What If Your Imposter Syndrome Is Lying About the Thing You're Best At?
I spent a decade thinking I was the "make things pretty guy." Turns out, they picked me because I understood systems.
I’m standing in a conference room with 20 people. Art directors, producers, experience designers from FIFA, NHL, and Madden.
Some faces I know. Most I don’t.
We’re defining what would become UXF: the initiative to unify the UI across EA Sports’ biggest franchises. The pitch to leadership was clean: better user experience, lower development costs.
Simple.
Except nothing about this is fucking simple.
I’m trying to explain why we need to build the foundations before we start on the rooms. This is before “design systems” became a thing, before there was a shared vocabulary for what I’m trying to describe.
And I can feel myself losing the thread.
My palms are sweating. My voice gets quieter. My thoughts are scrambling. Three different explanations running in parallel and I can’t figure out which one to use.
And underneath it all, the voice:
They think you’re just the “make things pretty” guy. They’re waiting for you to stop talking so someone who actually understands systems can take over.
I’m trying to read the room. Neutral faces that could mean anything. Someone checking their phone. Are they bored? Confused? Do they think this is bullshit?
The meeting ends.
No clear consensus.
No confirmation that anyone absorbed what I said. Just... ambiguity.
I walk out wondering if we’re even on the same page. Wondering if I’m the right person for this. Pretty fucking sure I’m not.
Here’s the thing about imposter syndrome with RSD and ADHD: it’s not just doubt. It’s your threat detection system hijacking your working memory in real time.
It’s losing your train of thought because half your brain is scanning faces for signs of rejection.
It’s walking out of important meetings with zero reliable data about how it went, just the certainty that you fucked it up.
The worst part is that I’d been doing this for over a decade at that point. I’d shipped UI for major titles. I’d managed teams through platform transitions.
None of it mattered in that room.
The next year, we shipped FIFA, NHL, and Madden with a mostly unified UI.
Not perfectly unified. But unified enough.
The foundations I’d scrambled to explain? They worked.
The thing I was convinced I couldn’t articulate? Teams built on it.
And my brain’s response? Yeah, but that was luck.
Lucky timing. Lucky team. Lucky that the right people championed it when I couldn’t. The imposter syndrome doesn’t give up just because you have evidence. It just gets creative with explanations.
But here’s what repetition does: it makes “luck” a less and less believable story.
Another project. Another high-stakes initiative. Another room where I’m convinced they’re about to realize I don’t belong. Another thing that ships anyway.
And another.
And another.
Time gives you perspective that the moment can’t. Eventually, you look back at the pattern and realize: luck doesn’t explain 25 years of shipping. Luck doesn’t explain teams choosing you to lead complex initiatives. Luck doesn’t explain the thing you were most afraid of, that you didn’t understand systems, being the exact reason they wanted you in that room.
The “make things pretty guy” story was never real.
They picked me for UXF because I understood systems.
The imposter syndrome had me convinced I was faking the very thing that qualified me for the job.
Here’s what I know now that I didn’t know in that conference room:
The scrambled thoughts weren’t evidence of incompetence. They were my ADHD brain making connections across franchises, seeing patterns in UI that others weren’t seeing yet, trying to communicate something that didn’t have language yet.
The quiet voice wasn’t weakness. It was me trying to make space for 20 different perspectives while my RSD screamed that silence meant rejection.
The uncertainty I walked out with? Everyone in that room probably felt some version of it. Because we were trying to do something that hadn’t been done before.
Uncertainty wasn’t proof I didn’t belong. It was proof the work mattered.
If you’re reading this and recognizing yourself, if you’ve sat in rooms convinced you’re about to be exposed, if you’ve shipped things and attributed them to luck, if your brain tells you everyone else has credentials you’re missing, here’s what I need you to hear:
The feeling isn’t evidence.
Your different processing style, the one that makes you feel like you’re faking it, might be exactly why you’re seeing things others miss.
The struggle to articulate something that doesn’t have vocabulary yet isn’t proof you don’t understand it. It’s proof you’re ahead of the language.
I didn’t overcome imposter syndrome by fixing myself or finally becoming qualified enough. I overcame it by collecting enough evidence that my brain’s story about luck stopped being believable.
You’re probably already more qualified than you think. You’re just measuring yourself by standards that were never designed for how your brain works.
The work will prove it. You just have to stay in the room long enough to see the pattern.
If this resonated with you, share it with someone who needs to hear it.
There's a designer, a developer, a creative sitting in a room right now convinced they're about to be found out. Send them this. Let them know they're not alone.