Mental Models for Overcoming Imposter Syndrome
“People who suck don’t have imposter syndrome”
I’ve dealt with imposter syndrome my entire career — the feeling (common in tech) that I don’t belong and that someday someone will figure out that I’ve scammed my way in and my career will be over.
At first, I thought these feelings were normal or justified because I didn’t have a traditional CS degree or prestigious internships. Over time I was able to rationalize that I am not entirely a fraud who faked his way into FAANG, but it was very difficult to arrive at that conclusion given the circumstances. When I joined Google in 2016, I was surrounded by literally amazing people everywhere I looked. During orientation, the guy next to me said he was coming from Caltech. “New grad?” I asked. No, he was a professor at Caltech. On Chrome one of my coworkers worked full-time with me in Mountain View while flying to New York City every other weekend to earn a master’s in cello performance from Julliard.
Imposter syndrome has had a dramatic effect on the arc of my career. I have self-sabotaged and turned down promising and lucrative job offers mainly because I was afraid to fail at the role. I wrote more about the compounding effect of imposter syndrome here.
Recently at work, I was in a meeting with some new people and felt the old familiar feeling pop up: what if they realize I’m actually an idiot? What if I make mistakes in front of them or I can’t answer their questions thoroughly? Then they’ll realize I basically know nothing and am useless. Because I had been down this road many many times before I recognized this as imposter syndrome. But even then it still felt partially true. I objectively cannot meet the lofty expectations I created in my head, and I (incorrectly) assume others have those expectations too. What helped me back out of the trap I set for myself were two models that I’ve developed which have been quite useful for navigating through the rough waves of imposter syndrome into calmer waters.
“Pretending that you’re hot shit isn’t new in silicon valley.”
1. The Star Student Scenario
The star student scenario is a funny made-up term for a mental model that really stuck with me and helped me succeed in my first role at Google.
One of the ways I dealt with this crushing feeling of not belonging is lying to myself that I did. What if, I asked myself, just hypothetically, I was actually a super smart top performer? What would I do differently? What if I were a “star student” in the eyes of my leaders? This is how I coined this weird phrase for myself.
It really helped — I took on my first production ML project and excelled at it simply by pretending to myself that I was the top performer and thinking how one would act in that scenario. It sounds silly or almost simple when I describe it here, but if you’re curious try it for yourself — just assume you are the #1 person in your org and leadership looks to you as the “best example” of how things are done: how would you be acting differently?
2. Sure, I’m a Fraud. But Who Cares?
The other model that’s helped me a lot is more or less: who gives a shit?
I am absolutely horrendous at Leetcode-style interviews. I have been lucky to be on teams that haven’t tried to manage me out. I forget things all the time. I have often worked on teams where I felt like I was in the lower couple quartiles in terms of raw technical ability. But at the end of the day, who cares? Is there some sort of career police that’s going to show up and give me a final grade on how “worthy” my professional career was? At the end of the day what’s stopping you or me from acting like they deserve the very best career path and moving forward with that notion, even if deep down we believe we’re “faking” it? I believe there’s no other way to achieve great things than to gently delude myself into thinking it’s possible.
Here are some additional resources I’ve found helpful: