Studio Shenanigans #4 – Imposters Among Us…
There is an Imposter among us…
And no, I don’t mean I’m playing “Among Us”, I’m talking about that incessant, almost nagging voice in the back of all of our heads that tells us we aren’t good enough to be doing what we’re doing.
Before having graduated university and started on the Tranzfuser pathway programme, I can honestly say that I had never heard a mention of “Imposter Syndrome” and now I wish that I was still blissfully unaware of it. Now I know about it, it feels more prevalent than it previously did.
Even when I first heard it I was unsure as to whether people were actually just referencing the game or if it was an actual thing. It was probably around the time of starting the Tranzfuser programme having just graduated that I started to understand this annoying feeling that was always grabbing at my heels.
According to the most trusted source on the internet, Wikapeida, Imposter syndrome is: a psychological pattern in which an individual doubts their skills, talents, or accomplishments and has a persistent internalized fear of being exposed as a “fraud”.
I’m basically here to tell you that we are all frauds 🙂
It comes in waves…
Having since first heard about Imposter syndrome, it seems to have been everywhere. I’ve been hearing it everywhere within the industry. Develop:Brighton was an example of this as I couldn’t count on my fingers how many times I heard the words being slung around.
But not only have I heard much more mention of it but it has started to creep into my mentality slowly and sneakily like one of those fungi that takes over ants brains in the rainforest. Especially as the studio and myself personally have started to expand our network as we grow, you start seeing more and more incredible people and projects that really kick in those thoughts.
My experience with it is that it very much comes in waves, intertwined with the work you are currently doing down to the level of the specific task and the overall experiences of your day to day work. Some days you are getting tasks done in rapid time and you have a nice validating chat with a mentor or someone you respect in the industry, no impostor to be found on those days.
But when you can’t quite find out why that system doesn’t work or that error is popping up, or you read about someone doing something incredible and kickstarting their career, even when there is a big opportunity coming in for the studio, one that feels too big for us to even be considered – those are the days when I feel it, put simply, I think; ‘Who am I to be here doing what I’m doing compared to all these insanely talented people?’
Relatability and speaking to other people…
As mentioned before, a lot of these thoughts for myself and Jamie can at least be put down to talking to people who are highly regarded, or work for big studios or someone who has created an awesome debut title that sold stonks.
It feels like the equivalent of being a little kid pretending to be superman in his homemade costume while standing at the feet of a real Superman and looking up at them wondering if you’ll ever get such big muscles. Although that is just one of two ways things feel like they can go when we have been connecting with new people and speaking more with our current network.
The second of those two ways is when you come away from a conversation, meeting etc and come away having a feeling of validation and newly engaging motivation based on the belief that you are, in fact, doing the right stuff.
Jamie pointed out to me and I agreed, that it’s about finding points of relatability within those conversations and connections. Talking about a topic that you both understand or are involved with and finding out that they also think similarly or can confirm that what you are working on is along the right tracks.
Dealing with it…
For a little while, I had been spiralling through a vicious cycle of “I’m sus, I should eject myself” to “Things are going great! Let’s keep going!”. Eventually though and funnily enough through the process of speaking to more and more people, my mindset on the whole “Imposter Syndrome” has changed somewhat.
Its most certainly a thing, and a powerful, scary one at that, but i found that it doesn’t matter if the person mentioning imposter syndrome had made millions and been super successful or if they were in a similar situation to us being a new start up studio looking to make a mark; Everyone gets it, and in their own way really.
So as I said before, we are all frauds in some sense really.
But it’s not to say that Imposter Syndrome has been entirely bad for me, because the most certain thing that it has done for me is wholeheartedly confirm that I am on the path of growth. I am putting myself in the position where I can do something I’ve not done before and learn something new.
So bring it on…
Thank you for coming to my TED talk, that is all.
Joe
By Joe. C