Kodsnack 240 - The persistent fear of being exposed as a fraud

Tobias, Amanda and Fredrik discuss impostor syndrome with Wendi Dunford, LCSW. Impostor syndrome affects all three of us and so many others, so we thought it was time to talk to someone who really knows the subject. Our discussion covers defining impostor syndrome, how we all experience it, various types of impostor syndrome and things both we and others can do to combat it.

Spoiler: the secret to impostor syndrome is your ego!

Five types or aspects of impostor syndrome:

The perfectionist - I’m never good enough
The superwoman or superman - workaholics to compensate
The natural genius - I freak out if I can’t get it right the first time
The individualist - I go at it alone, and I don’t ask for help
The expert - I somehow tricked everybody, it was a glitch

If you have tips on how you’ve dealt with impostor syndrome, or have found a great resource on the subject, please let us know!

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Comments, questions or tips? We are @kodsnack, @tobiashieta, @oferlund and @bjoreman on Twitter, have a page on Facebook and can be emailed at [email protected] if you want to write longer. We read everything we receive.

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Impostor syndrome
Wendi Dunford
Code review
360-degree feedback - the review system in use by Plex (discussed in episode 233)
Curling parenting
Jantelagen - “The law of Jante”
The morning stream
Therapy Thursdays
Advent of code
Share your solutions in Kodsnack’s Github repo!

Titles

You’re never enough
You’re a real psychologist, right?
The feeling that you don’t belong
An inability to internalize your accomplishments
The persistent fear of being exposed as a fraud
It was just luck
Oops, I just won!
More eyes makes it more stressful
Throw someone off, confidence-wise
I don’t deserve this anyway
That’s not a reason to not take a job
The story you tell yourself
I don’t have to perform for friends
The work of children is to play
I don’t have to buy into it
Try the compliment trick
Being wrong doesn’t make you fake
Reveal yourself as the fraud you are