Training makes people more skilled than untrained people, so it doesn't seem true to say we're imposters. Whether it's firemen, doctors, pilots, or engineers, those who are trained will outperform anyone who is literally an imposter.

But if it's false, why is the imposter story so persistent? Probably because it's relatable. Everyone likes to feel empowered, and it's quite empowering to feel like you could do just as well as a specialist, if only you put your mind to it. And maybe you can. But are you willing to put in the years of work?

On one hand, the Dunning-Kruger effect reminds us that the most competent people tend to question their own capabilities. On the other hand, a lack of confidence is a severe penalty in most areas of your life. The best path is probably to realize whether or not you're trained (or have experience), and if you're trained, don't feel like an imposter. If you're not, don't be afraid to try, but be aware of how far your boundaries can be pushed.

You are confusing expert being imposters and imposters being able to be experts. That's not the same thing. Most people couldn't do my jib without training, they are not expert in my field, yet I have never been trained to manage a team or a project, answering a customer, dealing with a crisis. Hell last I once coded a software to help with tuberculosis diagnosis and I had to look at the doctors in the eye like I was ready for it.

You have to pretend you know how to seduce, to deal with your daughter crying with no apparent reason, to pay taxes because that what adults do.

If you're not counting your past experiences as "training", then by your own definition, most people could do your job "without training".

The point is that if you were trained in your domain, you can't hold yourself up as an example of "an imposter who had to learn it all themselves" because some of it was given to you as "absolute" knowledge. That you weren't "trained" in some 'basic tasks' (and some people are - imagine the boy scouts, preparatory schools or the military) doesn't mean you had to "imposter" your way into learning everything else - you simply learned those "by osmosis". (Otherwise, we'd have thousands of different ways of accomplishing each of those basic tasks in use.)

Social interactions are informed by past interactions, in a sort of "telephone game" through time and society (which is why trends evolve and change). And we aren't trained how to do taxes because there's an entire industry devoted to profiting off them which lobbies to keep it feeling complex and against just having the IRS send you a form to sign or dispute.

For most of the thing you have to do in your life that matters, you have no past experiences about it. You are not competent before you accumulate a lot if experience in it, which may or may not arrive, and late in life. But society assumes you know from the very first time.

There's this joke on Arrested Development where Lucille Bluthe complains there's (paraphrasing) no manual on raising children. They then cut to an Amazon search revealing hundreds of search results for books on "Raising Children".

While this is excellent snark and a great witty rejoinder to internet arguments, there is something underlying which I think is useful: Figuring it out yourself is commendable, but no-one's going to mind if you look for some expert advice from time to time.

None of those are manual for the real thing. They just cover the easy parts.

It won't help you when exhausted, you have to get up at 3 in the morning, trip, brake a glass, open your hand and bleed on the last batch of milk. It won't help you to react to the effect of society on your child's language, choices and behavior. It won't help you with the feeling you get when you get mad and slap the child and instantly regret it.

And even for the things they talk about, RTFM doesn't make you not an imposter. Unless you practice it, theoretical knowledge has limited value.

You stop being an imposter after you had your children and are satisfied with the result.

And of course, there is no official manual, only hundred of ones contradicting each others, written by people whom expertise you can't easily assess yourself. On a topic that doesn't really have a clear way of demonstrating truth.

Reminds me of that saying: "Fake it until you make it."

But then again who is an expert in raising children? The problem is what works with some children doesn't work with others. Heck, even some children from horrible families become smart and good citizens of the world. The problem with raising children is no one really knows why! First hand experience.

There are a lot of experts in raising children. No one is an expert in your child, particularly when combined with your priorities, morals, family history, etc. If anything, it's a curation challenge: given the excess of good advice, books, experts, friends, parents, intuition, etc.—you have to wade through all that to find something that works for you and gets the results you want.

Yeah, there are a lot of books & experts but they're likely not going to be able to give you the actual answers you need for your particular situation.

Here's the clip! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EErpYvOdRf4

IMO part of figuring it out for yourself is a little research (which can be as basic as simple observation). Then you decide what to keep or trash as part of "yourselfing" it.

I've only heard recently about the imposter syndrome, and I feel bad for people who are feeling it. Note that I'm french, 45, and I think it's a very english or even american thing. Maybe the imposter syndrome is when you wonder more what others will think than what you're thinking yourself?

From this outsider position I have, it sounds like a very unlucky choice of words (imposter, fraud) for a human feeling that comes from lack of self-esteem... Psychologists should know better.

Conclusion: you can live a happy life without the "fear" of being an imposter or a fraud. Anyway, you should know when you're doing right or wrong, and that's what counts.

