That feeling like you are intellectually inferior or professionally inept sucks. It sucks so much, it causes burnout, unneeded stress, anxiety, and a slew of other psychological and physical symptoms. It’s easy to feel like you know less than your peers, especially when one of your peers is a Large Language Model.
The mere idea that AI is replacing junior devs is causing junior devs to question their skills. The quickness with which AI is spinning up versions of art (from portraits to sonnets), I hear a lot of creatives saying, “Why bother?”
Let me address this:
- Your individualism matters. Moreover, you matter.
- You have a lot to give to your chosen field.
- Everyone suffers from some form of imposter syndrome. If they haven’t, they will. And if they deny it, they have never truly learned anything their entire life.
When I say I am an imposter, I mean it. And I’m okay with it. I was a theatre arts major, and I have my MFA in creative writing. How did I end up a senior software engineer?
Learn it till you make it.
Many people will say, “Fake it till you make it.” To me, faking it implies falsity and lying. You are not lying when you say you don’t know how to do something. You merely have the chance to learn. My entire life, I’ve accepted the challenge to learn something new. From how to write a one-act play to how to code a WordPress website to building an app with React.
Yes and…
In improv comedy, you can destroy a scene by saying no. No, your fellow actors are not aliens. No, you are not a cowboy in the late 1800s. In the realm of learning, this is crucial. Yes, and I’ll learn how to do it. Not: no, I don’t know how to do it. “Yes, and I don’t know now how, and I will learn how.” By accepting you don’t know and will learn in the face of adversity, you remove negativity from the get-go.
You are not alone
It’s hard, like really hard, to overcome anxiety. For me, it’s helpful to remember I do not suffer alone. You can use a simple but effective self-care approach to address imposter syndrome.
Say this to yourself when you are feeling like you are an imposter or stressed because you don’t know how to do something:
- I feel like an imposter.
- A lot of people in [my field] feel like imposters because of [reason]
- I am proud of myself for trying to learn something new.
Remember, not a single person on this planet knows everything (even an expert has a limited field of understanding). Not a single LLM on this planet knows everything (seeing a person they love, the feeling of a small kiss, the smell and taste of fresh coffee).
You got this. Go learn something new.