Where can I get one of these?

While I got over the worst of this really fast, it's still something that occasionally sneaks up on me. But then I remind myself of how I found out about impostor syndrome.

First off, to me, this wasn't called "impostor syndrome" when I first ran into it. It actually didn't even have a name.

I'd quit multi media design school because it was a snooze-fest. I'd ask a teacher how to centre align a website, and they wouldn't know. Go home, find out on the internet, and next morning show your teacher how it's done.

Fast forward a year and I'm working in a company where we push out a website a week, sometimes more. All of these sold our own products, so I didn't worry about anything other than building as flexible a template as possible that allowed me do the craziest design things with as little effort as possible.

Worked there for 4 years, then got stolen away by a design agency, where I had my first experience with clients.

Now here's the thing. Up until that moment, I'd been ahead of the curve, teaching people around me or doing bleeding-edge stuff. But at the agency things were different. A lot of brilliant minds around, so you start feeling like you're the lesser one. However, due to my experience, I was instantly put in front of clients.

And that's where I found out about the coolest thing ever.

Nobody knows what the #*$&( they're doing.

People would come to us with ideas about "we want our website to do this and that!", "we want the best intranet in the world!", "we want the coolest online shopping experience ever!"

However, none of them had answers to the nitty-gritty implementation or actualisation related questions we had. Some of them didn't even know their OWN PRODUCTS! Even though they'd been selling them for years, they wouldn't know any of the factual details about them!

So whenever I feel like I'm an impostor, I try to go back to that time I spoke to some of my clients. Clients that had no idea what they were doing, yet they owned businesses. They ran companies. They had their own clients.

Nobody knows what they're doing. We all have tools and some knowledge, and we make decisions to the best of our abilities. Trust each-other, and try to get as close to GREATNESS as you can. And iterate. Iterate until you can't iterate no more. (... you can always iterate damnit.)

Hope this didn't get too weird or off-topic. I thought the background might shed some light on how I've been lucky to discover this naturally as opposed to reading about it afterwards. I'm sure if things had moved differently I'd have struggled like crazy with this as well.

TLDR: Nobody knows what they're doing. So when you feel like an impostor, don't worry, we're all in the same boat. Row on!

.edit: holy long-posts, Batman.

.edit2: added tldr.

A great way to get over impostor syndrome is to focus not on how you feel, but on how you make others feel. You might think the homepage you just designed is crap, but if the client is happy then you did a good job no matter what your inner voice says.

roughly 10 years in this business professionally, and this feeling grows stronger every day. the more you know, the more you realize you don't know.

Really love this one pablo! If you ever sell a print ill be the first one to buy it ;)

Love this <3 Thanks for sharing Pablo!

DUDEEEE this is so good. I think so many of us go through this at the beginning and in the middle of our careers. Its always so refreshing when others open up about this and motifate you to keep on keeping on! Great post Pabs.

Always a pleasure to read this comics. Congrats Pablo!