Ask HN: How do you get over the feeling you're not good enough?

I never did. I'll check back if someone else knows how.

This feeling is known as impostor syndrome and is extremely common amongst knowledge workers (especially programmers). I haven't found any good resources for overcoming it - it generally persists for a long time, even when the person is very senior and experienced.

Matching megamindbrian2's comment, it never really goes away in my experience. However, some coping mechanisms I use are to read about new things in my field, play CTFs (even if I do poorly, just for fun to learn from write ups), and practice my reinforcing what I do know.

I find that doing things like that reinforce my confidence and give me the drive to go learn new things and build my knowledge. Also try to surround yourself with good people, that's easier said than done, but even following colleagues on social media that you find to be good role models is helpful. It's reassuring to me when someone I really look up to also experiences these same feelings. It's just comforting to know you're not alone sometimes in that regard.

But as far as shaking off the "nagging feeling" goes, I'd start with reinforcing what you do know to help build confidence, and see if that helps.

Get really good at your one niche. This is through sustained daily directed practice. Then you become the go to person for that specific area of expertise.

I think finding out what your niche is in the first place can be much harder than actually getting good. Best of luck ;)

If you're inexperienced (in general, or at new job) you're going to feel like you have a hard time learning quickly. It's normal. That's what learning feels like! If you're comfortable and everything is easy then you're not learning.

Talk about this more here: https://codewithoutrules.com/2017/03/05/failing-at-your-new-...

The other option as others said is impostor syndrome. https://adainitiative.org/continue-our-work/impostor-syndrom... has some techniques to help you get more realistic understanding of where you are.

I focus on myself and what I have accomplished.

What did I do well today? Did I learn something? What did I accomplish? Did I improve myself compared to yesterday?

I also have a reminder in my phone morning and night that tells me “I am good enough.”.

I feel like while I still suffer from this a bit, its mostly gone away for me.

There's the common quote that I hear people say "If you're the smartest person in the room, you're in the wrong room." If you always follow that, you'll always feel like you're the dumbest, and no one will ever learn anything that you know. There's some other problems with that quote such as if everyone followed that, we'd all be chasing each other from room to room and the smartest person on the planet would have some issues, but alas, that's not relevant.

Going and mentoring people, or finding a company where you didn't start in as the lowest rung, will help you a lot. When you stay in the company you started in, as long as you're there you will wonder if you are skilled, or if you just have domain knowledge that makes you look more skilled than someone who just joined. Mentoring and teaching will help you realize just how far you've come, and the people who you teach will look to you like you look to those people who make you feel dumb and not good enough. I don't mean that in a negative way, they will respect your skills and look to you for advice, just like the people you look to now.

As for having trouble making the same insights and connections, that's just per the territory. Perhaps you're a developer who is self taught, or went through a boot camp, and working in a place that gets pretty computer science level (ML, fancy math and algorithms, NLP, ect). These people have lots of experience in these things that you don't, and so they make the connections, and you can learn to get there but it will take a long time. It's useful stuff, but maybe switching to a less intense job for a bit will help on that. Or maybe they know more about the current industry you're in, someone making medical study tracking software will do better if they have conducted a study before for example.

Lastly just straight up be honest and maybe ask them how they made that insight. Tell them that you don't understand how they got from point A to point D, and you can see if there's some thought process you can learn from them, or if the difference is just a large amount of background knowledge.

Truly lastly though, I will also say that consuming alcohol often can really slow your brain down, and just in case this is relevant, consider looking into cutting back safely with your doctor's advice. My mind has doubled in sharpness and speed of making those kind of connections since I got sober almost 2 years ago and also gave up smoking. So also talk to your doctor and be sure there's nothing physical that is actually causing your mental thought processes to falter and sabotage your confidence.

I don't know. I think in tech those feelings are accurate because the knowledge domain is so massive. It's taken me half a decade of accumulated knowledge to shake those feelings.

Being extremely persistent can make up for a lot of deficiencies. It's totally fine to lag behind everyone initially if you're willing to keep going long after most other people stop making progress. There's nothing wrong with being the tortoise rather than the hare.

The other important thing to learn is that you can become an expert at something. Once you have one skill under your belt you realize that it's possible to climb the ladder of expertise on almost any topic if you're able to stick with it.

You get around by not always making choices based on your feelings.

I guess you have made something? Many others would not be able to make what you have made, well done.

I also also guess there are those smarter than you. They will also make things.

One day you will look back and find that you made something which others more clever than you never got around to. Enjoy what you make and don't worry too much about what those more clever do or don't make.

Ask everyone you can if they feel the same and I bet you will see that what you feel is common.

I've heard people who are able to absorb inputs and make connections faster have high IQ and only 50% of the population has average IQ.

Maybe you are comparing yourself to those with higher IQ.

Training and education doesn't seem to help IQ that much.

- Forgive yourself. It's okay. You are who you are.

