Everyone’s an impostor.
Everyone’s terrified. No one knows what they want to work on. Everyone has something that they find hard. Because this stuff IS really hard. If they aren’t anxious or nervous, they are compensating. Never walk into a room and expect that you are the smartest person in it, because you probably aren’t. Don’t let that scare you, let it feed you. Do what you do the best that you can do it and that is your success. The most successful in this business are not always the smartest. They are the luckiest, or products of their environment, or maximizing where opportunity meets preparation. Everyone will second-guess themselves. Everyone will feel like they don’t belong. Everyone will feel like they are the first person to ever make that mistake. We’ve all made that mistake.
You made it in. You belong here … for as long as you want to be here. You aren’t pretending to be anything, you aren’t an impostor. You’ve proven yourself. You’re a scientist. Go discover something … go observe. Big or small, you’ll be the first to see it. And that’s why we do this.
