I know a lot of people suffer from impostor syndrome, so I'm going to share my advice on how I managed to overcome it.

It's been a few years since I last experienced impostor syndrome, and I hope these tips will help...

Impostor syndrome is about 2 things:

1- Not feeling like you "belong in the room" (i.e. industry, community, event, position, etc)

2- Not having confidence in your competence (level of skill)

Other people's impression of you > Your impression of yourself = impostor syndrome

"The Room"

If you WANT to be in the room, you belong in the room. Period.

You may not be great at what you do, but that's irrelevant. You can always learn and enhance your skills (more on that in a bit).

You don't have to be a bestselling author to see yourself as a writer...

Remember, it's not that others think you don't belong. It's that YOU think you don't belong. Others thinking highly of you can make it worse, since it amplifies the gap between where you think you are (in terms of experience, qualifications, & skill) & where others think you are.

But how do you fix the confidence vs competence gap? Are you really competent and not confident? Or does your level of confidence reveal your true level of competence?

The Dunning-Kruger Effect is amazingly helpful here...

The Dunning-Kruger Effect shows:

1- 0 confidence when competence is 0 (very understandable)

2- Unrealistically high confidence with little competence

3- Low confidence with moderate competence (= "impostor")

4- High confidence based on the acknowledgement of high competence

In #3 you experience impostor syndrome and the feeling you don't belong in the room. But notice #2: you think you OWN the room!

So impostor syndrome is a sign of maturity and course correction in terms of confidence catching up with competence.

How do you move past it?

To overcome impostor syndrome:

- Don't pretend to know what you don't know

- Don't pretend to be good at what you're bad at

- Don't pretend to have all the answers

- Adopt the learner mindset vs expert mindset: you're on the journey, not the summit

- You don't need qualifications to vouch for your skills and abilities.

Some people feel like impostors because they don't have qualifications. Others feel like impostors because they have qualifications they don't feel reflect their true level of skill.

I was in the 2nd group

I got a Masters' degree with the highest level grade in computer engineering but I didn't know what electricity even is or how to build a complete software product.

I was great at coding, but not EVERYTHING in coding.

My degree made me feel like a fraud. Degrees can do that

The solution? Admit what you don't know. If it helps, knowing how you managed to earn the degree & still not understand everything can help.

I was good at figuring out how to use equations and what kinds of questions to anticipate, but academic excellence is not real-world skill

I made a few career shifts: engineer -> designer -> educator -> entrepreneur.

Each shift was an opportunity to experience being an impostor (and I did experience it at some point).

Thinking: "I'm not X" prevents you from identifying with X, no matter how great you are at it.

I'm honest with myself & others in admitting what I don't know & what I'm bad at.

In fact, this honesty serves me well: I set expectations for those who are better than me in the field and I'm more relatable for those who don't know as much as I do.

I don't pretend anything.

Don't forget that you belong in the room as long as you want to be there. And the room has people who know more than you AND people who know less than you.

Don't just compare yourself to the experts. There are many people who can benefit from what you ALREADY know. Help THEM.

I hope this is useful. If you have any questions or concerns feel free to get in touch.

I'm passionate about helping people recognize their potential and actualizing it, & I hate seeing people hold themselves back when they have so much to give.

We all lose out in these cases.