genuine question. i've been in the US for 5 years, worked at two companies, been promoted once. by any measure i'm doing fine. but every time i'm in a leadership meeting i get this very specific anxiety that's different from regular imposter syndrome.
it's like: everyone else grew up here, absorbed the unwritten rules, knows what "good" looks like in this particular cultural context. and i'm reverse-engineering all of it in real time while also trying to do my job.
some of it might be real, like there are probably references and cultural shorthand i miss. but i can't tell how much of it is legitimate gap vs. my brain inventing reasons to feel like i don't belong.
anyone else navigating this?
4 replies
intl_isla
yes. this exact thing. the cultural reverse-engineering is exhausting and it's invisible to everyone around you. i've started thinking of it as a second job i don't get paid for.
the thing that helped me was realizing that the "unwritten rules" aren't actually mastered by most people who grew up here either. they just perform confidence about it. the gap is smaller than it looks from the outside.
visa_vik
"they just perform confidence about it" -- this is doing a lot of work for me right now. thank you.
director_dee
I'd push back gently on framing all of it as imposter syndrome. Some of the gaps you're describing are real, not imagined. And noticing them means you're more self-aware than most. The people who have fully absorbed the unwritten rules often can't see them at all, which means they can't adapt when the rules need to change. Your external vantage point is genuinely useful.
market_realist
worked with a lot of international colleagues over the years and the ones who felt this way were almost always some of the most rigorous thinkers in the room. correlation isn't causation but it's not nothing either.