“Impostor syndrome” is a belief that you don’t deserve the success or luck that you enjoy. In the tech world, it is often a sense that you aren’t “living up to” the title you hold, or team you lead, or something like that.

Impostor syndrome can be quite crippling, because it robs you of the confidence to take risks, make mistakes, and grow as a person and an employee.

These are some of the tricks that I’ve discovered for overcoming impostor syndrome and freeing yourself to grow, learn, and create.

Are you an “analyzer?” Do you like to know all the details about a situation before committing to an action? Do you sometimes find yourself stuck in a cycle of evaluating and re-evaluating options?

Whether you are or not, you almost certainly work with people like this. One of my internal saboteurs is the Stickler, and he likes to tell me to “do it perfectly or not at all.”

This is a recipe for disaster or—at the very least—for stagnation.

What if the only thing standing between you and the growth, joy, and success you desire is… You?

Everyone has inner parts of themselves that sabotage, distract, and create self-doubt. I’m not sure who originally coined this, but these parts of us are often termed “saboteurs” or “inner critics.”

Once you learn what yours are, and what they look or sound like, you’ll start to recognize when you’re standing in the way of achieving your own desired goals.

“Execute with urgency.”

“Deliver with agility.”

“Bias to action.”

You’ve probably heard some version of this sentiment in your work life, as modern businesses have placed increasing value on speed. This is for good reason: we know that many industries are “winner take most,” and whoever builds that competitive moat first can come out on top.

But what if I told you that many modern companies miss the point completely? What can you do to model true speed and to help your team do the same?

If you don’t recognize that symbol to the right, you are (perhaps) among the lucky few. The icon is the “message waiting” indicator for the very popular workplace collaboration tool Slack, and it’s been slowly killing me.