- Understand that there is no speed limit. You can be as fast or as slow as you should be.

- Mimic. Connections and insights are rarely magical. Usually the person has been trained by themselves/others or have come up with mental "hacks" to promote these kind of eureka type thoughts.

Decades ago, my best friend was much better about making connections, insights, etc. I was constantly wowed. Instead of fixed mindset like "I'll never be as good/clever as they are" I simply asked: "How did you come up with that?" or "How did you figure it out?". Sometimes he would point me to how he read documentation and interpreted that into code. Once I got the cryptic answer "Think like an electron." (His point was that similar to how you can predict how water will flow down a mountain, valley, gather against dams, you can kind of predict how electrons move through capacitors, inductors, diodes, etc.)

The point is that I was less interested the outcomes and more interested in how they were achieved.

You'll find that there is a snowball effect. The more connections and insights you make, the easier it is to add to them.

Lastly, the core principles of no zero days might help out. Here's a link to the seminal reddit comment:

https://www.reddit.com/r/getdisciplined/comments/1q96b5/i_ju...

"If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter. For always, there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself."

You need to realise that this nagging voice that is telling you that you are not good enough is not "you". May sound weird or esoteric, but it is possible to distance yourself from it. This voice has been built up by your environment and is just a summation of that outside world. And everyone hears it. The difference is how one reacts to it.

There's a plethora of material available about how to overcome this voice (mindfulness, meditation, self-help etc.). It's a long process, but it is possible to liberate yourself from it.

Personally, what helped me was to keep a journal. And take regular breaks to reflect on what I have written. Over time (talking years), I realised in a kind of "insight" the ever repeating thought patterns I keep writing down. Am I now free of them? No, and sometimes they still frighten me (rightly so, the feeling of not being good enough has a positive, encouraging side) but more often than not I see them as this old grumpy neighbour that you meet every morning who keeps to bore you with the always same complaints. You greet him, listen for a few minutes and then continue with your day.

I had this feeling a lot. Then I stopped drinking, moved out of my parents house, and started eating healthier. It's only been a month, but just making time for myself and putting my own comfort first, being aware of my own uninterrupted being, made me cool down a little bit. Perhaps it might come crashing back, but at the moment, you have to realize that maybe the feeling you are not good enough might arise because you are doing something you might not do. You feel like you are incomplete because you have created this image you must reach. Perhaps you might not get that job you want, but then you weren't suited for it in the first place. You may cram, you may try to force yourself to do it, but that should be a sign that you aren't doing the right thing. You should learn something because you want to. If you are still a student, then this is unavoidable because the system is designed for competition and there is that #1 spot that someone will naturally fill. If that's not you, that's not an issue. There might be dominance heirarchies, but also the world seems to be complex enough and there seems to be enough people in the world who aren't #1 in anything, but are completely content. The best way to compete is to not compete at all.

You're not alone. I don't think there is any "solution" that can prevent such thoughts. Instead, I prefer to look at them as a motivator to work harder and learn more. This Venn diagram [1] always helps me adjust my perspective. A useful approach to find those intersections and unions of what you know, what you think others know and what others actually know is to give talks at meet-ups on any topic you feel comfortable with - you'll quickly realize how much unique knowledge you have.

[1]: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CCfUQh_UsAAXNKv.jpg

Don't compare yourself to others, rather compare yourself to the past you.

* Do stuff that matters. Start small.

* Do less stuff that does not matter. If it does not matter but needs to be done, try to delegate or automate it.

* Don't devote attention to stuff that does not matter. (Eg. the tech news firehose or the latest Trump tweet)

* Exercise regularly.

* Eat right.

* Sleep well.

Stop comparing your self to everyone else, you cant be better than every one at everything. This is obvious when spelled out, but not while you are judging your weakness. You will compare it to others who don't have that weakness, setting your self up for failure.

Stop comparing your self to other individuals, you are not them, you don't have their strengths or weaknesses. You are trying to compare apples and oranges.

Stop judging yourself over such a broad spectrum, you just can't be good at everything you don't have the time to learn it all. You have weaknesses sure but you also have strengths, deal with it, give your self a bit of credit where credit is due.

Stop comparing your self to external forces that are beyond your control or ability to understand. Stop setting your self up for failure.

Start comparing yourself today to yourself yesterday. "I always feel I'll be lagging" you can't lag behind yourself. "cannot make the same connections", "cannot have the same insight" you make your own insights and connects not others, this is your strength and their weakness, give your self some credit where credit is due.

"I avoid trying to learn and develop" Don't try to match or improve on others, improve on yourself, start small. Learn one new thing a day, it doesn't have to be a big new complicated thing. Through out your day you will at some point have a question or a curiosity. Keep an eye out for it and encourage it, answer your question or do a bit of research, then make a note of it, job done, you are now objectively better than your competition(you yesterday) and have the note to prove it. Well done! Give yourself a reward like a coffee or a cookie :)