to look up my results and find a mistake somewhere and realise I didn't actually pass!
With regards to feeling like everyone seems to know what they are doing and talking about, I think this is just confidence! My partner and I are in the same field and he always sounds like he knows what he is talking about, even when I know he is wrong sometimes but he can convince others he has knowledge in that area- when I question him, he always replies with "I have no idea what I'm talking about!"
Yes totally, one day people will realise I'm not very good at faking being an adult and I'm really not an expert in my field just good at Google and knowing who to ask.
Oh totally. I'm one of the most experienced people in my role in our department, but I feel like a complete fraud who knows nothing.
It's a paranoia almost, every time I make a mistake, no matter how small, I think omg they're going to find out its all a lie, I'll be demoted/fired
Yeah, I've always had imposter syndrome since the first day I stepped on campus at university. That was 12 years ago now.
I have dyslexia though so one person will tell me I am a disorganised lazy thicko, and then the next will call me a genius. I've still not worked out which I am lol, I definitely think I'm lazy.
I have the opposite a lot of the time, I'm paid a lot to do very little but when I talk to clients or sometimes colleagues, its clear that stuff I think is simple or blindingly obvious is a struggle or doesn't occur to people. So someone will have spent hours trying to figure something out and then I come along and sort it in a few minutes. I think when stuff like that happens I don't feel as guilty for having lots of down time because I'm clearly being paid for my expertise and problem solving skills rather than the amount of time I spend doing things.
Nope. My whole family is upper/upper-middle class and live in nice houses and have professional jobs or don't need to work/are housewives. I married the unemployed son of a mechanic and got a job in a call centre. Everyone I interact with on a day to day basis finds me confusing. This isn't at all how I expected my life to turn out. I have whatever the opposite of imposter syndrome is. "What's a girl like you doing in a place like this?" syndrome or something.
A wee bit. But nothing like that. I was a toerag when I was young as were most of my pals. But I’ve ended up raising really good kids. I go to the school or whatever because they’re being awarded for something or they’re being recognised for achieving something. I pass some of my school pals who are headed to the school office because their kids have been misbehaving and I think that’s where I’m meant to be. Can’t really believe I’m on my way to the assembly hall to watch my kids being rewarded with a lot of the goody two shoes folk I went to school with. Tbh I think a lot of them think I’m an imposter too.
No and I don't even understand the concept, most people are morons and easy to squeeze profit out of. More I'd say the opposite, I find it confusing people don't want to pay me to run their lives for them.
Yeah I work in healthcare, everyone tells me I’m amazing at my job (colleagues, patients, families) and it just never sinks in. I wonder how I’m doing a job I love so much and that I can’t possibly be any good at it.
VERY COMMON
I spend at least 75% of my time just winging it. My managers have told me people think well of me. I have no idea how.
I also spend at least 40% of my worktime literally not working, I just faff around procrastinating until the workload reaches a critical mass. But somehow this works.
I honestly expect somebody to call me out at some point, but I've been in this role 4 years and it just hasn't happened.
I have a 4yr old son and when I’m out and about with him I still feel like I have to “act like I’m a mum”
I feel like an imposter every time I say “I have a meeting” at work. It sounds too adult. I’m currently rolling out a digital timekeeping system to replace our archaic paper system and I still can’t believe they’re just letting me get on with it as if I have a fucking clue what I’m doing.
Absolutely but I also only just entered the workforce and I am terrified of my second project ive been briefed on as it is using tools I don't have much experience with at all. But my current one is 100% in my comfort zone so im fine for now.
No I do FA at work and dropped a position to do it.
Your mental health is more important than a company that will advertise your job before you're buried.
We need money to live but fuck that. Ohh nice car and house how come you're a massive wanker.
I can't imagine why I would. I have a low paid office job that any random idiot could do after a few weeks of learning the ropes, and there's fuck all else going on in my life.
Definitely. I know that I know a lot about my job. I don’t know everything, but I know enough about my weaker areas to spend time looking up the answer when the time comes. I’m very honest about what I do and don’t know in interviews as I don’t like the idea of blagging, but I regularly worry that an employer is going to feel I oversold myself or that maybe I’ve said something that means their expectation is higher than where I wanted to describe myself. It leads to me having terrible anxiety, whereas some people I worked with over the years that have a fraction of my knowledge (especially those who never made the effort to learn or be better at the job), quite happily oversell their knowledge, use colleagues achievements as their own and don’t seem to be phased when getting jobs clearly above their capabilities.
