Dealing with imposter syndrome
Imposter syndrome is the belief that you're not good enough to complete the tasks ahead of you, in other words, self-doubt. This can affect anyone with no exception to graphic designers! Designers should always strive for a positive mindset because it's so much harder to work with a lack of confidence.
You might ask why this happens to people. One theory is that it is taught to us as children, that we shouldn't boast about our success and think we are better than others, this is mostly a good thing but it can also lead to an unhealthy relationship with the expression of one’s success, leading to things like imposter syndrome. Another theory is that people who experience imposter syndrome have been previously taught not to attract attention to themselves, leading to them not giving themselves the correct praise for their talents.
On the other hand, we have social pressure. Never before has there been such overwhelming pressure to get outstanding results in exams over and over and outperform your peers in hugely competitive industries. It's completely understandable that with all this pressure you might sometimes second-guess your performance and ask yourself "Am I good enough?"
It's important to address these issues because they can impact your mental health and your ability to produce brilliant designs. This is because people who suffer from imposter syndrome can often seek to overwork themselves to prove they are worthy of their role, this can cause burnout which will lead to poorer quality work.
The first thing you need to realise is that this isn't something you can fix overnight, it's something you need to work on a little bit every day and at some point, you'll start to feel more confident in your design and in yourself.
Next, you need to start believing in compliments and taking praise for your design work. It's so easy to write these off as people being nice but it's important to believe in your peers and trust what they say about you and your work. This leads to the next point, trusting your team, in the design world people will only praise work if they really mean it because it doesn't help people grow to give empty compliments so when someone praises your work it is genuine.
Meditation is also a good strategy because you will become more self-aware about your emotions which is a great start to addressing your unhealthy relationship with addressing success. You could also talk about your situation with people you trust, this is a good way to get reassurance and get things off your chest.
In conclusion, you should work on your mindset a little bit every day, find ways to feel good about your work and slowly build up confidence and imposter syndrome should pass. At Launch Studio we have healthy techniques to help combat these sorts of negative mindsets, we often praise our peers on work and celebrate client feedback to help build confidence and keep imposter syndrome at bay, we believe that creating a healthy environment with your peers is really important for producing higher quality work.
This post should not be taken as mental health advice, that should be received from the pros.
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