Imposter syndrome
Note: This has been a post that has been in draft for a long, long time. I finally decide to finish it and publish it as it’s important for me to share about this big problem we face, that is called the Imposter Syndrome.
I never really heard of Imposter Syndrome before until I joined this fantastic mailing list called DevChix.
Don’t be put off by the name of the mailing list, it’s for female developers (males are welcome as well) to share their views and experiences and also offer support to anyone such as help with topics for a conference, job interviews, coding, how to handles situations like Imposter Syndrome, and more…
From this list I read about people’s fears, and someone even shared a talk they gave about it. Check out her post about here.
Here’s her video:
I feel this all the time, I get paranoid. I talk to people and try to smile it away, but there’s this feeling of wondering…
- Why am I doing at this particular event?
- Why do I always have to watch what I say?
- Am I good enough to be here?
- What do they think of me?
Why do I care so much on how others perceive me? I realise I’m not the only one who have these feelings. Talking to people at various events, this seems to be very widespread, even though many at the time haven’t heard of “Imposter Syndrome”.
I realise I have to accept the fact that I don’t have to perfect, and I have skills that I can use professionally, personally, and share them with others. That I should help people to be not afraid and talk about what they are good at.
With active groups like Ireland Girl Geek Dinners and Askaton alongside my initiatives. Encouraging people to speak about what they do, help mentor, join workshops to learn about technologies. This will hopefully build confidence in people, in themselves on what they can do and achieve.
I would love to run soft skills workshops in Coding Grace to help people with their tech interview skills, tech talks, public speaking, and more. I can’t do this right now until I have more people helping me out to free myself up to organise these workshops. Another is a diversity-friendly hackathons, encouraging first-timers to come along and make something together in an event they would be terrified to attend (myself included). Or sprints and contribute to open-source and using resources like OpenHatch and other similar organisations.
If you are interested in helping, or want to share your experiences, email me at whykay@codinggrace.com.