Ask HN: How do you deal with inferiority complex? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How do you deal with inferiority complex?

16 pointssepterr22 comments

Specifically to do with skills in programming/designing. I haven't had chance to work much with frontend development and when I see people create beautiful apps/sites, I feel pretty inferior!

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Assuming that it's not just the usual case that you are just starting off, and they have been doing it for years, maybe even decades, assuming that it's a fair apples to apples comparison, and that they actually are superior, do yourself a favour and don't listen to the other advice about it being a "syndrome" (impostor syndrome or otherwise) or some "principle" : own that feeling. Try saying, "Damn, these people are good. And I'm nowhere close to them, not even in the same league".

Trust me : acknowledging reality is so, so therapeutic and relaxing that it is a strength by itself. Your anxious mind, previously beset with envy, will suddenly calm down and be able to move on. You will be able to take a deep breath. And then the magic happens : there is an immediate and concentrated focus on the current moment, the reality of being who you are, wherever you are, accepted by every cell of your body. You are so aware of the present moment. In this calm state of assessment, you are already beyond your past feelings of weakness and...and what happens depends, but for me, most of the time, I end up being able to figure out where I can excel and be happy. I am able to ask the Real Questions.

While this may sound like a motivational seminar or even a religious one, the reason why it is so generic is that I cannot know what happens after you accept that they are better. I cannot know what exact magic happens. But avoiding the feelings, suppression, is where the problems lie. With psychological suppression, the anxiety never ends. With psychological integration, calmness and health prevail.

Us engineers are really bad at this stuff (low EQ), hence so many answers fit the template of avoidance and suppression or worse, false motivation : "you can do it! keep trying!". How do these people know you can? Maybe you suck. You need not conclude that, but you should consider that. May reality be with you!

That's advice that is useful in some circumstances and very dangerous in others.

People DO underestimate their own abilities, and it can be very damaging to their careers and lives.

For example, I have a friend who genuinely has world-class skills in a couple of areas, but spends most of his self-talk time telling himself that he's not as good as anyone else at those things. That's done significant harm to his health, livelihood and happiness.

Telling him, as you seem to be, to just accept all those false beliefs about his inadequacy isn't going to help even a little bit.

Having said that: you do make a very valuable point. If the other people really are better than you, then it's far more valuable to acknowledge that. But it's very important to be sure you're right in your estimation of your own skill before coming to that conclusion.

Whilst it make be the case for you personally that you never underrate your own skills, that's far from universal.

I have to agree with you. I remember being depressed when I was younger and it really did cloud my judgement; I could not assess situations objectively and was beating myself up unnecessarily.

OP, please tread with caution regarding my advice.

Thanks both to you and thenomad for your replies.

vijucat, your answer reminds me of Eckhart Tolle[1]. I have a tendency towards depression. And among other things I have listened to Eckhart in past to deal with it. And he helped me greatly. I feel like you are right. Intuitively I feel I need to simply acknowledge that these folks are better than me at this thing and I should admire their skill without envy. I feel like it will be a great weight off of me when I am able to do that. And I understand what you mean by you don't know what would follow after that. I have found that in situations where I have stopped fighting 'what is', things have turned out such that the cause of my struggle was removed. 'What is' became 'what I wanted'. Maybe this is what will happen again. I do feel I have the ability to master this frontend development but comparison with others has become a debilitating factor. In any case, I have decided to make my goal #1 to become able to acknowledge others' achievements and skill without pangs of envy.

[1] http://www.amazon.com/Eckhart-Tolle/e/B001H6GZ5K

EDIT: added link to Eckhart Tolle.

To deal with inferiority, don't take yourself seriously.

First off, there are signs fear is good in helping you choose what to do next.

  Fear is good. Like self-doubt, fear is an indicator. Fear
  tells us what we have to do.

  Remember our rule of thumb: The more scared we are of a 
  work or calling, the more sure we can be that we have to
  do it.

  - Steven Pressfield

  I try never to be governed by fear; that's how I choose
  things. If I ever feel that this is dangerous or I'm
  scared of it, then that probably draws me more towards it.

  - Nicole Kidman

  If you're not worrying that something you're making will
  come out badly, or that you won't be able to understand
  something you're studying, then it isn't hard enough.
  There has to be suspense.

  - Paul Graham

But like other people in this thread said, it's important to not be afraid of making mistakes.

  Nothing will stop you being creative so effectively as
  the fear of making a mistake.

  - John Cleese

So how do you deal with inferiority? Pressure yourself to not have expectations. Expectations kill creativity. Creative people might have a childlike state partly to counteract pressure of expectations, which then frees them to have thoughts their unconscious felt it wasn't allowed to have otherwise.

