Many of us are familiar with imposter syndrome, but is there a similar term for having the persistent feeling that you’re letting the rest of your team/workplace down by not doing enough, no matter how much others in your team/workplace make it clear you’re doing (more than) enough?
@Meyerweb I often tell my team that “there is always more work to do than time to do it”, which helps fight this feeling. But having a name for the feeling itself would be great.
It was originally published as impostor phenomenon which crucially meant to describe the external circumstances that cause these feelings, not the deficit of the individual themselves in having those feelings.
People of color (specifically women of color) have generally found the phenomenon less relatable because white supremacy means there's never any reason to expect the system to welcome or embrace them
@sarajw@Meyerweb I say this often, and I say it again: 99% of people only pretend to be functioning human beings. Life is messy. We all try our best, and sometimes we succeed, sometimes fail. The difference is: You see your own failures but you only see the success of others. That means that we see other people in a skewed way, especially if we compare them to us.
It’s all good. We’re all doing more than we can handle. Everyone struggles.
And even if most of us agreed to dial it back a bit for a less stressful life, there will always be a few who are hustling and happy to endure the higher stress levels to get ahead.
So then the rest of us end up having to kick it all up a notch or few to not get trampled. Yay.
@yatil I don’t feel like it’s the same, though. You can have the feeling I’m describing without feeling like a fraud, and can feel like a fraud without being worried that you aren’t doing enough.
Add comment