Ten tips for overcoming imposter syndrome
This article is part of our Get into Games special, offering students insight on life in the games industry and advice on how to get into the business
Despite being a straight-A student in school and going on to graduate with a first from Abertay University, Eilidh MacLeod – now a senior game designer at Media Molecule – never felt that she was good enough.
Like many, she struggled with imposter syndrome, a set of feelings that mean you ignore your successes and choose to believe you are good at what you are doing.
"Some of the most common characteristics of imposter syndrome [are] self-doubt, undervaluing your contributions, attributing your success to external factors, setting unrealistic expectations for yourself and a fear of never being able to live up to those expectations," MacLeod explained on the Academy stage at EGX 2023.
"Imposter syndrome tries to reinforce those feelings of inefficacy, convincing us that we aren't skilled enough to do that, to answer that question, to speak up in that meeting, to have an opinion on that, to go for that role."
Over the years, MacLeod has worked to overcome her feelings of imposter syndrome and has kindly shared how she did so as a game designer.
Understanding the individual elements of a game and breaking them down rather than just having an opinion on a game has proven very important in helping MacLeod develop her voice and, therefore, her communication skills.
"Learning to break apart games into their component parts and speak about them objectively would be the key to me really improving my communication skills in design," she said.
"I lived on Deconstructor of Fun and learnt how to deconstruct games, and understand systems and the intention behind the design decisions that were made. Feeling confident in my understanding of a game or a particular game ensured that I was suddenly going into conversations, meetings, and interviews with a point of view because I understood the intention behind the design.
"I cannot stress enough
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