Imposter syndrome?

Every 👏 single 👏 time 👏

I'm working as a web developer for 8 years. I had this feeling a million of times.

Designers have this feeling. CG artists have this feeling. Photographers have this feeling.

Why?

• You will put your guts in your creations. It's not something which is independent of you. It's connected to you intimately. This fact provide the pleasure you have to build something and, as well, a lot of problem linked to subjectivity / emotions.

• It's not easy to know where you are. Total newbie? Intermediate? Master?

All of this is relative. You will always be worst than somebody else. You will always be better than another one. The problem? You can't really tell. Remember: creativity is subjective. Skills are as well.

So you will think you are the best one day, the worst another day. Depending on your mood, the atmospheric pressure and the distance of the sun from Earth.

• The skilled people are good because they do not let themselves slip in self pity and the imposture syndrome. They like what they do, that's why they do it. Focus on the process. The end goal is just the springboard to go higher with your next project. Even if it sucks. Especially if it sucks.

If you don't like making websites, well you will have a very hard time to get very good at it. A very very hard time.

Yep :) Not once, actually...

Best thing you can do now is to outline your learnings ;).

• What when wrong?

• Why does your site suck?

• Why did you only realise that the site sucks when it was finished?

• What signals did you miss down the road that shouted it's not going to work?

A few positive questions are:

• What new tech did you learn?

• What new shortcuts did you learn for yourself when building a site?

• What tech related skills did you improve and which ones can you still improve?

• What new did you discover?

Don't beat yourself, if it was easy anyone could have done it :)

I'd advice you to never fall in the rabbit hole of development. Always think of why are you building smth rather than how are you building it ;)

Good luck and keep you nose up :)

When I get those feelings; I know I'm close and I open myself up to advice and learning something new.

I had a look at your website and it invokes a very strong emotion.

You may want to note..

It is found that articles, which evoked high arousal emotions like wow, anger, anxiety, were shared more than those were which evoked low arousal emotions like sadness, happiness, contentment. So, underlying emotion is a dominating factor behind our sharing.

Given the context. This means you may want to punch up the social features!

• Invoke Anger not Sadness.

• Invoke Wow not Contentment.

• Invoke Anxiety not Happiness.

https://2FB.me - The Chrome Extension gives you this emotional currency free for most who need it. But as I mentioned, your website actually does a pretty good job of it! Don't despair in the perfect sense.

Yes - it's very common.

I wish I could do flow diarams on here. Anyway, it is unlikely that absolutely everything is bad or even that anything is bad. Sometimes, you are just too close to see what other people see.

If there are things to be improved, the first step is to break your website down into different areas and look at each area critically.

Bear in mind that some things may not be optimal but it may not matter!

From the top:

1. Is the idea still a good one - Yes / No?

2. Is the visual look clean and professional - Yes / No?

3. Is the sales copy tight and compelling - Yes / No?

4. Is the sales message clear - Yes / No?

5. Is the registration, payment and login process clean, simple and intuitive?

6. Do you have feedback and means of communicating with your users via system messages, email or other medium - Yes / No?

7. Have you concentrated on core functionality without seeking to overload your website with features that - realistically - almost no-one will use - Yes / No?

8. Are menu options, functionality choices and user work areas clear, logically arranged, clean to look at and intuitive to use? - Yes / No?

9. Is the code as tight and efficient as you wanted - Yes / No?

10. Are your file structures, databases and other infrastructure optimised - Yes / No?

Of these:

01 - 05 are critical to get right. Identify weaknesses and make corrections now.

06 - 08 are very important to get right but not as important as the critical items. If 01 - 05 are okay, launch now and start promoting now while you identify weaknesses and remedy them behind the scenes.

09 - 10: Does your software do the job faster than I could do it myself? If so, then this stuff is not important at all unless it stops you scaling your application in the future. Even then, you probably have a lot of time to sort this stuff out without anyone knowing. Your users won't even know and they certainly will not care.

As @ccostel said, you need to keep your focus on the why of what you have built, then you need to get it out there and then you need to do any remedial or refresh work once you have some customers.

I'm old enough to remember Windows 1.0 (https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Windows_1.0 ). I have never heard Bill Gates confess to being an imposter and if ever there was a reason to, Windows 1.0 was it!

Your project is very different from your knowledge. I create many many projects that I believe are completely worthless. But even if I often underplay my knowledge, I know it's worth something. The way you feel is normal for a lot of us. You and your knowledge are worth a lot.

One more good talk about development + impostor syndrome https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkgFXFo2WIA&t=734s (don't stick to "javascript" in the title, this can be projected to anyone)

read this :) https://zenhabits.net/fearful/

It's because of high expectations. Just don't expect to much from the result, and don't push to hard yourself, this can often lead to the burnout since you are trying to work/learn way more/harder than you should, you begin to leave less time for rest, exercises/sport/hobby, friends and social life, and then its way more difficult to recover.

It is normal to doubt yourself.

For Founders podcast I am reading a biography/autobiography of an entrepreneur every week.

Out of the 39 books I've read so far I can't think of one founder that hasn't experienced periods of intense doubt.

I just finished reading a biography of Walt Disney.

Let me give you an example from the book:

"Personally I am sick of this picture Steamboat Willie. Every time I see it the lousy print spoils everything. Maybe it will be different looking picture with sound. I sure hope so. I am very nervous and upset and I guess that has a lot to do with my attitude in the matter. That is the only thing on my mind.... I almost go nuts."

Think about what is happening here.

Walt Disney is doubting the quality of what goes on to become one of the greatest cartoons of all time. The cartoon that is responsible for launching Mickey Mouse, arguably the most successful fictional character ever created.

If Walt Disney had doubts so will we.

The only thing we can do is keep moving forward.

I know the feeling. If creation is what makes you happy, keep doing it. You get better each time.

For product creators the true power lies in the finishing of something, whereas for the developer in you, repetition and hands-on coding is key. 🔁

The game - as I also learned - is about validating if your solution brings value for its users. And the fact that you finished a website is the biggest step you could do towards that. 🏁

I nowadays only code to actually create the product after intensive idea validation or to practice and learn coding skills.👨🏻‍💻

Keep building and most importantly, keep shipping. You will gain experience, confidence and focus on validating your products.

Use your doupt to focus your efforts and realize that in the end, it will only make you stronger 💪🏻

I get imposter syndrome occasionally and have a couple of techniques to remedy it.

• have another hobby that is somewhat unrelated - I do some artsy stuff to clear my mind of my main project and give me inspiration between projects

• consider this project as part of your greater body of work - I think about the things I've learned and how they will be tools in my toolbox going forward

It's easy to get burned out as an indie hacker, so take some time between projects to reflect and gather inspiration for the next one!

It isn't just the end product that's important, it's also what you learn while making it. If you've improved as a developer due to making the project, then it was worthwhile. You only learn in this game by doing.

Well done for finishing it, and keep doing more projects!

Very common feeling. You're definitely not alone. Still happens to me and I've been building web applications for a decade. I find its a byproduct of doing work in such a vast and nuanced industry. Every time you hear a technical fact you weren't aware of, uncertainty and doubt set in.

I don't have much advice. I will say, as you gain experience this voice does tend to get quieter.

I get this feeling literally every time that I launch something (and plenty of other times, too). I'm glad you posted this question, because I think the best "cure" for this is simply to realize that everybody else goes through it, too.

WATCH THIS!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbC4gqZGPSY

all the time my friend.

Care to share the website?