Comment by BigBubbleButt | Hacker News Reader

Comment by BigBubbleButt | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

What you just described is an example of imposter syndrome (at least the way I think of it). The comment I was responding to was not.

If the lawyer feels like an imposter in her current role, that's different from feeling like an imposter in a role you don't even have. This is the distinction I'm making, and why I think the label doesn't fit. Should I feel like I have imposter syndrome because I'd be uncomfortable as a professional athlete, something I don't do? Or should I just realize I don't have confidence to do something else? To me those are very different. Recognizing I can't do everything isn't a form of imposter syndrome - if it is it makes the label completely meaningless.

I'm aware it's a psychological condition. We're arguing over something we haven't even defined yet though, so how would you define it?

>Should I feel like I have imposter syndrome because I'd be uncomfortable as a professional athlete, something I don't do?

We aren't talking about short couch potatoes being scared to apply to the NBA. That's a justified sense of inadequacy.

We're talking about people switching from one fairly normal job to another one that probably has a lot of overlap with what a person was already doing. Imposter syndrome is the unjustified sense of inadequacy.

Its not a binary thing though. Some people would have a little bit of doubt transitioning to a slightly different role and that's normal. Change is scary to lots of people to varying degrees. However, some people are very competent, yet might be afraid to apply for a higher level position or a slightly different role because they fear that they are actually terrible and that they've gotten where they are due to luck and graft. That's imposter syndrome.

If someone doesn't think of themself as a "real artist" even though they really do make real art, they might not seek a paid job that uses their art skills, as a UI designer or otherwise. I think that could reasonably be described as "imposter syndrome" by a layperson, but I'm not going to haggle over whether or not it meets a formal definition.

> but I'm not going to haggle over whether or not it meets a formal definition

I'm not trying to haggle, but we can't have a meaningful conversation about a term if you aren't going to define it.

Agree to disagree, I guess.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com