Learning To Embrace Imposter Syndrome: A Webflow Freelancer Life Hack

Imposter imposter syndrome or imposter syndrome? You might think you know what imposter syndrome is but in Jess Rosenberg's opinion, there are two very distinct types for her - monkey brain imposter syndrome and imposter imposter syndrome. What is this gobbledygook of an article you're reading?! Trust me - it will make sense when we dive in.
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By the way, Jess knows her onions from her radishes - here are some Jess facts:

• 18+ years as a designer and creative leader
• Worked at Twitter, Cloudflare, Mural, @webflow
• At Webflow, she scaled Brand Studio team from 8 to 18 in under 2 years
• Co-host of Ladies Who Create with Liz Meyer

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She’s kind of a big deal

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I've been mulling over something Jess Rosenberg said to me the other day.

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She said:

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"I knew how to be a designer. I just didn't know how to lead people. And so my imposter syndrome was very much like, "you don't know how to do this." And I didn't [...] I know that that's usually to signal there's a gap in my knowledge or experience.

It won't show up for no reason.

And I try and listen to it as feedback, as information, and really try and internalize, like, okay, why am I feeling this way?

Is it because I have a gap in a skill set, or do I have a gap in experience in some way, shape, or form?

And then I'm able to quickly identify ways I want to get better at it and practice it. That way next time I'm faced with a situation, the imposter syndrome isn't so overwhelming and loud."
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While a lot of people (including myself) basically cry about feeling like an imposter, they may not be self-aware enough to realise maybe they are an imposter.

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Maybe they actually don't have the skillset or experience to be where they are.

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Story Time

I worked at an agency a few years ago as a designer and a dev.

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I wasn't very good at either but I was particularly bad at development.

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The agency owner knew this and when I confessed to him I was a lot better at design than development, he told me not to worry - the client projects were normally pretty easy and I was "good enough."

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But this quickly went sour when we got a complex project which needed custom code of which I knew zilch.

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A colleague had to jump in and fix a lot of bits and bobs that I had either not done well, or not done at all.

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He was visibly annoyed with me and I think he probably saw me about as useful as a chocolate teapot as a developer.

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This later became clear when he sent me a beautifully savage message on discord that made me cry basically saying a big ol' paragraph saying I was essentially a shit developer and I shouldn't bother trying to be a dev.

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Where am I going with this story?

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Well I felt like an imposter the whole time trying to be a developer at this agency when frankly, I didn't have the skillset and/or experience to do the job required. I also wasn't willing to do the work to rectify that and as a result, I focussed on things I was better at like talking.

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As much as it hurt - he was right.

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I shouldn't have been a dev at this agency if my skillset nor experience was strong enough to be there.

But the killer reason why I shouldn't have been a developer at this agency was frankly that I wasn't willing to put in the hard graft at trying to be the best developer I could be - learning to code outside of work time, getting lost in development courses like codecademy, binging on technical videos from Timothy Ricks and getting lost in WebGL.

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Frankly, I enjoyed figma tutorials, strategy, brand identity design and other things more.

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He did me a favour and I am truly grateful years later that he sent that savage discord message.

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Now, I could have said that I felt like an imposter because I had low-self esteem but what Jess highlights here is that oftentimes, your creeping imposter might suggest you actually just have work to do.

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It's not necessarily just an insecurity.

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It might be that you are just feeling like you need to put in the work in order to not feel imposter syndrome.

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Monkey Brain Imposter Syndrome

However, it's worth saying that imposter syndrome is in fact real as Jess also mentions:

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"There are times, however, throughout my career where the imposter syndrome pops up and it's totally false and silly and my monkey brain just like coming at me.

And those times I have to remember I do have experience. I do know what I'm doing."

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So how does Jess advise getting past this crippling feeling?

1. Mentors
2. Note down past successes
3. Give yourself a peptalk
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The mentors definitely, I think having those mentors serve as a really strong reminder of, wait, you have this experience, like what are you talking about?

These are the things you've done. I've worked with you on this in the past. And then you're like, oh my gosh, you're right, duh. And then you snap out of it and back to reality.

But then there's also the self pep talk where sometimes it it's helped me in the past to almost like write lists of what are the things that you've done that you're proud of?

And remembering that I've succeeded in certain things and I've overcome certain obstacles and literally writing them down, reminding myself what those things are.

And that has been really helpful too, because I think our brains just tend to forget a lot of the time and the self -sabotage and like the parrot on the shoulder can be so loud sometimes that it almost gives us like temporary amnesia. And we need to just tell the parrot to chill and go away and have a nap so we can remember all the awesome things that we've done.

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Why do you feel like an imposter?

So the summary of this post is essentially to ask yourself the key question:

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Am I feeling imposter syndrome because I am lacking skills and experience which I need to acquire to do this job well OR do I in fact have the skills and experience and the insecure part of me is playing up?

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Essentially, why do you feel like an imposter.

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And be honest with yourself.

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Do you actually have more work to do?

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Conclusion

I'm no guru but I think the most difficult thing you can do in life is understand yourself. I have spoken to a therapist every week for almost two years and every week. You would think that in two years of conversations talking about me, I would know myself pretty well. But I'm constantly surprised that there's stuff that comes up as I talk about my privileged little life that I'm triggered by or annoyed by or haven't fully explored.

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What I'm trying to say is that it's not difficult to feel imposter syndrome but it is difficult to know yourself well enough to know why you're feeling it and then how best to deal with it. If design gives imposter syndrome, why is that?
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"It won't show up for no reason"

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Then, what are you going to do about it?

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Hope this little ramble helps. Thanks to Jess for coming on the podcast and dropping some truth bombs.