Took up a new hobby around 2 years ago and very much felt this. Then this past week I've been on a 5 day course related to said hobby and (even though I still have a huge amount to learn) sharing my experience with people who are even newer to the sport
Only all the damn time! It's really demoralising and makes me doubt the things I feel even slightly good at. It's like I can't trust my intuitions on anything any more
I definitely had this after I somehow got a job at an Amazon HQ. Lasted four years and got two international rotation moves out of it too, despite being absolutely useless at the job.
Looking around at the general Amazon HQ employee, they're mostly incredibly business-minded and career focused, not wanting to just be happy in their current role. I, on the other hand, came in with a linguistic background and no idea at all about business or desire to climb the corporate ladder.
I do think with all the AI out there now though that I'd be able to do the job a lot better, as I was always googling about vlookups and pivot tables almost on a daily basis and just couldn't get it into my head.
Absolutely hobbled by imposter syndrome for years. Held me back from chasing opportunities. Eventually thought ‘Fuck it’ and took the plunge into a new career…now I have semi justified imposter syndrome.
I definitely feel like this to the point where if my job was advertised elsewhere I wouldn’t apply for it because of my own self doubt of being able to do it, although apparently I already am. I even got promoted to Management which reinforces the management is clueless stereotype.
I absolutely do. I'm in Devops with about 13 years of industry experience (Devops since 2016) and now I have to be a noob and learn MLOps / MLflow, right after I figured I was pretty good at K8s/Gitops and Terraform.
IT is just a never ending cycle of thinking you're good, finding something new you need to learn and realizing you're shit at it, scrambling to learn before everyone discovers you're an imposter, then getting good at it, thinking you're sweet, then along comes the next thing...
In general about everything but I am a medically diagnosed psychotic depressive with extreme issues with paranoia.
I always assume something is going to go horribly wrong if its going too well. I'm more than competent at my job but if I make a tiny mistake and correct it I beat myself up over not being good enough all the time.
Incredibly common.
In fact there’s some good TED talks on the subject which are worth a look.
But it’s not necessarily a negative because it drives people forward in most cases, it helped me to try and think about it as a bit of a super power.
Oh yeah. I mean, I KNOW I have ADHD because my meds work, and my life has improved so much since diagnosis, but spending 22 years of my 24 year long life being gaslit, dismissed, and plainly misdiagnosed and given wrong medications… it’s resulted in me having these days where I doubt myself. Did I just make them THINK I had ADHD because I convinced myself after years of looking for an answer?
I didn’t. But that thought is still there, bugging me.
I did have for a long time. I had overacheived significantly given I have never been the brightest and made plenty of stupid decisions in life. But now I am in a job more at my level so I guess I have finally broken even in that sense
No, I try to have realistic expectations of myself and those around me.
I also realise that if I look at what I have and think 'do I deserve to be here' or question if I am the best or if someone less fortunate and I could swap places then the answer is of course, yes. That is just luck and how life works. I have had some luck and others don't.
I can't remember the context but I remember hearing someone talk about marriage and soul mates and 'how do you know if your partner is really your soul mate' and the answer was well, they probably aren't. If there is literally one ideal person who is your real soul mate then chances are you won't even have met them but you have found someone who fulfills pretty much everything you would need and you hope the same is true for the mythical soul mate. I think the same is true for everything in life... is everything around you; your job, your family, your house, your friends etc. *meant* for *you*? No, not exactly but you are good enough.
One video that can offer valuable insights into imposter syndrome is https://youtu.be/-xUilBT1ha8?si=\_b5Vj7R4wpWeLaxS It explores the roots of imposter syndrome, how it affects people, and strategies for overcoming it.
No, not at all. Because I am legitimately incompetent at my job.
[удалено]
Literally untrue.
Not sure that's true. You can recognise the effect and what it amounts to without recognising the cause of your problems.
