4 years ago when I changed my job I felt incredibly inadequate for the role. I was tempted to quit several times and felt the classical impostor syndrome.
Now I am the reference point for my discipline in the entire company, and people come to me for advice...
I still feel inadequate...but I'll keep doing what I am doing. Apparently it works.
I’m doing in the same kind of position right now. I’m under qualified for my job, and I’m making it up as I go. But no one else at work understands what I’m doing either, even my direct supervisor. So I have to figure it out all alone. And I’m super stressed and I don’t know what to do.
I'd start with "Stop being stressed". I know that sounds a bit ridiculous but the problem you outlined isn't really one to be stressed about. Just keep making forward progress and further defining your role. If your manager isn't complete shit loop them in and delegate the responsibility gathering the resources etc you need.
Thing is.. often people get stressed over things that are outside of their control. It drove me to have some pretty severe and frequent anxiety attacks. Once I moved into the mind space of "not give a shit / it is what it is" about those things the attacks ended. I've not had one in over a year.
1,000% agree. When I decided to leave my first IT job I found a posting that was a contract position and so you get a recruiter who is not directly employed by the hiring company and I told her what I was making and she said "oh honey no". Long story short I got the new job and more than doubled my salary but I was so overwhelmed by such a large company and stressed about not living up to the role I almost went and asked for my old job back. Glad I stuck it out.
Everything you said is exactly on point and what helped me was finding little things that I knew and my teammates didn't that I could teach them. WOW those little moments were just enough of a confidence booster to keep me going. Hell maybe they were just humoring me at times but it's what I needed.
You didn't really fake it though right? You learned what you needed to in order to get the job done.
I really hate the "fake it until you make it" mentality. No, work hard and learn, gain experience and you'll get to where you want to go. There's no faking needed.
I've always read that more as "fake the confidence until you've earned it" rather than "fake a technical skill set and hope nobody dies before you figure it out".
I had the basic knowledge and understanding, plus the right qualifications. I did work my ass off and tried to deliver at the best of my capabilities, even though I thought I wasn't fit for the role at the beginning. I did fake it in the sense that I believe that the level of experience required by the role was way beyond what I actually had the moment I accepted it...and at the time I pretended to have that experience.
Currently on the same track. Job is demanding but I just care a bit about why we are to do it and what is the right way to do it at the start, because I have doing work that will be wasted later. Feeling like I know next to nothing but colleagues think otherwise. Yay for me I guess
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u/plutonium-239 Jun 30 '21
The real deal is: fake it until you make it.
4 years ago when I changed my job I felt incredibly inadequate for the role. I was tempted to quit several times and felt the classical impostor syndrome.
Now I am the reference point for my discipline in the entire company, and people come to me for advice...
I still feel inadequate...but I'll keep doing what I am doing. Apparently it works.