Published on 30.11.2022
Imposter syndrome is a real thing and its not at the same time. I imagine most of us have had moments that make you feel inadequate - you start a new job, join a group of people or are somehow tasked with solving a problem because of your expertise.
I feel like this notion comes from a place of anxiety. It in turn comes from fear of not being good enough, of not meeting some expectation, of losing face in front of others. Or perhaps out of fear of not meeting your own expectations.
I started thinking about this after listening to a podcast from Tim Ferriss where he interviewed Seth Godin. Mr. Godin discusses how such anxiety in his opinion comes from a place of ego. I find that an interesting thought - Our anxieties come from our ego.
If you think about what ego is, and this is arguably a broad term for many, then at this moment I'd say it is an immutable image of self. Your qualities and experience based on which you decide (unconsciously most of the time) how you deserve to be treated, what you deserve to get from life, who is worthy of your time.
I would, however, argue that it is immutable only until it is unconscious. The moment we face our ego, we ask the hard and scary questions to ourselves, that image becomes moldable like playdough. Once you are able to mold it, question is - will you? Are you ready to pull the carpet underneath your life and uproot some areas that you fully believe in?
Returning, to the initial question of this article - am I doing enough? Am I doing enough as
- an engineering manager?
- a husband?
- a human?
- a man?
If I hold myself hostage to unattainable, ever-shifting standards then no, I'm never going to be enough. If, however, I find a different measurement of what constitutes enough in every of the aforementioned points (and many others), then that might help me find peace. How could I start searching for this new measurement?
A quote from Seneca comes to mind - "Being poor is not having too little, it is wanting more". As an engineer I will try to approach this problem from drawing parallels from other areas where I have faced the same question.
Wealth.
My money handling skills could be improved. I try not to spend it on anything that I don't need. That doesn't mean I don't indulge myself in the addictions I have but I at least try to resist consumerism as much as I can. We're all human afterall.
One day I was introduced to investing. My life suddenly received an influx of discussions about pension funds, savings accounts, investment brokers, crypto, bonds, stocks, and all that jazz. My friends started talking about it, my colleagues shared their crypto stories. Later on my wife started to researching this topic in a fascinating way by diving really deep into a completely foreign topic and learning a lot.
Meanwhile, I felt this growing desire to reject all of this. I understand the benefits for having savings, for having multiple sources of income and how that gives you more freedom amongst other benefits. Still, something was bugging me on a deep level.
"Being poor is not having too little, it is wanting more"
I finally realized that I do not want to be chasing more and more and more wealth. I have enough. I am extremely lucky to have been able to work in the IT industry which opened vast possibilites in my life but I also understand that I want my life to be focused on serving others, on fulfilling a purpose of making it at least a bit happier for others and in turn for myself rather than being self-centered and trying to grab as much wealth as I can before I inevitably pass away.
What is then my measurement for the "Am I enough" question? I think a proxy metric is a useful approach. For the wealth question, it would be in line with the target monthly income calculation. As long as I meet that number, I wouldn't need more. Which means I can just do the bare minimum to sustain that level of income.
For the "Am I doing enough as an engineering manager" question, it could be a set of metrics from team velocity ones such as "What is the target monthly throughput of tickets" to "Is the team meeting the key performance indicators (KPI) on a bi-weekly, monthly, yearly basis".
Voila! See what just happened? The questions shifted from an anxiety, fear, ego standpoint to measurable, actionable metrics that you can break down alone or with the help of someone other than a therapist.
Am I doing enough? Let me measure that.