When I joined my first company, I remember feeling excited and scared at the same time.
First few weeks were fine. New place, new people, everything felt fresh. Then slowly, reality hit. Meetings started going over my head. People spoke confidently about things I had barely heard of. I would sit there thinking, how do they know all this and I don’t?
I didn’t ask many questions. I was scared of sounding stupid. So I did what most of us do. I nodded in meetings and tried to figure things out later on my own.
There were days I went back home feeling heavy. Not because work was hard, but because I kept doubting myself. I genuinely felt like I didn’t belong there. Like I had somehow slipped through the cracks and one day someone would notice.
But something changed with time.
I kept showing up.
I kept learning quietly.
I started understanding things, one by one.
That fear didn’t disappear in a day. It slowly faded as confidence started coming from real work, not from pretending. The same meetings that scared me once started making sense. I wasn’t the smartest in the room, but I wasn’t lost anymore.
Looking back, that phase taught me a lot.
Feeling like an imposter doesn’t mean you’re weak. It usually means you’re new and growing. Confidence comes later. Much later.
If you’re in that initial phase right now, feeling lost and questioning yourself, just know this: almost everyone starts there.
Stay. Learn. Let time do its job.