- Hey, this is Overpass Insights.
My name is Eric, and I make apps.
Now today, let's talk a bit about New Year's Resolutions
and the imposter syndrome.
(energetic rock music)
All right, so here we are, we're into the new year.
We're like a week into it, almost a full week
into the new year.
And this is one of my favorite times of year
because you get to see a bunch of overweight people
out running on the road, right? (laughs)
And so, you know, there are not as many as last week,
and it's gonna start to dwindle off.
And we know that, you know, towards the end
of the month, fewer people are gonna be doing it,
but right now, there's still some enthusiasm
of people going out there, and they realize they have
to get in shape.
And I love seeing people who are out of shape out running.
Not because it's funny to see them run
or because, you know, it makes me feel more fit
or anything like that.
You know, because I know what it's like.
I know what it's like, those initial stages.
It makes me feel good, because you know
that they're doing what they should do,
but you also know that imposter syndrome is at work.
You know, at some point, there's gonna be a little voice
in the back of their head that says, yeah,
this is not for me, this isn't working,
or it's not going as fast as I want to,
or I'm just not this kind of person.
And that's why you stop doing it.
And we all suffer from that.
You know, I definitely do.
My thing is, well, running's never been an issue for me
because when I was 18 years old,
I had a drill sergeant yelling in my face saying, run,
and I kinda kept it up over the years.
But going to the gym was something I only started doing
a few years ago.
And I can remember going to the gym feeling like,
everybody's looking at me, everyone can see
I don't know what I'm doing, everyone can see I'm not
in shape enough to be here, everyone can see
I'm a little bit tubby, I have no muscles,
you know, I don't belong, you know.
And it's intimidating.
It's intimidating to get started and to keep it going,
especially when you don't see gains immediately,
then you start to trail off.
Even though every doctor ever in the whole world
has said, that's what you have to do.
But it's the same way with YouTube videos.
You put YouTube videos out there, nobody watches,
and then you think, well, this obviously isn't working.
Maybe I should just quit.
Or blogs, as well, you know, back in the day.
It takes a lot to keep going
when you're not seeing the results
that you want to immediately and that doubt
in your head starts to go, thinking maybe this just
isn't for me.
Maybe this just isn't gonna work.
And the same with the apps, right?
You put your app on the App Store.
I mean, I think, because I've been this way
almost every app we've put out, I'm thinking,
this is gonna be huge, this is gonna be great.
And then it's not, initially.
And then we have to think, how do we get people in there?
Or do we just give up on it?
Is this not gonna work?
Is this gonna work or not?
'Cause unlike going to the gym or going for a run,
which is scientifically proven to work,
you never know whether the tactics you're using
are gonna work or not.
But you know they're not gonna work
if you don't try them.
So imposter syndrome's something we all deal with.
I deal with it all the time.
I deal with it, for me,
it's like going into business meetings.
Going into business meetings and you're sitting there
with a client and they're asking questions.
Like, everything's good, technically.
You know, how would you do this, how would you do that?
Everything's good.
Then they'll say something like,
is your company ISO 9001 certified, or whatever.
Or 9000i certified.
And you're like, no.
You know, do you have this certification?
Do you have that certification?
You're like, no, no.
And sometimes, it could just get on you.
You're thinking, I don't belong here.
Maybe I should just give up.
Maybe I should just quit.
But we all push through.
And I mean, this is a whole thing about January.
Some people will make it through,
some people won't make it through.
Some people will, you know, 'cause it doesn't really,
you know, New Year's doesn't make a difference.
What New Year's does is it gave us an excuse.
It gave us an excuse to start new things,
because we could say, well hey,
it's my New Year's Resolution.
That's why I'm doing this thing
that is uncharacteristic of me,
because it's a New Year's Resolution, right?
Whereas if you just started it on a Tuesday in March,
you know, maybe, you know, you'd feel like,
yeah, maybe, you know.
I don't know, it's weird the way we think about things.
But we all have those demons, (laughs) those demons,
and you know, and I wish I could, you know,
I wish I could say to everybody who's out there running,
you know, keep doing it 'cause you know
this is what you have to do.
And we know that it's gonna be hard for you.
And when you're releasing an app to the App Store,
and all your friends know about it,
and they're asking you how many downloads you've gotten,
and you haven't got a lot, you're doing
what you're supposed to do.
Or if you release a YouTube video
and then nobody's watching it, right?
I talk to people all the time, they give up because,
eh, nobody was watching it anyway.
It's like, keep going.
Keep doing what you have to do.
Like, the process is, you know, go, go, go,
and you know, eventually.
Seth Godin had a book called "The Dip,"
where he talked about you get to the point
where you get to the dip, and it's either you quit
or you press through and hope, right?
The difficult thing about app development,
the difficult thing about business,
the difficult thing about any kind of creative work
is you're never quite 100% sure if it's gonna work.
If you did, it would be easy to keep going.
But you're never sure, so a lot of it takes faith
and hope and just pressing forward.
So for all of you guys out there
who are still sticking with your New Year's Resolutions,
and I'm sticking with mine so far.
My big one at the moment is the same one
that's been almost every year and I don't get through,
is to meditate every day, right?
I wanna get into the meditation habit.
I've read so many books on meditation
and I just can't, you know, taking 20 minutes
to do nothing is really hard sometimes.
But that's mine.
Anyway, I hope you guys are keeping up
with your New Year's Resolutions if you have any.
And if you didn't do any, dude, it's not too late.
Start it now.
Just star a, you know, January whatever date it is.
January 6th resolution.
So anyway, let me know what you guys think.
That's it, that's just my thoughts for today.
That's it for today.
I'll talk to you guys again tomorrow.
(bright upbeat music)