What is Imposter Syndrome?
Tags: beginners, codenewbie, productivity
Published: 2020-12-17 08:28:17

One of the major problems in any field is Imposter Syndrome. Especially when you're starting out in that particular field. And the same happens in the dev world. I'm writing this because almost all newbies at one point of time fall into this trap and lose the fun in programming. 

Recently I came across a few people who were kind of in this state. This triggered a series of thoughts in my mind like why does this occur? How to identify it? And a major question, what harm does this really do? 

To be honest I've been in this phase too and there's a high chance that you have been too. So what actually triggers this syndrome. Well one of the signs that I saw is that it commonly occurs due to inferiority complex. Whenever you feel that someone is doing better than you, be it your mentor, friend or junior, you naturally tend to think that you are better than them and can do much better, and then in that pursuit you start doing stuff that usually takes time to develop. For example- you read the basics of JS, CSS and React and then directly jump into building websites similar to Facebook, Twitter etc. You don't do that right? You initially start with small projects, then a little more complex, then some mock websites and then you go for more complex websites. 
This results in you adapting someone's personality, code head to toe. But that's not what the syndrome is, it occurs after a certain time when you realise that what you've been doing all along is just copying stuff and getting the false sense of achievement that you were the one doing the work. You think you're really good at what you're doing but that's not the case.

The Imposter Syndrome then really kicks in and you start to doubt yourself, even the things that you actually learnt will appear to be a product of your cheating. You start to lose your confidence and finally give in to the something that I call, The void, this void just tells you're good for nothing or you have been a cheat all along. You stop copying other people's work but also don't take inspiration from them. Creating any mock webpage would seem like you're cheating and eventually you lose interest in programming altogether.

![Alt Text](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/i/xjspb5l259egspo97cmc.jpeg)

Now the question arises that, how do you identify it? Well the signs are really easy. Once you find yourself looking at someone's code and jolt down the same in your while recreating their work, you get your first red flag. Keep in mind I'm not talking about the syntax but the way code is written. 
Second red flag would be that you don't add any of your own flair to it. Anything from styling to structure, you need to have your own imagination do the work. Let your brain think what type of end product you want to produce. 
Once you capture these two flags the problem is pretty much solved. All you have to do is be aware of these occurrences and that's the hard part. 
How do you accomplish that as well? You can start by taking notes first, don't go directly to writing the code. Take notes, understand what the syntax is doing, what you want and how the compiler is producing it. Of course if you're stuck somewhere you can look, search in the net or ask for help. But don't blindly copy stuff. 
Next is start with small projects, take your time, there's no rush. This will help you get that dopamine rush as well as help you remember the concepts easily. 

So there's my interpretation of the Imposter Syndrome. If you have a different perspective to it then I would love to know, please do leave a comment. Also if I'm wrong somewhere then feel free to correct me, it's just an interpretation can vary from person to person.