Embracing Imposter Syndrome is a Superpower

Embracing Imposter Syndrome is a Superpower

I spent most of the early part of my career feeling like I didn’t quite belong, standing in meetings wondering if everyone else can see that I’m just making it up as I go along. Staring at code I wrote yesterday thinking “Is this good enough?”

For years I thought this was a problem to solve. I was wrong.

What is Imposter Syndrome?

Imposter syndrome is that nagging feeling that you’re not as competent as others perceive you to be. It’s the voice in your head saying you’ve fooled everyone into thinking you know what you’re doing, and any moment now they’re going to figure it out.

You’re a fraud! You don’t belong!

Most good developers I know experience this. We’re in a field that moves fast, where there’s always something new to learn, and where even experienced programmers regularly encounter problems that make them feel completely lost.

The conventional wisdom is that imposter syndrome is something to overcome, to push through, to defeat. But I think that’s the wrong way to go about it.

Embracing Imposter Syndrome Changes Everything

Before I go on I want to be very clear: imposter syndrome itself is not a superpower - the anxiety and self-doubt are not pleasant. But embracing it, accepting it as part of who you are, is liberating and makes you better at what you do.

It Makes You Think Deeply

When you feel like you might not know what you’re doing, you actually think about what you’re doing. You don’t coast on assumptions. You question your approach. You consider alternatives.

I’ve watched developers who never doubt themselves charge ahead with solutions that seemed obvious to them, only to discover later they’d missed something fundamental.

Meanwhile, those of us wrestling with imposter syndrome are turning problems over in our minds, looking at them from different angles, making sure we understand. But rather than being paralysed by fear of doing something wrong, we know its not perfect but together with the teams help in reviews and open discussion, it will be good enough.

You Reflect on Your Work

Embracing imposter syndrome means you’re constantly reflecting. After every project, every decision, every line of code, there’s this natural tendency to ask: “Could I have done this better? What did I miss? What would I do differently next time?”

This isn’t paralysis, it’s the foundation of learning and improvement.

You Ask Questions

Here’s something absolutely critical I’ve discovered: when you freely admit you don’t understand something, magical things happen.

First, you’ll often find that others don’t understand it either, and they’ll thank you for being brave enough to ask.

Second, when people do understand, they’re happy to explain it to you. People like to share what they know. But very often, during that conversation you’ll collectively realise new angles of the problem that hadn’t been considered, which is better for everyone. People will enjoy the discussion and the improved understanding.

You Plan for Failure

In software development, embracing imposter syndrome means you assume your code isn’t perfect, and since nobody can write perfect code, recognising this is incredibly powerful.

You write tests, add logging, think about error handling, and so on. You design systems that can recover gracefully when things go wrong. You build in monitoring and alerts.

When you accept that you’re figuring it out as you go along, you become genuinely good at figuring things out.

Developers who are convinced their code is bulletproof rarely do these things well. They don’t plan for failure because they don’t believe they’ll fail, and they ultimately do fail badly. Certainty is the greatest sin after all.

You Find Good Company

All the best developers I know have imposter syndrome and they embrace it with enthusiasm and joy. They’re the ones who are constantly learning, constantly questioning, constantly improving.

They’re also the ones who are genuinely excited when they discover they were wrong about something because it means they just learned something new and can improve the system.

Anxiety Decreases

This might seem counter-intuitive, but embracing imposter syndrome reduces anxiety when you accept that you don’t have to know everything, stop trying to pretend you do, and happily ask for help. You’ll be much happier working as part of a team instead of trying to be the lone cowboy who has all the answers.

There’s tremendous relief in admitting you’re not perfect. It’s exhausting to maintain a facade of complete competence.

You Become a Better Mentor

When you embrace imposter syndrome, you become a better teacher and mentor.

You share your knowledge without arrogance because you know how much you still don’t know.

You don’t claim your way is the only way because you’ve been wrong before and you’ll be wrong again.

You teach that failure is part of the game.

You show that asking for help yields better outcomes.

You demonstrate that the best developers aren’t the ones who claim to never struggle.

You are kind and create a safe space for those you’re mentoring, because you’ve been there.

The Infectious Paradox

The moment you stop trying to prove you belong, you actually do belong. When you embrace not knowing everything and openly admit it, you become someone worth listening to.

You create a safe space for the people around you, and they start to feel confident to raise their questions and doubts. I have seen teams utterly transformed by this.

Go forth and embrace your imposter syndrome.