It hit me today that I have been an over-achiever, but there was no requirement for that quality as a human being to begin with.
This is also nobody's fault because I remember faint instances of friends or family telling me to slow down. The frailty of those voices was attributed to a pair of (mostly in-ear, noise cancelling) earphones that was on me 70-80% of the time.
This thought was triggered two days after dusting off my CV for the first time in a while.
I realised that my struggle was balancing relevancy, accuracy & conciseness to fit a targeted position.
Once or twice, I felt as if the content would be mistaken for exaggeration and put to task to prove the narratives therein - this means technical exams during job applications, which tend to favour professional exam takers & not the real problem solvers. Problem solving, in my humble opinion, is more than just taking a one time evaluation. I had these moments when I though that my own CV was too much for the position, and that maybe I needed to downplay some of my achievements by omitting them from the CV. I now comprehend this experience to be what is called imposter syndrome.
I do remember sharing with friends and colleagues about this "imposter syndrome". We shared some TED talk links on the concept. My default response was to identify the signs in others - especially junior colleagues who would, by natural design, be at risk of experiencing it's reality and how it in turn affects me or my deliverables as a team member or friend. This group happened to be entry level engineers or more popularly - "Junior Devs". I imagined that I was effective at pointing out the imposter syndrome in team members who happened to largely determine my own deliverables.
Knowing about imposter syndrome was just but another dataset in my mind. A dataset I had to pay attention to so that my delivery was solid. Seeing how I lived in the reality of this phenomenal, would be comprehension and, ironically, humility.
The situation that kicked off my comprehension was when a family member sent me a youtube link about imposter syndrome.
I remember telling myself that I don't experience it, because I am well aware of what imposter syndrome is. "Why would I click the link? I was the guy who used to send others those links." - So my mind went.
The idea of putting myself under self scrutiny with the purpose of identifying any hint of imposter syndrome & how it affects me & others seemed like a crime against myself. The truth is, the universe had brought this concept to me because I was in denial about my own imposter syndrome all this time. I did not even realise how much imposter syndrome affected the relationships I had with others. I had risen my bar for relationships to an unrealistic set of expectations. A friend who I respected once told me that I should stop living in a bubble. The bubble I was living in was that of a version of me that was always possible in the future after I had achieved certain targets in life. I never accepted, nor appreciated my current unimproved version of myself. I never felt good enough, not in my career, not as a friend, not as a husband, not even as a father. To be honest, my palms were always sweaty and had constant butterflies in my stomach whenever my self worth in any form was externally or internally under scrutiny. The sad part was that I got quite excellent at masking this terrible experience by being a funny guy. I became excellent at small talk. I became an excellent manipulator so that I would divert any conversations about my self worth to other topics. Looking back, it was a terrible existence that no human should be made to live.
Updating your CV has the potential to get you into a mental space where you’re trying to match up expectations set by someone else who holds one key to your next pay check or career move.
No wonder, the temptations to lie, withhold relevant information, use intentional ambiguity to your advantage, can be part of the CV editing experience.
Would one be wrong to assume that the experience is usually more excruciating during oral interviews?
This means that you’re always matching yourself to a pre-defined role. Others always seem to need to see more achievements from you. More trophies. More certificates. More degrees. Few are willing to grow with you, more want to see you already grown up. Many want the finished product, not the product in the making. This is just the reality of the job market, and quite frankly the human experience in general.
This is by no means an online rant.
It’s a call for awareness about general mental health issues attributed to the very nature of how we work & relate with one another.
Imposter syndrome is a trauma response to constantly evolving (job/life) requirements.
Think of someone who lost a job as a result of process automation, job role replaced by a computer (software, hardware, robot and recently - A.I Robots) & the impact on their view of self worth.
Think of innovations such as Safaricom’s Zuri and it’s future impact on the customer care job market & people therein.
I realised that I had based my self worth on employability & my ability to generate income.
Unfortunately, the ideal skillset always seem to be out of reach. This feeling and state of constant need to improve to be competitive never left me since the first version of my CV. I can’t imagine what it’s like for others, but if the experience is anything like mine, I’d like to say it here that you’re not alone. Let’s face it, it’s a pretty predatory world out there where you have to either grow teeth, or be eaten.
That race for constant improvement came to a screeching halt in 2021 with what I now understand to have been the height of a mental breakdown. This shook all my relationships from family members, colleagues, friends & acquaintances. I had experienced depression for a very long time. The first time I felt the need to look into the issue was about 10 years ago when I took myself into a psychiatrist. I figured I couldn’t afford the professional fees since I was just starting my career and the pay at the time wasn’t enough for me to keep seeing a psychiatrist. I turned into good guy Dr. Google and over the years self medicated with anything google promised would work. I can say that among the many things I tried, mindfulness or (self) awareness and meditation seem to be a good solution. It helps you reconnect with your very being and remember what really matters - you.
When you wake up and breathe, that’s basically it - it’s another day you won the lotto of life. Just like you won that other lotto of a sperm cell among many to be able to have been born to read this. You’re living & everything else is extra. You’re also complete and enough as a human being. You really don’t need anyone to validate the idea of who you tell yourself to be.
When you can’t keep up with demands (explicit or implicit), you start falling off. I know this because I did & I would like to share this here for anyone who mirrors my own experience.
There is no requirement to over-achieve. There is no requirement to be perfect. Don’t even bother.
Here’s a thought provoking cartoon - "Happiness - by Steve Cutts" that I think goes well with this post.
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