Another 15 minutes: Chasing What I Couldn't Give Myself

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Not this time.

The Setup

I remember closing the exam windows and just sitting there. By myself, a plastic tub filled with the consumed energy drinks (sugar-free), and the sound of my space heater or fan, depending on the season. It had been days/weeks waiting for this moment. The results just dropped. And here I was. Sitting. Just sitting. I took a screenshot. Sent it to three (maybe) people and of course the obligatory LinkedIn post. Then, I leaned back and did the nod with a half-smile. You know the one. The slow, deliberate, self-satisfied nod that says “Yeah, I did that.” If it was hard test, maybe a desk slap or two. Lasted for about 15 minutes.

The 15 minutes

To be clear, the feeling of accomplishment was real. I definitely earned it. The late nights, the labs, the “one more Sherlock” at 2:00A.M. when the normies are sleeping. But fifteen minutes is also roughly how long it takes to send the WhatsApp messages, get upset that nobody liked the LinkedIn post that I made 30 seconds ago, and come to the realization that I told everyone worth telling. This is about the time the window closes. Not dramatically. It doesn’t slam. Just closes. Still me in my office and my chair. Same me that I was before the results. Just now the thing that I was working toward is done and all I have left is the space that it used to fill. I didn’t feel like I had crossed some magical threshold into legitimacy. I just felt like I passed an exam. Which is a very real thing. And also somehow not enough at the same time. And I for the life of me couldn’t tell you why.

It Didn’t Fix It

Here is the thing nobody really warns you about. The imposter syndrome apparently didn’t get the memo. You would think it would. Somewhere in the part of your brain that keeps that lovely ledger of all your inadequacies, and mistakes, a cert should register as evidence to the contrary. The doubt accountant has to listen to this data point. Exhibit A in the case for maybe, just maybe, I do belong here after all. But it just doesn’t work that way. At least not for me. The voice was still there. Same tone, same material, same tired setlist. Still pointing out the things I didn’t know, the mistakes I made, the people who are better (“Comparison is the thief of joy” -Often attributed to Theodore Roosevelt), and the gaps I have yet to fill. The cert was in my inbox, the t-shirt still in the box, and it absolutely did not care. I had proved something to the exam board and nobody else. Including myself. You can hold both things at once, as it turns out. Genuine pride in the work and genuine doubt about whether the work means what you hoped. They do not cancel each other out. They just coexist awkwardly. Like two people at a party who don’t know each other standing next to the same snack table.

The Second Gut Punch

What I did not see coming was losing the studying itself. When you are deep in a cert, the structure is doing something quietly useful in the background. There is always a lab open. A module to finish. A next thing. And that next thing gives the restlessness somewhere to go. It is not exactly healthy but it is functional. The anxiety has a job. Then, it is done. And the restlessness does not retire. It just becomes unemployed. The first evening after finishing felt genuinely strange. Not in a celebratory way, like a free night of stretching ahead. More like someone had removed the furniture and I kept walking into empty space where things used to be. No book talking about some obscure topic. No HackTheBox room queued up. No PDF open in the background guilt-tripping me from the taskbar. This is where the weirdness lives. Not weird because the cert is over. More like weirdness over losing the version of myself that had a clear direction. That me knew what we were doing tonight. New me does not.

The Pattern

Here is the part that actually got me. This is not the first time. OSCP. Sec+. OSED attempt. PMRP. CDSA. Starting up CISSP study. Each one had the same ceiling at the same height. I would build toward it, grinding through it, and come out the other side into the same fifteen minute window followed by the same quiet. I kept expecting the experience to compound. Like maybe this cert would be the one that finally made the previous ones feel real too. Spoiler: it did not. At some point, I started to notice the loop. I could not tell you exactly when. It crept rather than announced itself. But somewhere in the cycle I realized I was chasing a feeling that certs were never actually selling. The marketing implies otherwise. Pass this exam. Prove your skills. Get recognized. And those things are true in a practical sense. The certs opened doors. They gave me frameworks and language I genuinely use. But the internal thing? The silence of the imposter voice? That was never on the syllabus. I just assumed it was included. I think a lot of us do.

What’s next

I do not have a resolution to tell you, if that is what you came here for. I want to be upfront about that. I noticed the loop. That feels like some kind of achievement. But noticing a pattern, which humans happen to be good at, and understanding the pattern enough to break it are different skills and I am still working on the second one, parallel with the next cert (CISSP, here I come), of course. I have not made the 15 minutes last a little longer, or how to make the quiet after feel less disorienting, or how to get the internal monologue voice to update its script with the evidence it expertly ignores.

Lessons Learned

The cert validates the work. It was never going to validate the self-doubt that I experience. Those are different jobs and I was looking at the wrong external signals to try and solve both. The structure of studying is doing some heavy lifting in ways I don’t even notice until it is gone. That is why the planning starts immediately after, even if just loosely. The ironic part is that noticing the loop is not the same thing as fixing it. It is a start though. Minus the fact that I am already studying for the next cert.

Reflections

The exam board passed you. That is real. But the voice in your head that represents the doubt wasn’t on the marking panel. And, the truth is, it was never going to accept the results either way. That is not a cert problem. That is a different conversation entirely.

What helped me most:

Force yourself to enjoy the win. No matter how counter-intuitive that it feels.

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Keep fighting. You are better off than you think you are.