Just to give anecdotal evidence against your assertion. I'm French and I suffer from imposter syndrome.

I think i really depends on circumstances. I work from home as a freelancer which means that rather than interacting with a lot of coworkers, I mostly read things professionally from people at the top of their game. This skews the perception I have in term of skills and means that I sometimes feel like an imposter.

I didn't have that problem when I was working in a company.

Can I ask you where you've read/heard about the imposter syndrome first?

Also, I don't pretend we don't suffer the same symptoms, just that without a name to put on it, it's more bearable.

Personally, I have a very hard time with compliments (I had to learn to say thank you to compliments, which make me think "bullshit" naturally). So I tend to believe I'm average, even when someone insists I'm not. That's not unlike imposter syndrome. Plus I do understand what you mean about reading stuff from/about brilliant people.

But an imposter or a fraud? Nope... I just think I don't have enough self-comfidence or self-esteem, because "being a fraud" and "self imposter syndrome" meant nothing to me not long ago, plus these terms seem absurdly guilt-inducing to me. Living without this guilt definitely helps make progress in anything.

Actually I found that naming it was a relieve for me. "Oh, some I'm not alone feeling that". The first time I read about it was actually not using the label "imposter syndrom" but in a book where the character describe himself as a child in an adult body walking among people wearing adult masks, and everybody knew, but nobody said anything to preserve everyone egos.

I don't think it's related to your value, as much as the deep sense of the consequences of your action, and the fact that your lack of knowledge in a complex causal word can result in terrible suffering.

The way I manage to get over it was to realized everybody was like me, and If I accepted others could screw up on a catastrophic scale, then I could indulge me doing it.

I think it is because of our weakening culture. Children used to get their identity from their family and community, which trained you in a path you could follow into adulthood. Now, at least in American culture, there are way too many options to provide adequate preparation for all of them, and even the best parents and schools have limited understanding of the world into which they are sending their children. Young adults are much more on their own than ever before, and I expect it is worse in America, the so-called land of opportunity.

It's true that culture can give you a sense of legitimity that will wear off the feeling of being an imposter. But cultures always have an agenda, and they give a positive feedback only if you follow it. Unfortunaly i have yet to met a culture whose agenda is to raise happy people. So you are still an imposter, you just don't know it, and worst, you feel entitled because you respect your cultures values. And well, let's just say than on all important topic such as sex, personnal growth, feeling, suffering, happiness, etc. I never witness a culture that I could label sane. Not necessarly evil, but not a power of good either.

Your note about it's an american/english thing is quite interesting. I live not far from you and I shall say that I relate to your opinion quite well. The important thing is to know one's own personal worth and learn to feel comfortable with it...

Well I read about the imposter syndrome on HN, and when talking about this idea to people around me, nobody knew it was a thing... (btw I don't live in France anymore, I felt politicians there suffered a severe lack of imposter syndrome)

>Nobody gives you a manual on how to handle work, children, people, sex, money, life in general.

Sure we do, its called culture. My parents were immigrants so I got to see two systems compete, their native culture and US mainstream culture. There's a lot of info here on how to live, if anything its overwhelming.

I think the idea that we're all winging it on some certain level is pretty different from a feeling like an imposter. I don't feel like any kind of imposter in my day to day life.

If I do feel 'imposter syndrome' its at work and largely because we have, in the US, an anti-worker climate where we're expected to be instant experts on everything, especially if you're in tech. A realistic outlook on what staff can do doesn't benefit management as much, so they don't help dissuade the myth of the IT/dev superman. They'd rather you near burn-out trying to be a 5x multiplier than hire 5 more guys. We often talk about imposter syndrome at work, but rarely its principle driver. Its not "my teachers said I was smart and can do anything" but very deliberate policies that help businesses maximize profit at the expense of the wellbeing of their own staff.

It's true, but culture is a much armful as it is helpful as a manual. Most cultures I met while traveling (a lot), including my own, have terrible effects on how we handle sex, success, responsability, feelings and growth.

That's opinion not fact. There's no "one way" to be human. People who think that are often hateful extremists. Viva variety. Most cultures get a lot right and culture, being what it is, is in constant flux and change.

This whole debate is people sharing opinions and not facts.

But give me a culture where people have a healthy reltionship with sex. Morality, religion, security, health, children educations, gender status... All major actual cultures screw it up massively in some way.

Well it would help if learning how to learn effectively... Which is a skill that can be developed... Was prioritized over filling children's heads with knowledge that may or may not be questionable... But is certainly useless in the age we find ourselves in.