#2 Who do you believe you are?
Are you a Software Engineer?
Today:
We look inside ourselves and discover who we think we are
We learn how this relates to our confidence
How to get our Impostor Syndrome to work for us?
Who am I?
Ask yourself this question. What comes to your mind first?
We all have beliefs. They start with “I am”. They help our brains to decide what to do in the crazy complex lives we live. Some of them are good, like “I am a loving person”. Some are not, like “I’m bad at pair programming interviews”. If you’re a loving person it’s natural to give love to people around you. If you’re bad at interviewing it’s natural to fail them.
Are you a Software Engineer? Do you want to be one? You can replace the role with any trait you wish you have. How do you know you’re one? There are two possibilities:
1️⃣ You are doing something for a long time and it’s natural you’re who you believe you are
2️⃣ Someone else gave you their opinion of who you are and you believed them and you carry on
A teacher in primary school once told me I’m antisocial. As a 10yo kid and coming from a teacher who I respected it seemed fair to believe her. She was a good teacher, she had to be right. So I carried on.
It’s an example of a limiting belief given what we get from other people's opinions. I carried it openly for 25 years. Now I’m still recovering as I’ve lost that time of learning how to be a sociable person who can be liked. I’m still not entirely used to that but I do my best and I do what a sociable person would do. As time passes it becomes more and more natural to me.
It’s a way you can transform a negative belief through the process of working on your new identity.
The same can happen the other way around, where after a long time of practising something you meet a person you trust who will give you a new identity. After 20 years of being a Software Engineer, my boss, Tom, gifted me the identity of Engineering Manager and showed me that it’s possible to be a good coder and communicator at the same time.
But what does it mean for you?
You have control over who you are.
You’ve made a choice with each of the beliefs you have now to follow and “work” on them. Whether positive or negative for you you have the power of choice in what you believe.
Catch your negative beliefs
Let’s start with the negative side. Those are the beliefs that limit us. You can spot them when you feel stressed, you’re afraid to do something you’d like to do. You’ll hear a voice or see a scene that will show you the negative identity. It may be yours but often it’s other people’s opinions you heard a long time ago and they are stuck in your mind.
I’m bad at maths
He’s a looser
Women are bad engineers
Stop sitting in front of the computer and get a real job
You need rich parents to be successful - I’m poor so I’m a failure from the get-go
From now on start observing and listening to yourself. Every time you hear “I am” make sure to record it and remember. Often that kind of belief is hidden quite deeply and comes out only on rare occasions. When you spot one spend some time trying to remember other situations where you felt in a similar way. Build a habit of getting alerted when a new one, you don’t know yet, pops up.
Just the realisation, like me with the teacher’s comment, is super powerful as it becomes something you’re aware of. You start questioning if it’s something you like or not. From here you can start deciding whether to follow it or do something new that’s better for you.
Awareness is the first step to working them out of the system. The second is asking yourself “How would I feel if I believed in something opposite?”.
What identity do you want to learn?
Let’s jump straight to the practice with this one!
For the purpose of this article, we take “a great Software Engineer” as an identity we want to build up. Pick the one you’d like the most to have right now.
First, let’s do some research on what does it mean:
They know at least one programming language very well
They are considering the context of their technical decisions
They are constant learners
They work for the team's success rather than for themselves
If you know what you’re after, you can start learning what does it mean. The best way is to meet them in person and learn about their beliefs. A great point to start with is to consume their content online. I like YouTube for that because you can see the person and quite often you’ll hear a lot of things that are edited in the written content.
Being armed with that information, ask yourself a question next time you’ll need to be a great developer:
What would “a great Software Engineer” do in this situation?
You probably know that already! Now do it. At the start allow yourself to be bad at it. We all must be bad at something before we’re good. It’s part of the process.
Learning is a process. You won’t click your fingers and out of a sudden become great. It takes time to gain confidence. Or as I like to describe it better - gain comfort in the actions we do. Confidence is just our perception of people with a lot of comfort in what they do.
It’s not “fake it till you make it”! You’re not faking your identity. You may be bad at it to start with, but not fake by any means. You just need practice. As we mentioned earlier - you repeat your actions until you’re comfortable with your identity.
Impostor syndrome is actually your greatest friend. It means you’re pushing your boundaries and you’re learning your new identity. Having a healthy amount of fear keeps you on your toes and you’re better prepared to react to changing situations.
To end this week I’ll ask you a last question