(low EQ)

I'm going on a limb here, but personally I make a lot of programming decisions emotionally. When something smells off with the design of a solution it makes me grow uncomfortable in playing along, and that turns out to be a good thing because it leads to a better solution.

I wonder how many other programmers either are, or choose to confess they are, emotional in how they choose what to program.

I think I am emotional about programming. My intuition, more than 'design principles' guides me design choices during coding.

Your strengths and weaknesses have curves, troughs, peaks and spaghetti complexity. Personally I completely accept that I'm pretty mediocre as a "developer", but honestly I don't really care because I don't personally consider myself a developer, I just look at myself as someone who simply likes to explore, learn and play with web based technologies. This way I don't get sucked into the pigeon hole psychology of the professional world. If someone else wants to look at me in that light that's fine , but I keep an invisible boundary between myself and that kind of thing. I also like to occasionally and inadvertently ask inane questions at stackoverflow which get down voted at machine gun intervals. It's good for the 'soul'.

I have a mentor that has been programming since the 70's , I once lived in a place where an extremely smart Belgian software engineer was staying who helped me while programming, and I currently met a really smart engineer near where I live who has been gradually throwing me suggestions coupled with some pseudo mentorship. All of these people are very smart,very empathetic and willing to share. Being around people like that in my view is absolutely needed for your sanity.

You've probably seen this video. It's the one where Google attempts to explain what a web browser is to random people on the street. Watch it if you haven't. It will lend perspective.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4MwTvtyrUQ

Ok that's all.

"programming/designing" - double talented people are extremely rare, so it's probably a team - one less reason to feel inferior. Also web front-end programming sucks in comparison with server side, HTML will never be any close to perfection due to compatibility - no code satisfaction, client-side frameworks change every week, JavaScript is shit etc.

The 'no code satisfaction' aspect of web frontend development has been an issue for me whenever I have tried my hand at it. The chaotic, un-organized nature of the code drives me a little crazy.

But at the same time it increases my admiration for the people who can handle such chaos and be cool about it.

Not being happy with what you have accomplished so far is a sign of greatness. Once you feel you have achieved enough, you become complacent. Do not feel inferior. As long as you feel there is room for improvement, you will keep improving. Only when you start thinking you know it all it's time to get worried.

Work with people who know more than you, be humble, and ask questions.

I do try to do that. I have wondered if it some type of psychological problem I have that I want to be good at everything and thus am always feeling inferior. My brain is filled with all these ideas that I want to execute but I want them all to be executed in a polished manner and I want to do it all! Not gonna happen. I need to learn to delegate to experts and not feel inferior.

The reason we have teams and build organizations is because no one is great at everything. The skill comes in knowing how to accentuate your strengths and mitigate your weaknesses. The best mitigation is to attract people who are far more talented than you in those areas. Then as you start to lead the skill comes in knowing how to accentuate your team's strengths and mitigate their weaknesses. This will often come through outsourcing, strategic partners or acquisition.

For me, I turn it into motivation. I check out the code that dazzled me with it's brilliance, I go through every line, stop to understand everything, then I ask questions. After that I normally create a home brew project that incorporates the lessons learns and drives them home, and, sometimes, improving on them.

Obviously not quite from a design perspective, but it may still be useful.

You shouldn't have to.. Just be sure that not everyone knows everything.. If they are good at frontend development and create eye catching site, let them be., What I could do is they can't (probably they can if with learning and practice, but not as much as I devote myself into)..

Simply : Doctors won't write program, Programmers won't perform a cesarean..

It sounds to me, based also on your replies so far, that you just have a case of impostor syndrome (and possibly some Dunning-Kruger thrown in there). Just power through it - we all get it too. Just keep making things that you're proud of, or that others find useful, and you be fine. We can't all be experts in everything, and even the experts are noobs at somethings.

Once you've worked with enough programmers, you'll realise that many programmers don't actually know how to... well, program.

The great websites / open-source projects you see regularly are really just the tall poppies.

If by design, you mean what it looks like: You + themeforest == nice looking front-end for your site.

But, worry more about Design meaning "how it works", trade-offs, and what job the end user is trying to get done.

You are right design is not just frontend. And the design of a good codebase is a whole another neuroses for me :) Here, I did mean 'how things look'.

(The longer I have been programming, the more difficult it has for me to work with the enterprise software I work with. I dislike the architecture, the hodge-podge way of doing things. I used to be able to 'enjoy' the complications. Now I abhor it.)

Sounds like https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle

Those people did a lot of work to gain that level of skill. You could probably be as good if you really worked at it too.

it's impossible to know everything and do everything. stop comparing yourself to other people and start focusing on what YOU need to accomplish and what YOU can control, which is yourself. If you see something amazing, look at it and learn from it.

be inspired instead of intimidated.

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