One Simple Mindset Shift To Fight Imposter Syndrome
You know the moment when things just seem to fall in place?
It’s crazy. Yesterday, I had a talk with a good friend I met as soon I moved to Munich. Today, I read an article by Eve Arnold, where she points out the life lessons that have shaped her life over the last 3 years.
And between all of that, I found a simple mindset hack to fight imposter syndrome.
But first, rewind: let’s take a look at what happened, before I ended up talking to my friend yesterday evening, and read Eve’s post this morning. Let’s go a couple of years back.
When expectations crumble
2015, I started my bachelor’s studies with high hopes. Although even back then, I already knew better.
During high school, I met a life-changing teacher, who broadened my horizons like no one has ever done before. He inspired me to start meditating, turning first vegetarian, and then even vegan. He changed, how I perceive the world.
Yet, I was young, naive, and dumb.
Instead of embracing what I’ve learned about life, people, and the world itself, I turned my back on all of that. I decided to pursue a bachelor’s in business informatics, eager to make tons of money.
I had this idea to become a SAP consultant, work my way up the corporate ladder, earn big money, and even manage a team at some point. It was all set.
I passed high school with flying colors, applied, and got a seat in a dual study program.
I was ready to take on the world. And I even did for a couple of months. Then the world took on me.
Working 9 to 5 for 3 months, then studying for 3 months, then repeating the same again and again, took its toll. But, I had to micromanage the heck out of my life.
There was no air to breathe.
I was only functioning.
But even worse: at work, I was unchallenged as one could be. Although I asked for new tasks, I only got bits here and there.
Back then, I didn’t know it, and this made me learn an important lesson when working in corporate:
Always seem busy.
Even if you don’t have anything to do.
That’s what I did. Not because I wanted to avoid new work per se, but because back then I’d already realized this wouldn’t be my future.
What did I do?
I read blogs on digital nomads, found The Minimalists, created a profile on Upwork, became a militant eco-warrior (which of course isn’t a good thing), and was inspired to change my life. My back then, GF, wasn’t amused. She broke up.
First, it was awful.
Then, I realized it was the chance of my life. I finished studying while doing small gigs here and there to earn coffee money. I saved up money. And I proclaimed my dream:
Becoming a digital nomad, living in Bali. (Wow, so cliché, I know.)
I got a job offer from the company I was working in during my studies. I turned it down and booked a flight to Bali, eager to change my life.
When dreams crumble, too
I arrived in Bali full of hope.
And then? Nothing happened.
Instead of connecting to fellow dreamers aka digital nomads, I treated my stay in Bali like a vacation. I spent far too much money and didn’t work a single minute.
Before I could even say: “digital nomad.” I found myself back in Germany two months later. Almost broke. But even worse: with a crumbled dream, I couldn’t make work.
In retrospect, it’s easy to see I was lacking confidence and faith. But back then, I was just stuck. I thought making money on the internet was something only advanced people could do.
Hint: it’s not.
To earn money again, I started working in a bar. In the beginning, it was all fun. But sooner rather than later, it turned Aperol Sour (a great drink, by the way). My bosses couldn’t stand me because I was shortly dating the crush of one of them (yeah, dumb idea) and wasn’t the person supporting every decision they made. I befriended the head of the bar and it became even worse.
At around the same time, I was hanging around on Upwork and got my first ghostwriting gig. Before I could think about it, I wrote a short eBook about meditation within 4 weeks.
It was incredible and with the money I got, I invited my parents to see Berlin. But although I had just earned money writing online, I wasn’t convinced this could be an option.
Again, I wasn’t trusting this whole thing.
Instead, I was thinking: “Man, you didn’t study only to work in a bar.” So I turned to my good friend on LinkedIn and checked out what he had in store.
And yet again, life was about to change.
When you think you have it all figured out, life will teach you better
Within three weeks, I moved from Germany to London.
I started working as a recruitment consultant and learned sales. Better said: I tried to learn sales, but I couldn’t wrap my head around it.
