Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Healthy Self-Doubt

nerdygirl.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 129 posts

Re: Healthy Self-Doubt

#91

Post by hnarn »

Negitivefrags wrote: post #3

Imposter syndrome such a popular thing to belive in because actually most people really do suck at their jobs. I see a similar sentiment all the time where people say things along the lines of "Nobody really feels like an adult, we are all just muddling through" etc etc. Actually no, some of us actually have our shit sorted out and are actual adults.

> Imposter syndrome such a popular thing to belive in because actually most people really do suck at their jobs.

Most people who I have encountered that are really really bad at their job do not suffer from impostor syndrome, because the whole point of impostor syndrome is that you are open to your own vulnerability and your own incompetence.

The people that are exceedingly and amazingly bad at their jobs are often bad because they refuse to learn, because they don't feel they need to. They don't practice humility, they don't ask open questions to learn and they don't improve their processes over time.

So while it's easy to kick in an open door and say "everybody can't be smart so some 'impostors' must actually be bad at their jobs" I think it's more useful to take a step back and try to focus on what behaviors and mindsets lead to development and growth, and which do not. I strongly believe that having impostor syndrome rarely correlates with refusing to learn due to one being convinced of one's own brilliance.

Re: Healthy Self-Doubt

#92

Post by hnarn »

MaxBarraclough wrote: post #4
Negitivefrags wrote: post #3

Imposter syndrome such a popular thing to belive in because actually most people really do suck at their jobs. I see a similar sentiment all the time where people say things along the lines of "Nobody really feels like an adult, we are all just muddling through" etc etc. Actually no, some of us actually have our shit sorted out and are actual adults.

> Imposter syndrome such a popular thing to belive in because actually most people really do suck at their jobs. The question then is whether there's a correlation between professional confidence and job performance.

Both "professional confidence" and "job performance" are hard, if not impossible, to quantify, so I'm not sure how one would even begin to answer that question.

Re: Healthy Self-Doubt

#93

Post by hnarn »

Hackbraten wrote: post #30
martindbp wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, one particular pet peeve for me is the idea that the personal finance part of "adulting" is hard. It's really not. Live (far) below your means and invest the difference, that's it. Somehow 1.3B Chinese can maintain an average savings rate of 30%, but people in the west cannot help but live paycheck to payceck? Of course, few people are willing to actually go through with it, but it's not difficult to understand.…

Don’t assume that what’s easy for you is easy for everyone else. There’s more to getting out of debt than just basic math. I’ve been trying to keep track of my expenses for more than 20 years but no success so far. I do have online banking and a list of contracts but there’s no way for me to figure out how much money I actually have left. Because for example, that yearly medical copay may be around the corner. I have…

> I do have online banking and a list of contracts but there’s no way for me to figure out how much money I actually have left.

Here's some relatively easy exercises (just arithmetic and basic excel):

1.) Export your last 12/24/48 months of bank transactions (money in, money out) and calculate how much money you spent in that period, and how much money you made in that period. Is it positive or negative?

Tip: If you have a row of + and - entries, you can just sum up the entire column for a quick idea. Still ,it's good to break it down by period, maybe you had a rough year that offsets the others.

If positive: You're making money. This is good, but it's still a good idea to find out how much of your money goes to what. Try grouping your expenses (negatives) per year into things you have to pay (rent, medical etc) and things you don't (restaurants, pubs, gadgets).

If negative: Urgently figure out what's making you bleed the most money. Group your expenses into detailed categories and figure out what you spend the most money on.

"Grouping" is as easy as copying and pasting into different parts of the document. As you start grouping, you'll encounter new expenses that you can't fit into a category, so you can create a new one and improve your overall categorization.

Sure, this takes time, and some patience. But you can definitely do it if you just sit down and spend an hour or so.

Also, remember that while income is important, what makes your poor is your expenses. I would argue that most people in financial trouble can almost ignore their incomes and focus solely on picking apart their expenses, because like my friend's grandma once said: it's not the large income that makes you rich, it's the small expense. Also, most people kind of know their expenses, because they're so much simpler. Expenses are usually complex.

