Here are my notes from the ~ 45 min talk by Rahat Chowdhury.
What is CBT?
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is a talk therapy where you challenge your thoughts.
Example of an initial thought (imposter syndrome):
They gave me the job and I don’t understand why. I couldn’t finish the code challenge and the interviewer had to guide me through the process. How will I manage to do this job on my own?
Cognitive Distortions
Cognitive Distortions are how your mind fools you.
Examples:
- filtering: removing the positive information and focusing on the negative ones
- catastrophizing - exaggerating an event to an absolute worst case scenario
- always being right
- polarized thinking
- overgeneralization
- jumping to conclusions
- fallacy of change
- shoulds: “I should have done that differently.”
Challenge your thoughts!
Imposter Syndrome
We need to explore the deeper reasoning behind our imposter syndrome.
Strategies to Help With Imposter Syndrome
- record your wins (in private or public)
- wins are wins even if they are small
- use those for stories to tell in interviews
- remember that it’s a process: you will suck at it first, until you get better
Links
- CBT for Imposter Syndrome and Career Advancement – Rahat Chowdhury – Virtual Coffee Brownbag
- Rahat Chowdhury
- Virtual Coffee — a community for all developers