It’s been over a year since I’ve graduated from my post-secondary education. The year has been filled with new experiences and personal growth.
I remember the time when I had just graduated: I was grateful for the skills that I had accumulated from my graphic design education and was excited to apply them in the real world. Countless job interviews and rejections later, I was able to land an internship offer which led me to full-time opportunities later on.
Before starting in the industry, I felt pretty confident about my design skills and ability to navigate through various design environments, however, I soon realized not everything is taught in school. During my work experiences, there were times where I felt stuck, worried about making mistakes, and being seen as inexperienced by coworkers. I realized that I was experiencing imposter syndrome.
In this article, I want to document my growth and experiences related to imposter syndrome. To those who may relate to this, I hope that my experiences can help with realizing imposter syndrome in workplace situations and how to overcome it
Symptoms of imposter syndrome and how to overcome them
1. “I’m not sure which design concept I should go with..”
Situation: “Should I go with option A or option B? Should I explore more alternatives?” Design is subjective, and experiencing a creative block is very common. In my experience, there were times where I felt overwhelmed by the variety of feedback from my team members. With strong opinions and perspectives on the table, my own opinion gets lost at times is difficult.
Additionally, whenever I receive design feedback from senior team members, I had the tendency to lean towards their opinions and follow them to a T since they had more experience and knowledge than I did. I realized that I lacked knowledge in making a confident decision.
How to overcome it: What helped me gain confidence in making decisions was by forming strong rationales behind my work. I would step back and ask: “Why is it a good solution? Why is it a bad solution? Does it solve the core problem?” Design rationales can be formed by gathering context from existing data and research, assessing the pros and cons of each concept, running validation tests, and/or seeking support from immediate team members and cross-functional teams. These methods can provide new insights, inform decisions, and influence stakeholders why you’ve made a good decision.
By presenting my work to my immediate team (designers, developers, product managers, etc), I was able to evaluate my work through the lens of others. As a result, I was able to build a strong design rationale and improve my confidence in making design decisions. By including others in my work, it makes the design process more informative and engaging.
2. “I need to showcase and produce pixel-perfect designs”
Situation: Maintaining pixel-perfect designs is valued by stakeholders. Likewise, I’m motivated to showcase my craft in front of stakeholders and my team. Before meetings and presentations, I would spend a lot of time preparing refined wireframes and tweaking pixels during the exploratory phase. As feedback and changes are brought up, I find myself revising the wireframes that I’ve already put in so much time tweaking on.
Junior designers may feel the need to showcase their design skills in order to impress their coworkers. The fear of being seen as inexperienced or unknowledgeable is what makes juniors put in extra hours into their work.
How to overcome it: A “perfect” design concept can easily be tossed away if there are better alternatives. During the ideation phase, it’s a good time to diverge and brainstorm ideas without setting boundaries. Exploring early ideas using hi-fidelity wireframes makes it difficult to think outside of the box.
I learned to break away from being “pixel-perfect” by adopting efficient ways to communicate ideas. For example, low-fidelity and mid-fidelity wireframes, diagrams, and user flows are just as effective in communicating ideas as “pixel-perfect” designs.
Other people may have their own idea of “perfection”, so it’s important to have an open mind and accept new ideas from others. Accepting the fact that design is constantly evolving is the first step to letting go of the idea of “perfection”. Don’t spend after-work hours on tweaking pixels!
3. “I have to work overtime in order to constantly improve my skills so that I’m not behind.”
Situation: I’m surrounded by talented coworkers in the workplace every day, and I look up to them as supportive mentors. As a junior-level employee, I felt the need to measure up to their expectations and push myself to work as hard as my seniors. Occasionally, I end up working past work hours and feel burnout, which is not a sustainable nor healthy habit in the long run.
How to overcome it: Consistently delivering output and value is important to self-growth, however, it shouldn’t be tied to being productive all the time. It’s easy to get lost in work and lose track of time, especially when working remotely from home. Working 8+ hours a day and 5 days a week will probably cause burnouts and decrease creative output over time.
To maximize my output, I started to assess and understand my work habits. “When am I the most productive during the day?” I would try to spend most of my creative juices in the most productive hours of the day (or night) and prioritize leftover work for the next day. Work will never be a hundred percent “done”, so there’s no need to stress over unfinished work. In addition, self-assessing your growth and reaching out for personal feedback is a more effective way to measure your growth rather than being productive.
4. “I’m the only one who’s struggling here…”
Situation: Solving a complex and ambiguous design problem can be a challenge. As simple as the design problem can be, I find myself obligated to find answers on my own in order to challenge myself and showcase my skills to others. Finding the right answers to an ambiguous problem is a complicated process to navigate through and it doesn’t take overnight nor one person to do it.
How to overcome it: Truthfully, no one has the right answers to any problem that they are solving. No one is labeled as “perfect”, not even senior-level employees. We test, learn, and incrementally grow our knowledge and thinking as a team.
When I’m given a design problem, I would have conversations with my teammates to gather context and leverage their expertise and knowledge. By doing so, I felt supported by others.
It is extremely helpful to reach out to designers and teammates for feedback. Their support gives you the reassurance that you’re not the only one who’s struggling. Talking to other designers and seniors gives you a glimpse into the way they overcome being stumped with complex design problems. By involving others in your thinking and process, you won’t be struggling or doubling the amount of work on your own.
Closing
It took me a while to realize what “imposter syndrome” looks like until I started experiencing it. Assessing myself helped me understand more about where I needed to improve. Reaching out for personal feedback provided a lot of support and opportunities to combat imposter syndrome symptoms.
Imposter syndrome won’t disappear in a day, but acknowledging your own struggles and opening up with your support network is an important first step. Find opportunities and take small steps to incrementally grow and diminish imposter syndrome symptoms.
Thank you for reading this article. I’m open to hearing about your experiences with imposter syndrome and how you are overcoming it. Feel free to reach out, and let’s grab a virtual coffee :)