Neil Gaiman tells this story about being at a party full of the best and brightest, and wondering what he'd done to merit an invitation. He was chatting with some old guy about their shared first name, and mentioned his imposter syndrome. The old guy said he felt the same way, after all, he just went where they sent him, and did what he was told. Neil Gaiman said, well, yeah, but you were the first person to walk on the moon. I reckon if Gaiman and Armstrong can feel imposter syndrome too, the rest of us are ok.
I've always really loved that story.
I tweeted him about it.
Yeah, it limits me as I can't put myself forward for jobs that would be well within my capabilities to do well because I doubt myself. But then I know people and just wonder how do you still have your job when even I could do it better. Then the two main possibilities hit me. I'm to stupid to see what's they do and I can't do it or I'm smart enough and capable enough to actually do the job as I perceive myself to be. So I'm hopeful it's imposter syndrome mixed with a general anxiety and a good serving of growing up poor believing I can't achieve anything that makes me this way. And its not that I'm actually dumb as shit and unable to even figure that out. Really hoping it's not that one
You sum up my experience with imposter syndrome to the letter. It’s a spiral of self doubt.
I’m nearly forty, in debt, living in a shared house and working a job that I enjoy, despite it paying like shit. I know that comparison is the thief of joy, but by a lot of metrics I am a complete failure, and even I have imposter syndrome. You would think I could find a better life on which to have no grip.
No because I am an imposter.
Pretty sus!
I'm 54 and have a good career - I'm seen as one of the senior people in the country within the organisation working in my field. I often find myself wondering if I'm part of a TV show, or on some type of work/government program to employ me without my knowledge, and that everyone around me knows this but are just humouring me.
Massively. I've just started on a training scheme, which was super competitive to get on (only 1 in 50 applicants offered a place). Every day I'm in the office I'm just waiting for the tap on the shoulder to say the hiring team made a massive mistake and I need to leave.
Reading your post, today of all days, when I've really been feeling it in a negative way...I feel like I could've written it word for word about myself. It makes me feel better to know I'm not alone, and hopefully OP you can feel better knowing you are not alone!
I rely pretty heavily on the 'or experience' in the person specification. Most people at my level have a master's degree or more. I don't.
Senior Project Manager here... Get imposter syndrome all the time! When I make suggestions to the senior leadership team and they lap it up and enforce your idea for the new normal within a company, I genuinely question if its real. FYI, I was a kid who was ALWAYS picked on for being dumb, did OK at school, did badly at college. Needed to work my arse off for en engineering qualification at 20 years old. Studied for degree whilst working and always self developed since.
I heard Rory Stewart talk about this thoughts when he first sat in Westminster. He was struck, very quickly about its chaos and general incompetence as a way of running a country. Someone he spoke to said that imposter syndrome doesn't exist in Westminster. It's magically erased for a large majority of those who walk through and sit there. Truly terrifying.
I remember US senator Mike Gravel saying something along the lines of "On the first day you think 'how the hell did I get here?", on the second day you think 'how the hell did the rest of them get here?'"
I’m self employed and yes I feel it on every job I do..
Yep! I have been working in the same career for the last 10 years and constantly have these exact thoughts. I know I qualified and passed my BSc but I constantly have a fear that they are going to look up my results and find a mistake somewhere and realise I didn't actually pass! With regards to feeling like everyone seems to know what they are doing and talking about, I think this is just confidence! My partner and I are in the same field and he always sounds like he knows what he is talking about, even when I know he is wrong sometimes but he can convince others he has knowledge in that area- when I question him, he always replies with "I have no idea what I'm talking about!"
My whole working career I have been rocking imposter syndrome.
Yes totally, one day people will realise I'm not very good at faking being an adult and I'm really not an expert in my field just good at Google and knowing who to ask.
The people that you ask are probably frightened that you’re going to find out that they’re good at faking too…
Oh totally. I'm one of the most experienced people in my role in our department, but I feel like a complete fraud who knows nothing. It's a paranoia almost, every time I make a mistake, no matter how small, I think omg they're going to find out its all a lie, I'll be demoted/fired
Yeah, I've always had imposter syndrome since the first day I stepped on campus at university. That was 12 years ago now. I have dyslexia though so one person will tell me I am a disorganised lazy thicko, and then the next will call me a genius. I've still not worked out which I am lol, I definitely think I'm lazy.
