I’m afraid my introduction to you all will quickly turn into somewhat of a cliche being Canadian 
.
Let me explain. You know what it’s like. You are watching a YouTube video on the latest and greatest tutorials (Yeah, I was also engulfed in the flames of tutorial hell).
Then it happens… commercial! Arghhhh! There is one I can’t bear to click away from (enter cliche here).
Master Class. Not just any Master Class. This one is a trailer for Margaret Atwood Teaches Creative Writing.
If you don’t know who she is, then I’m sure you would have heard of the popular Netflix Series “The Handmaid’s Tale”. Well she wrote it. Cliche?
I’m a Canadian Expat, living in Europe. Suddenly memories came flooding back of studying Canadian Literature in University almost 25 years ago. Countless hours of reading her novels, books of poetry, even going to a reading of hers in person. So what does this have to do with coding and imposter syndrome??
Despite watching the trailer over and over and over, sometimes even googling it to watch it from time to time, it was only after I decided to go back into coding after a 20 year break that I really got the message.
So, about six months ago, there I was, coding along when boom! Commercial time. I immediately seized the opportunity for a coffee refill whilst intently listening, taking for granted that I knew Atwood’s words of wisdom by heart. Then, what she said stopped me in my tracks:
If you really do want to write and you’re struggling to get started, you’re afraid of something.
– Margaret Atwood
What did she say? It was only then that I realised that this is exactly the reason why I spend too much time watching tutorials instead of coding.
What am I afraid of then? Looking stupid? Failure? Being discovered as a fake? Basically all of the above. And what do all of the above have in common?
You guessed it! Fear.
Fear is crippling and it fuels Imposter Syndrome.
We set out with good intentions. For example: “Today, I’m going to start that bigger project and get out of my comfort zone. I really am this time.” Then you code part way, run into some obstacles and it ends up as a partial project, stowed away in your private repositories on GitHub.
For those of you who don’t really follow what I am getting at here, I have a challenge for you:
Look at your repositories, “What percentage of your repos are private?”
Look at them and ask yourself: “Why are they private? “Why didn’t I finish them?”
Go ahead and write it down. Make a list. Take inventory of your fears.
Atwood continues with:
Any form of human creativity is a process of doing it and getting better at it.
Just do it.
Imagine if you could sit in front of your screen without fear and just code. It doesn’t matter if there are syntax errors, etc. You just code.
Atwood explains creativity as a process. We just don’t wake up one day and become an expert. Neither did she. She wrote and wrote for years and years before getting to the level she is at today.
Atwood continues:
You become a writer by writing. There is no other way.
Coding, coding and more coding.
There really is no other way is there? Practice, practice and more practice is the only way to get better.
Last Atwood quote I promise (you can tell I’m a fan right? Or should I say eh?):
So do it, do it more. Do it better. Fail. Fail better.
Fail better? Ahh yes, perfectionism. The other fuel for Imposter Syndrome.
Well should I say the other component of the fuel for Imposter Syndrome. A fear of Failure.
Think about it: we are all good at something, perhaps even an expert. We have no problem executing those tasks. In fact, we enjoy them.
Why? We don’t fear failure when it comes to taks we are good at. It’s the learning something new and the process of it that we fear the most.
I’ll make a confession. This is my first blog post!
Bob and Julian graciously invited me to write about this and I am honoured to say the least.
This has been at least two weeks in the making. Why? Fear. I can’t write a blog. What if I look stupid? What if no one likes or reads it?
Every single word written in this blog was written by overcoming fear and Imposter Syndrome.
Every. Single. Word.
I had to face my fear and perfectionism head on. “Fail better”, according to my interpretation, means not being afraid to make mistakes. In fact, the ”better” part is referring to learning from those mistakes. How?
A change of attitude towards mistakes.
Let’s change the vocabulary here:
Mistakes/Failures == Learning Opportunities
Fail Better == I’ve chosen to learn from each of my mistakes/failures.
The bottom line is: we all struggle with this. I’m actually a trained Therapist.
So what has helped me in the last two weeks to actually complete this blog? The 20 minute confidence training video by Bob and Julian you can check out at the end of this blog.
Hope you enjoyed this and perhaps next time, I’ll share an interesting anecdote about the elephant …
-Sherry Andrews Bhutia
Pybites Instagram Content Creator and Pythonista
Bonuses: