If you've ever had "that sick, sad, cold, wet feeling that you have no idea what you're doing, you're going to get caught, and it's all going to be terrible," you're may be experiencing imposter syndrome, says Jessica Rose, a former teacher and a self-taught technologist.

In her Lightning Talk at All Things Open 2017, Jessica explains this form of cognitive bias—"your brain using bad data to build worse conclusions that it becomes really attached to"—and how it causes you to worry about things that are unlikely to happen.

Jessica shares tips for dealing with imposter syndrome. She says, "You can't debug your brain, but you can give yourself the space and the forgiveness to walk away and say, 'This is terrible, but it's just a buggy error message. I'm fine, everything's OK.'"

For ideas on how to handle unnecessary worry, watch her full five-minute talk from All Things Open in this video:

During the Lightning Talks session hosted by Opensource.com at All Things Open 2017, seven presenters shared quick takes on interesting topics, projects, and ideas relevant to open source. Watch all of the 2017 All Things Open Lightning Talks on the Opensource.com YouTube channel.