The mountain of goodness sauce you see below is called “strawberry honey toast”.
One of the best deserts I’ve ever tasted.
If you’re in the Seattle area, you can find it at the cleverly named “Hard Wok Cafe”.
Now as you stare at that delicious sugary mountain you may wonder how that has anything to do with an article on imposter syndrome. While that’s a great question to ponder, I assure you that strawberry honey toast and imposter syndrome have one significant thing in common: they’re both really good things.
While it obvious how a scrumptious strawberry delight can be good, I can see how it may surprise you that I’d call impostor syndrome a good thing. So, let’s cover three reasons why impostor syndrome is not necessarily the big scary bad thing you’ve been trained to think it is:
- It’s a sign you’re stepping into new territory
- It’s a chance to reduce your ego and increase your learning
- It’s an opportunity to grow and become even better
Impostor syndrome is a sign you’re stepping into new, uncharted-for-you territory
Have you noticed that impostor syndrome only arrives in our minds when we’re unsure of ourselves? When you’re confident, or you have any decent semblance of direction – there’s much less of a reason to feel like an impostor.
By default, the fact that this shows up when we’re least sure-footed means that impostor syndrome usually and consistently arrives when we’re stretching ourselves and doing something new or uncharted for us.
So if you’ve never created a certain type of sound or music, never worked on a specific type of project, or even taken on some sort of leadership role – impostor syndrome is a feeling we can expect to feel.
The great news is that this isn’t a bad thing – it just means you’re stepping into new territory. Generally speaking, new experiences are good! That means you’re taking on an opportunity to learn and grow. So, instead of panicking and looking for external validation, we can teach ourselves to take a breath and think “Oh yeah, of course I feel lost and unsure – I’m taking on something new! It may not feel that way right this second, but that’s good!”
Impostor syndroms is a chance to reduce your ego and increase your learning
Often, a response to feeling like an impostor is either panic over whether you’re doing something right, or comparing yourself to others who you feel are better than you. Both ways, the default assumption is that if we’re feeling like impostors, that must mean that we’re bad at what we’re doing.
The assumption that we’re bad can’t be taken as truth by default here. So instead, we often ask ourselves “am I bad at this?”. The mistake most folks make here is that we either try and answer that question ourselves (which almost always ends with “yes, I am bad at this”), or that we ask that question to someone else as an opportunity to have our ego stroked (ie: “Is my reel any good? If it’s not, I will most certainly be bummed.”)
Alternatively, we can take a different tact and ask ourselves what we’re specifically unsure about. “I think my reel is awful” can turn into “I’m not really feeling confident about the sword sounds at :30”. “I feel like I’m a bad leader” can turn into “Am I making good decisions about X?” These are specific questions we can and must take to trusted peers, mentors, or those we otherwise respect.
The significant opportunity to learn here is to avoid simply seeking to make yourself feel better quickly. You’ll legitimately feel better through recognizing that you’re valuable regardless of your current skills and that you have so much opportunity in front of you to utilize your feelings to grow and improve.
Impostor syndrome is an opportunity to grow and become even better
To make this as clear as I possibly can – impostor syndrome isn’t a label or anything descriptive of you. Impostor syndrome is simply a cue – it’s your mind feeling unsure and thinking unsure thoughts – which is also an opportunity to test your assumptions.
The feelings of impostor syndrome are indicative of a huge opportunity in your life – even if it feels uncomfortable in the moment. Often we can not only grow as sound designers/musicians, but also significantly grow as a person.
As I’ll describe in the next articles of this MicroGuide – impostor syndrom is based on self-inflicted self-perception. When you experience its feelings, you have the opportunity to challenge its default assumptions of “oh no, I think I might suck at this and be a horrible human.” – instead, learning to become more confident over time by seeking to gain further insight into the “why” of that discomfort and ask for help on improving.
Put as succinctly as possible – if you consistently treat impostor syndrome as an opportunity to learn and grow, you’ll eventually look back and get to see how far you’ve come (and hopefully, you’ll have come very far!)
“So… you do know it’s hard as hell to just flip these impostor feelings on their head and ‘feel good about yourself’ all of a sudden, right?
I do! Feeling like an impostor is absolutely a sucky feeling when you haven’t practiced the habit of recognizing that impostor syndrome can be as much of good opportunity as it can feel despair-inducing.
I’m not going to lie to you and say that changing your perception of this is incredibly easy such that you’re now healed after reading this and will never experience the bad feelings again. Instead, it will take practice, work, and committing to yourself that every time you feel like an impostor – you’ll remind yourself that those impostor feelings mean there’s huge and exciting opportunities in your future.
Alright, so let’s rewind that – why is impostor syndrome good, again?
- It’s a sign you’re stepping into new territory
- It’s a chance to reduce your ego and increase your learning
- It’s an opportunity to grow and become even better
While my sweet, wonderful strawberry honey toast is good on the taste buds…
Feeling impostor syndrome can actually be good for you if you treat it as a positive cue and opportunity. As much as I love sweet mountains of breaded crunchy desert… I can’t tell you with a straight face that a pile of ice cream and bread is good for you.
And speaking of good things…
Big thanks to you all – James Thatcher’s Small Sci-Fi Weapons sold out in a matter of hours last Monday. That was incredible, and we’re very thankful for your interest and enthusiasm!
Next up will be the release of Quit Aspiring, Vol 2 which is shaping up to be the most complete guide on getting into game audio I can possibly make – inclusive of an audio book, 2 training seminars, and a video interview in the Premium Edition. Stay tuned – we’ll have more updates in future articles!