Not because it was difficult.
But because I hated the idea of selling people something. I still tried my best and felt worse daily. Although I had the best colleagues ever, who turned into friends over time. And although I worked in a modern office.
I just didn’t like cold-calling people trying to convince them to buy my services. This made me learn I believe in a simple principle:
It’s not my task to convince you. Either you think I can help you, then I’ll do it with pleasure, or you don’t. But it’s not up to me to change your mind on that. You’re sane enough to form your opinion.
Although I still fought with myself about that and had a hard time starting out, things seemed to get better. I placed people in companies, but the pressure on our team increased after two people had left (I wonder why). And then life did us all one better.
COVID-19.
As fast as I had moved to the UK, I moved back to Germany. It was wild. On Friday, we had a German team night out, having fun in an escape room, and hitting a bar afterward. On early Sunday, I booked my flight back to Germany and started packing my stuff.
On Monday, I quit.
On Wednesday, I said goodbye to the skyline of London as my plane fought its way to a thick wall of clouds heading to Germany.
Only three hours later, I found myself in the arms of my parents, happy to have their lost son back with a worldwide crisis on the horizon.
When you think every hope is lost, life will teach you better
I moved back in with my parents.
I felt like a complete loser. Unable to make things work. Neither in Germany nor in the UK.
Besides having little chances to get hired at this time, I didn’t even want to go back to an office. Also, my father has a transplanted kidney, which made him a risk patient, who shouldn’t get infected with COVID-19.
I chose family.
Which is a nice way to say that I didn’t even work in a local Aldi or Lidl to fill up shelves. I had no idea, what to do.
But I remembered something.
Somewhere, there was still this one Upwork account, I had created three years ago. I fired it up, again. I had nothing better to do.
Likewise, I improved my profile and did what I had learned in London: outreach. I sent out countless proposals, until stuck.
I started working with a company in the Netherlands. And while I always thought it was impossible, within another three weeks I was earning my income online.
Since that moment, life has never been the same.
I’ve been able to travel the world, work almost whenever, but definitely wherever I want, and still have plenty of spare time.
In short: it was the antithesis to my corporate jobs before.
But despite all of that, it left me with a single doubt:
“Can I actually do that? I don’t have the official qualifications to do that.”
Life is a comedy
And here I was, another four years later, sitting on my friend’s sofa, talking about imposter syndrome.
He went like this: “I’ve been working as a front-end software developer for 5 years. I’m the most senior person on my team, and I never wanted to manage people. Instead, I want to focus on improving my expertise.”
I simply responded: “That’s awesome. What’s the matter?”
“I don’t think, I’m there, yet,” he confessed. I was intrigued because why wouldn’t he be there? He expanded: “There’s still so much to learn, man. I can explain to you certain things while being asleep, but when it comes to security, I only know the mere basics.” And that’s when it hit me.
Imposter syndrome doesn’t start on your CV, in uni, or at work.
I responded: “Man, you literally have worked this job for more than five years, are you the person most people come to when having issues, and you still don’t believe you can do it? Why?” He said he needed to know more.
I told him, that’s BS.
And I tell you the same if you have remotely the same thought.
Why?
Because of what I read this morning. Eve Arnold explained one of her life lessons she learned while writing on the internet:
“Don’t dwell on what you don’t know (but appreciate it).”
It was never about knowing everything beforehand. Never.
Why?
Because everyone can feel like an imposter. No matter if you’ve been earning your income online for four years, are the most senior front-end developer in your company, or have written over 1000 articles on the internet.
It was always about embracing what you don’t know and working with it. There’s always something you don’t know.
You don’t need to read more books, study/work longer, or reach any artificial milestone. You need to accept where you are and work with it.
What’s left to say?
Yes, you might feel like you shouldn’t do what you do because you don’t know enough. But don’t let that fool you into thinking you aren’t worth it.
You are and have always been. You just have to realize it. Starting today.