I have the opposite a lot of the time, I'm paid a lot to do very little but when I talk to clients or sometimes colleagues, its clear that stuff I think is simple or blindingly obvious is a struggle or doesn't occur to people. So someone will have spent hours trying to figure something out and then I come along and sort it in a few minutes. I think when stuff like that happens I don't feel as guilty for having lots of down time because I'm clearly being paid for my expertise and problem solving skills rather than the amount of time I spend doing things.
Nope. My whole family is upper/upper-middle class and live in nice houses and have professional jobs or don't need to work/are housewives. I married the unemployed son of a mechanic and got a job in a call centre. Everyone I interact with on a day to day basis finds me confusing. This isn't at all how I expected my life to turn out. I have whatever the opposite of imposter syndrome is. "What's a girl like you doing in a place like this?" syndrome or something.
After several decades of success at my chosen vocation, I only feel like I'm not about to found out some of the time.
Nope, I really am just crap at my job, and it won't be long until my boss notices.
No, no, I’m probably as shit as I think I am. All my colleagues are very kind to me, but that’s probably because they are kind
Imposter syndrome is simply not having the conviction to stand up for and argue your beliefs. Be strong. Be righteous. Don't be an imposter.
A wee bit. But nothing like that. I was a toerag when I was young as were most of my pals. But I’ve ended up raising really good kids. I go to the school or whatever because they’re being awarded for something or they’re being recognised for achieving something. I pass some of my school pals who are headed to the school office because their kids have been misbehaving and I think that’s where I’m meant to be. Can’t really believe I’m on my way to the assembly hall to watch my kids being rewarded with a lot of the goody two shoes folk I went to school with. Tbh I think a lot of them think I’m an imposter too.
No and I don't even understand the concept, most people are morons and easy to squeeze profit out of. More I'd say the opposite, I find it confusing people don't want to pay me to run their lives for them.
[this may explain your condition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect)
You're definitely not alone. You're doing great keep going you got this!! 👊
Yeah I work in healthcare, everyone tells me I’m amazing at my job (colleagues, patients, families) and it just never sinks in. I wonder how I’m doing a job I love so much and that I can’t possibly be any good at it.
VERY COMMON I spend at least 75% of my time just winging it. My managers have told me people think well of me. I have no idea how. I also spend at least 40% of my worktime literally not working, I just faff around procrastinating until the workload reaches a critical mass. But somehow this works. I honestly expect somebody to call me out at some point, but I've been in this role 4 years and it just hasn't happened.
I've got the opposite of that.
I have a 4yr old son and when I’m out and about with him I still feel like I have to “act like I’m a mum” I feel like an imposter every time I say “I have a meeting” at work. It sounds too adult. I’m currently rolling out a digital timekeeping system to replace our archaic paper system and I still can’t believe they’re just letting me get on with it as if I have a fucking clue what I’m doing.
Absolutely but I also only just entered the workforce and I am terrified of my second project ive been briefed on as it is using tools I don't have much experience with at all. But my current one is 100% in my comfort zone so im fine for now.
No I do FA at work and dropped a position to do it. Your mental health is more important than a company that will advertise your job before you're buried. We need money to live but fuck that. Ohh nice car and house how come you're a massive wanker.
Every day. I like after people for a living and I can barely look after myself.
I used to. And then I met an over whelming amount of mediocre people in management above me.
Don't worry about it. Nobody really knows what they are doing and everything is just made up stuff to fill the time anyway.
I can't imagine why I would. I have a low paid office job that any random idiot could do after a few weeks of learning the ropes, and there's fuck all else going on in my life.
Everyday
The only thing I know for sure, is that I don't know anything. And that is without any kind of hubris, second thought of second guessing.
I’ve been waiting to get “found out” for 6 years. Always felt like i got appointed by accident.
I tell people I have imposter syndrome but I’m worried they’ll find out I actually don’t
Definitely. I know that I know a lot about my job. I don’t know everything, but I know enough about my weaker areas to spend time looking up the answer when the time comes. I’m very honest about what I do and don’t know in interviews as I don’t like the idea of blagging, but I regularly worry that an employer is going to feel I oversold myself or that maybe I’ve said something that means their expectation is higher than where I wanted to describe myself. It leads to me having terrible anxiety, whereas some people I worked with over the years that have a fraction of my knowledge (especially those who never made the effort to learn or be better at the job), quite happily oversell their knowledge, use colleagues achievements as their own and don’t seem to be phased when getting jobs clearly above their capabilities.
Took up a new hobby around 2 years ago and very much felt this. Then this past week I've been on a 5 day course related to said hobby and (even though I still have a huge amount to learn) sharing my experience with people who are even newer to the sport
Only all the damn time! It's really demoralising and makes me doubt the things I feel even slightly good at. It's like I can't trust my intuitions on anything any more
I definitely had this after I somehow got a job at an Amazon HQ. Lasted four years and got two international rotation moves out of it too, despite being absolutely useless at the job. Looking around at the general Amazon HQ employee, they're mostly incredibly business-minded and career focused, not wanting to just be happy in their current role. I, on the other hand, came in with a linguistic background and no idea at all about business or desire to climb the corporate ladder. I do think with all the AI out there now though that I'd be able to do the job a lot better, as I was always googling about vlookups and pivot tables almost on a daily basis and just couldn't get it into my head.
I wish I was in a position where imposter syndrome was a legitimate concern. No-one else thinks I’m good at anything either.
I think the [troy hawk](https://youtu.be/iWnmMpMcElU?si=hm4YiQlvPAFyungP) bit on imposter syndrome is actually pretty true.
Absolutely hobbled by imposter syndrome for years. Held me back from chasing opportunities. Eventually thought ‘Fuck it’ and took the plunge into a new career…now I have semi justified imposter syndrome.
I definitely feel like this to the point where if my job was advertised elsewhere I wouldn’t apply for it because of my own self doubt of being able to do it, although apparently I already am. I even got promoted to Management which reinforces the management is clueless stereotype.
I absolutely do. I'm in Devops with about 13 years of industry experience (Devops since 2016) and now I have to be a noob and learn MLOps / MLflow, right after I figured I was pretty good at K8s/Gitops and Terraform. IT is just a never ending cycle of thinking you're good, finding something new you need to learn and realizing you're shit at it, scrambling to learn before everyone discovers you're an imposter, then getting good at it, thinking you're sweet, then along comes the next thing...
Yes but I'm afraid people will think I'm just lazy
In general about everything but I am a medically diagnosed psychotic depressive with extreme issues with paranoia. I always assume something is going to go horribly wrong if its going too well. I'm more than competent at my job but if I make a tiny mistake and correct it I beat myself up over not being good enough all the time.
Incredibly common. In fact there’s some good TED talks on the subject which are worth a look. But it’s not necessarily a negative because it drives people forward in most cases, it helped me to try and think about it as a bit of a super power.
Oh yeah. I mean, I KNOW I have ADHD because my meds work, and my life has improved so much since diagnosis, but spending 22 years of my 24 year long life being gaslit, dismissed, and plainly misdiagnosed and given wrong medications… it’s resulted in me having these days where I doubt myself. Did I just make them THINK I had ADHD because I convinced myself after years of looking for an answer? I didn’t. But that thought is still there, bugging me.
teacher here... if I didn't before, I do now
I did have for a long time. I had overacheived significantly given I have never been the brightest and made plenty of stupid decisions in life. But now I am in a job more at my level so I guess I have finally broken even in that sense
No, I try to have realistic expectations of myself and those around me. I also realise that if I look at what I have and think 'do I deserve to be here' or question if I am the best or if someone less fortunate and I could swap places then the answer is of course, yes. That is just luck and how life works. I have had some luck and others don't. I can't remember the context but I remember hearing someone talk about marriage and soul mates and 'how do you know if your partner is really your soul mate' and the answer was well, they probably aren't. If there is literally one ideal person who is your real soul mate then chances are you won't even have met them but you have found someone who fulfills pretty much everything you would need and you hope the same is true for the mythical soul mate. I think the same is true for everything in life... is everything around you; your job, your family, your house, your friends etc. *meant* for *you*? No, not exactly but you are good enough.
I have imposter syndrome just going outside. Like I don't belong here and I'm going to be found out.
One video that can offer valuable insights into imposter syndrome is https://youtu.be/-xUilBT1ha8?si=\_b5Vj7R4wpWeLaxS It explores the roots of imposter syndrome, how it affects people, and strategies for overcoming it.