I would like to share with you my best Codeforces moments and my reactions to them.
Moment 1
Yesterday, I had my best performance in a codeforces contest, I reached my max rating of 2236 (120+ my 2nd best rating) and my best rank in a round (20th). I was really happy, and I checked how did I compare (historically) against my friends and people I know, and I realized that there must be a mistake, there is no way I am better than these people and concluded that yesterday, I was lucky and that the problems were so easy and I had a convenient rating of 2070 which meant the contest was rated for me and I can jump high into master.
Moment 2
In a previous round (my 2nd best) which lead me to have my best rating (at the time) of 2078. I had similar thoughts, "I was lucky today, this contest was supposed to be Div3 (true story) and I just abused the fact that it is rated for me."
Moment 3
This happened when I first reached master, it was around the end of 2019 and the start of 2020, I entered multiple contests in a short period of time and my rating steadily increased until I became master only by solving by 4 problems in Div2, and I thought to myself, "Well, currently, the number of participants is much larger than usual, which means that a not so good performance will increase my rating and I was lucky to abuse this fact. "
My Thoughts
These 3 stories show a common theme, "I am not supposed to be here." This kind of behavior, when you attribute your success to external circumstances or luck rather than effort you exerted, is known as "Impostor Syndrome".
I thought about it to try to figure out which part is true and which is just an exaggeration, and here are my thoughts.
What I experienced is an example of the "Fundamental attribution error" where I explain my performances based on the particular situations I experienced, but attribute others's success on personality traits, "They are just better problem solvers."
What this means is even though luck was clearly on my side, this shouldn't decrease the value of my achievements because these situations I mentioned were experienced by everyone, so if there is an easy contest, and someone puts a good performance then he deserves what he achieved compared to someone who entered the same contest but did not do so well. You might also think, "What about the people who missed the easy contest?" and my answer to that is the idea that luck is not purely random, the more you are proactive, the more you enter contests, the more likely it is to stumble upon an easy contest; thus, rewarding the more proactive person.
I feel like the division bound is terrible for this. The general experience high-2000s eventually have is that they do really well in a div. 2, shoot up to master around like 2200, then possibly get crushed by the div. 1's they now have to do. It's a lot easier to do well and gain rating in a div. 2 than in a div. 1, so they'd get confidence from the div. 2 then have it crushed and feel like an impostor or however it works. It's just a trap.
Nonetheless, whatever rating you've gotten from a contest, you've earned it. Yes, maybe the contest was easier, but that also means it was easier for everyone, so nobody had an unfair advantage.
Rightly said galen_colin! Sir, You deserve it. All of it! ZeyadKhattab
Don't worry/think too much about whether you deserve this rating or not. The coming contests would prove that to you anyways. CP is a sport. Enjoy the contests, the process of problem-solving and move on!
Thank you for your non sarcastic comment
you really deserve it
Thanks :)
Rating is a really objective thing. Every bit of rating you have you earned on your own, so be proud of your rating!
Thank you :)
How is an easy contest something good for people who participate? It's about doing better than others, doesn't matter how many problems you solve.
Recently getting the highest max rating by someone from my country while performing as well as when I got 2500-2600 rating for the first time. 34 in div1 got me to 2605 with +41 and now 50 in div1 got me to 2751 with +39 or 2712 with +57. So the previous max ratings of 2700+ by ffao and fsouza set in 2016 are way more impressive than mine.
This post is really impressive and useful