Impostor or over thinker?

One of the biggest struggles I have is constantly overthinking things. If I’m working on something outside my comfort zone, sometimes overthink by focusing too much on the “best” way to do it. I can spend so much time trying to think of the “best” way that I end up losing sight of what I’m trying to actually get done or forget what I’ve just learned in the process of trying to do it. This doesn’t usually happen in my day to day when I’m working on things well within my comfort zone though, so that is good haha.

I never used to be this way. I used to write code, the code worked then I would move on. Of course, as I’ve grown, learned more and started to explorer several developer communities, it has gotten worse. I think this is due to most developer communities being rather toxic for people that suffer from imposter syndrome. On these communities, the people that tend to stand out and be vocal are the self proclaimed ‘wizards’. You’ve encountered these people in other communities, they are the people that always know the right answer, the right way of doing things and are never wrong and usually just give criticism that isn’t constructed. You feel 10x dumber when one of these people replies to one of your posts. These people overshadow the members of the communities that are truly trying to be helpful. These people are the main reason I never post any problems I encounter online, since I’m afraid of the responses I’ll get back. I have recently learned that the Dunning-Kruger effect exists, and that these people likely fall into that category or they’re just assholes, either way, I should learn to ignore then.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently with my latest ‘prototype’ game project (see previous posts). I’ve been stuck on the “right” way of doing a basic combat system, that I haven’t even started to implement one. A friend (and somewhat of a mentor) at work once told me that I shouldn’t focus too much on the ‘best’ way at first, but just getting it done, and I can always refactor it later. I think this is pretty good advice, although part of me still doubts it and I’m not sure why.

Whenever I’m feeling down and like an impostor, I like to reread this blog post and it seems to help me every time.

Anyway, this isn’t a rather information blog post, just something random that has been on my mind. One of my personal goals in 2018 is to be better at self doubt and overthinking (all aspects of my life).