What Kung Fu Panda can teach us about the impostor syndrome
I have to say that Kung Fu Panda is my favorite animated movie, it took me a while to really appreciate it. At first I dismissed it as some sort of goofy mock on the kung fu movies genre.
Some years after the movie release, I finally gave it a change and it immediately became my favorite animated movie. I have since re-watch it a multiple times, including a bunch of other times when I catch it on TV (Yep, regular TV, as in actual TV channels and not a streaming service) and leave it playing in the background for some time. But it wasn’t until my last re-watch recently where something really struck me.
I remember reading an article about Impostor Syndrome on hacker news, the subject was fresh in my mind at the time and as I was watching the movie something clicked and made me realize that Po, the movie protagonist, was actually struggling with the mentioned psychological pattern!
But what is the impostor syndrome ?
The kung fu panda topic got you here and you don’t know what the syndrome actually refers to ? Worry not! I got you, this is the best explanation I could find with my google-fu (See what I did there?):
Have you ever felt like you don’t belong? Like your friends or colleagues are going to discover you’re a fraud, and you don’t actually deserve your job and accomplishments?
If so, you’re in good company. These feelings are known as impostor syndrome, or what psychologists often call impostor phenomenon.
An estimated 70% of people experience these impostor feelings at some point in their lives, according to a review article published in the International Journal of Behavioral Science.
Impostor syndrome affects all kinds of people from all parts of life: women, men, medical students, marketing managers, actors and executives.
[Source: https://time.com/5312483/how-to-deal-with-impostor-syndrome/]
Why do we see the term mentioned and associated so much with Software Engineers and IT? I honestly don’t have the answer with facts, but my guess is that we often struggle with this because the work we do is highly skilled and it often involves high salaries.
I don’t feel like my work could justify how much I’m being paid
I work with very talented people, I don’t think I’m on par with the rest of the team
We’ve all being there, we’ve felt in that position, these are some of the thoughts you might have experienced or are experiencing right now. When I think of the pattern, this is the kind of mindset I associate it with.
This is very interesting, but I don’t see the connection with the movie
Back to the movie, Po the panda protagonist, is appointed by mistake to the title as “Dragon Warrior”, the one kung fu master worthy of receiving the Dragon Scroll, which is said to grant the reader the secret to boundless power. Po couldn’t believe it, it was his dream to get to that position and he just happened to be at the right place at the right time.
Back to us flesh and bones people. You’re fresh out of college or just starting your career as developer (or IT guy or really any other career) when you land your first job. You’re very excited! But also nervous, you probably beat other experienced colleagues to the position and you might even think you got it by mistake or luck. You were at the right place at the right time.
This was the first time I suspected that the movie could teach me something about this strange feeling I’ve been struggling with. So I continued to watch the movie with different eyes. What could this silly fun movie teach me about the Impostor Syndrome ?
The struggle
Just like Po for the rest of the movie, you keep doing your best to feel worthy of your new position, but you can’t help but compare yourself to your team mates and create scenarios of fear in your mind.
What if they realize the real failure I am ?
What if they find out that I don’t know half the stuff they probably do?
All these thoughts can drive you into a state of fear and anxiety accumulating for years, waiting for the right moment to strike. And then comes a point in your career where you fail. You couldn’t complete a goal, you are actually reprimanded. They finally realized, you say to yourself, what a failure I really am. You start to question whether you’re fit for this path or maybe it’s time to think of doing something else, something simpler, something you know and are comfortable with, where things don’t change and you can be forever safe of failure.
Our hero journey (Yes, we are all heroes of our own story) might have come to an end.
What Po can teach us about believing in our selves
After Po failed his training, he gave up and was ready to return to his old place and job, convinced that everything that happened before was just an accident.
Master Shifu was convinced of this as well, he had given up on Po already, but what he didn’t knew was that his old Master, Master Oogway (Underrated mentor figure from movies in my opinion) had already planted a seed on him, the believe that there are no accidents. Master Oogway had already told this thrice to Shifu at this point in the movie.
Everything we do in life leads us to a certain path. Is it a path of success or a path of failure ? That’s on us. Even when it feels like we just keep failing and failing to reach a goal, if you have the right mindset (like taking every failure as a learning process, for example) you’ll be eventually led to a path of success.
Back to Po, our hero finally learned while talking to his Dad, what was he missing, what was keeping him from reaching his destiny as the Dragon Warrior. Believing in himself!
His father (Mr. Ping the goose) told Po that the secret ingredient to his noodle soup was “nothing”, the only thing that made it special was believing that it was.
The mind can be a powerful enemy or ally after all, if all it takes to have it on our side is believing in ourselves we might as well just start doing that! Just like Po did.
You never know, you might be destined to be the next Dragon ̶W̶a̶r̶r̶i̶o̶r̶ Developer/Manager/Accountant/Writer!
In the end, Po overcame his impostor syndrome along with the rest of the obstacles and became the protector the Valley of Peace.
Conclusion
Thanks for bearing with me on this long read (It felt long to write, at least for me!). I hope that you enjoyed it and learned something new about The Impostor Syndrome or Kung Fu Panda.
And remember, next time you feel lost in your career or life, take a good look at the mirror (Or dragon scroll!) and you’ll find the secret to infinite power/wisdom, I know it’s in there, you just have the right mindset to see it :)
Skadoosh!
