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Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Notes on impostor syndrome, published by Lizka on June 6, 2022 on The Effective Altruism Forum. This post contains the following things: A description of my experience with impostor syndrome One of my favorite ways of fighting back: get a ton of honest feedback A list of some other things that help me The bulldozer strategy: Ignore the impostor syndrome and do the things Seriously think through the worst-case scenario (within the realm of plausibility) View looking silly as charity unto others Ask for sanity checks Talk to a friend or mentor Physical health Consider getting professional help Remind yourself that comparing yourself to other people is not necessary and that you might be caught in a false framework Assorted other things Ending notes and some resources Notes: I have no relevant expertise or credentials. I am discussing impostor phenomenon-y things somewhat indiscriminately, so some of this might be more relevant to being generally anxious. Context: I wrote this over half a year ago — before I started working on the Forum, before Luisa’s awesome post on a similar subject came out — and then sat on the post without publishing it. I’m finally posting it, but I haven’t significantly edited this since Luisa’s post, so some of the content might be redundant. Both our posts discuss what we’ve found helpful in combatting impostor syndrome. Luisa’s post focuses more on the real harms of impostor syndrome on your career and impact specifically. What if someone told you: I think I’m lazy, stupid, self-absorbed, and useless. Everyone around me is incredibly impressive; they have tons of ideas on how to improve the world, they’re brilliant— they can create systems that model complex structures, they have so much energy, they’re selfless and ambitious and awesome. I don’t know what I’m doing in the same place as these other people. I don’t know how I ended up here, and I’m just waiting for them to realize that I don’t fit. But you know that the person saying this speaks three languages, graduated from a great university with two majors and a good GPA, got a competitive summer internship and did reasonably well in it, and quickly got hired into a respectable role. You might say to this person, “You’ve got impostor syndrome!” You’d probably be right. Moreover, the person you’d be saying that to is me, and I know I’ve got it. I also know that the whole situation is ridiculous. Suffering from impostor syndrome is like having the awful feeling that something is on your face and that this something will reveal the dark truth about your soul to the world just as soon as the world sees it. This feeling does not allow itself to be wiped away with rational arguments. A friend coming up to you and telling you that you have nothing on your face just makes you feel like they’re lying to you, or that they haven’t seen it yet because they’re looking in the wrong place. The feeling is pervasive and has an answer to everything. (See the appendix-comment for how this feeling actually works.) So what’s happening? Why doesn’t someone telling me you’re actually quite smart— you’ve just got impostor syndrome fix all my issues? I'm new at my job, and I try to ask for lots of feedback. Every time I try to evaluate my work, I almost burst from anxiety. Here's what happens in my head, where two pretty distinct voices develop. [Part 1] Pragmatic Voice: Well, I’ll estimate how well I did: what went wrong, what went well, where I helped, and the like. A model of the situation forms; I messed up in two places and delayed one task, but that seems pretty much as expected. I also did a cool new thing that I'm excited about and finished a big project. Pragmatic Voice concludes: All in all, a pretty good week. [Part 2] Alarm bells start ringing in my head. Voice 2 wakes up. Panic Voice: The words "pret...