Do you feel “good enough” to make games?

I just wanted talk about feeling worthy enough to do something that you have the capacity and talent for. That sinking feeling that some people might have that they should not be allowed to do something because they do not have permission to do it can hold them back.

So many times in my life, especially in game development, I have had the feeling that I have no right to develop games because neither they nor I were good enough. I did not feel like a professional game developer.

At the start of my career, I thought that this feeling of not being worthy enough was something unique only to me, and for a long time I did not want to talk about it with anyone simply because I thought no one would understand. Although I was fully capable of producing really good games, I felt that I was merely hacking my way through each one.

After a long time of not saying anything, I eventually started to open up about these feelings to some friends and even those I met on the internet. It turns out that what I was experiencing is common, especially in professional sports industries. “Imposter Syndrome” is feeling that you do not deserve success even after you have achieved it. Many do not even go the distance to accomplish things they feel is above their heads, they just quit.

I have struggled with this problem for a long time and it is something that I have really had to work on. To be honest, even now, with the YouTube channel I have, I still feel that I am not worthy enough to share my feelings with you — but I really think I should if only to emphasize that this is also my struggle and I know from experience that the bad feeling will eventually go away.

Therefore, if this is something that you are also struggling with, I want you to know that you are not alone and there is more like us than you think. However, we cannot let these negative thoughts coming from within ourselves as well as from the haters from without to stop us from accomplishing our dreams. Main thing is to not have a negative opinion of yourself.

In a tech driven setup, the struggle is especially bad. For example, the first game I developed was copied together from stack overflow. How can you feel legitimate when that is how you code your games? But that’s normal and everybody feels that way, key is to learn how to overcome it. Otherwise, you will not get anywhere in life.

Everything I have ever accomplished in life up to this point whether it be in game development, in tech, in business, in the start-up world, on the platforms, robots, and companies I have built all became successful because I did not allow my insecurities to overwhelm me. When I sold my company, I could not believe that someone was willing to give me money for it. I never felt that I deserved it; I did not even feel like a businessman. Deep within me I was still freaking out and could not believe it was really happening.

You will never really feel that you deserve everything you accomplish, especially if you become a success early on in your career. It can be both damaging and scary if you do not have self-confidence, but that is okay because you are not alone.

Maybe you feel that way right now. Maybe you don’t feel like a legitimate game developer. If you do, leave a comment below, because I want to hear your story. I want to understand what it’s like to get inside your head and I want to know if we have that in common.

My videos on the topic are non-traditional, I’m not used to doing videos like those, but I really feel like this stuff is important, so leave a comment below if what I’ve discussed is something that you’ve experienced. Until next time!