I started my professional life as an intern at Damia. Today I am a Marketing and Communications Assistant, working toward becoming the kind of professional my team can rely on. Most days, I feel like I am getting closer to that. Some days, a small voice in my head says “you are not that good.”
That voice has a name. It is called impostor syndrome, and writing about it publicly is one of the harder things I have done at work.
What impostor syndrome actually is
It is not classified as a mental disorder by the WHO, but it is widely recognised as a psychological pattern: a persistent feeling that your skills, talents, or achievements do not really belong to you, and that sooner or later you will be found out.
In practical terms, it means doubting yourself even when the evidence says you should not. It means interpreting constructive feedback as confirmation that you are failing, and interpreting praise as something you somehow got away with.
This pattern is common across generations, but it lands differently when you are early in your career and grew up with social media as a constant reference point. My generation is connected around the clock, scrolling through people who appear to have better jobs, better skills, better everything. It is difficult not to internalise that as a benchmark and feel like you are falling short. The irony, in my case, is that social media is one of my main working tools.
How it showed up for me
When I started my internship, a big part of my role was design and creative work. In the early months, I found it genuinely difficult to share what I had made. Not because I had not tried, but because I was afraid of the feedback. If someone told me the work needed improving, my brain did not hear “here is how to make it better.” It heard “you are not good enough, and now they know.”
That interpretation is wrong, of course. It took time to understand that, and more time to build habits that keep the voice quiet. The thoughts have not disappeared entirely. What has changed is that I have stopped letting them make decisions for me.
What has helped
These are not universal fixes. They are the specific things that have helped me manage impostor syndrome at work over the last year.
Talking about it openly. When I started mentioning how I felt to colleagues, I discovered that many of them carried the same doubts. Knowing you are not alone in the pattern does not cure it, but it takes away a lot of the shame.
Physical activity. Exercise has been the most reliable way for me to interrupt the overthinking cycle. It is not complicated: move your body, and the internal noise drops.
Choosing your environment deliberately. Surround yourself with people who are generous with honesty and support. If your workplace does not provide that, invest in it outside work. And be that person for others, it is as helpful for you as it is for them.
Accepting variable output. Not every day will be 100%. Some days your best is 60%, or 40%, or 80%. If it is genuinely your best on that day, it is enough.
Not collapsing your identity into your job. Your work is one part of who you are. You are also a friend, a family member, a person with interests that have nothing to do with a screen. Reducing your identity to your professional output is the fastest way to let impostor syndrome win.
Why I wrote this
Living with impostor syndrome does not make you an impostor. It means you care enough about your work to worry about whether it is good. That is not a weakness. It becomes a problem only when the worry stops you from doing the work, sharing the work, or enjoying the work.
I am still learning. But I would rather be honest about that than pretend I have it all figured out.
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