Re: Healthy Self-Doubt

#94

Post by hnarn »

pnutjam wrote: post #76
martindbp wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually don't think you need to track expenses much, at least I don't. I did at first at 18 just to make sure I could survive on the $1000 I got in loans and subsidies by the government at the time. What I recommend is to focus on the big expenses, those are what gets you. That is, housing, transportation, medical (if you live in the US, but there's maybe not much you can do here). Don't go for the most expensive…

I'm on the Midwest, it's not as easy over here as you think. The salary of your first job can hold down your income for a decade, you might not even realize how underpaid you are.

> The salary of your first job can hold down your income for a decade

Why is that?

Re: Healthy Self-Doubt

#95

Post by hnarn »

martindbp wrote: post #11
Negitivefrags wrote: post #3

Imposter syndrome such a popular thing to belive in because actually most people really do suck at their jobs. I see a similar sentiment all the time where people say things along the lines of "Nobody really feels like an adult, we are all just muddling through" etc etc. Actually no, some of us actually have our shit sorted out and are actual adults.

Yes, one particular pet peeve for me is the idea that the personal finance part of "adulting" is hard. It's really not. Live (far) below your means and invest the difference, that's it. Somehow 1.3B Chinese can maintain an average savings rate of 30%, but people in the west cannot help but live paycheck to payceck? Of course, few people are willing to actually go through with it, but it's not difficult to understand.…

> 1.3B Chinese can maintain an average savings rate of 30%

This is a good example of a statistic where the average is meaningless if you don't also know the median.

Also, which specific statistic are you referring to?

Re: Healthy Self-Doubt

#96

Post by vharuck »

Negitivefrags wrote: post #3

Imposter syndrome such a popular thing to belive in because actually most people really do suck at their jobs. I see a similar sentiment all the time where people say things along the lines of "Nobody really feels like an adult, we are all just muddling through" etc etc. Actually no, some of us actually have our shit sorted out and are actual adults.

Imposter syndrome is hard to evaluate because it's comparing three levels of skill:

1. Your skill

2. The skill required to do your job well

3. (Implicitly) The skill of your peers

The third one is what gets a lot of people who don't directly work with peers. In that case, one can only go by what one hears. And people who blog are self-selected and biased toward having high skills. The non-self-promoting experts are famous for doing great work, so they're even more likely to have high skills.

But I think #2 needs to taken into account. You may not be an expert in your field. But if everyone you work with comes to you for help with a task, and you're able to help them, then you're the in-house expert. Unless you want to be a expert among experts, that's not bad.

Re: Healthy Self-Doubt

#97

Post by agumonkey »

TopHand wrote: post #23

For most of my career I worked with a small group (20 to 30) group of highly educated and mostly brilliant people. I barely graduated high school. As the years passed and we all began to age, I realized that the amount of knowledge we all had obtained during our tenure was an irreplaceable resource for the company. In order to help the younger incoming people bypass this learning curve I set up a wiki where group mem…

Reminds me of a tiny anecdote:

in junior high, a new guy straight from africa asked to play tic tac toe with us, he never played. So we hustled him a little bit, and quickly he went into open curiosity mode, wanting to know all the rules. He went away for an hour and after beat us all mercilessly :)

I'm very sad about how adult life chaos makes most people turn on stealth enemy mode, or stealth anxious mode.. it require us to become 'hungry' (not to say sharks) to ensure reaching our maximum efficiency.

Re: Healthy Self-Doubt

#98

Post by realbarack »

TopHand wrote: post #33
tomrod wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imposter syndrome or job security? I've seen both.

I learned a long time ago that if you share your knowledge freely with your co-workers that only increases your job security. I postulate this plays off imposter syndrome. Your co-workers think to themselves, if this person is willing to share that knowledge, what are they holding back?

I don't think this has much to do with imposter syndrome. A person who can scale their knowledge across an organization is simply a more valuable employee than an equally-skilled person whose knowledge is mostly not shared.

Re: Healthy Self-Doubt

#99

Post by pnutjam »

hnarn wrote: post #94
pnutjam wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm on the Midwest, it's not as easy over here as you think. The salary of your first job can hold down your income for a decade, you might not even realize how underpaid you are.

> The salary of your first job can hold down your income for a decade Why is that?

Most employers ask you what your previous salary was, or get it from your past employer. Salary is not protected information. https://www.marketplace.org/2020/07/08/how-salary-history-ba...
Post reply on HN