Imposter Syndrome – a psychological occurrence where an individual has a persistent fear of being exposed as a fraud, doubting themselves, and their skills and accomplishments – notoriously plagues writers and artists and countless others. While the conundrum can be at times crippling to the creative process, there are some tools available, and words of encouragement that can help overcome it.
Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.
Oscar Wilde
Putting our work in the world comes with a barrage of mixed emotions. While we strive to be unique with standout storytelling, it can also be paralyzingly terrifying to be exposed, like standing naked on a precipice all alone. It is easy to get tangled up in ideas that we need to present ourselves a certain way to be accepted, or for our work to be accepted, but doing so is not genuine, and can lead to deep feelings of dissatisfaction and regret.
The best thing we can do is our honest work, and follow our hearts, and create earnestly.
It is better to be hated for what you are than loved for something you are not.
Andre Gide
It’s easy to get completely sidelined by thoughts of self-doubt, left questioning our qualifications, education, even our lived experiences. Who are we to be a voice for this thing we’re trying to say? (I’m asking myself that even as I write this.) But if it’s important to you, then it’s important enough to say and put into the world. If there is a chance that even one other person might benefit in some way from what you have to say, then be that voice for them.
Pretending you know what you’re doing is almost the same as knowing what you are doing, so just accept that you know what you’re doing even if you don’t and do it.
Excerpt from The Cult Of Done Manifesto
When I was a kid, I would look at adults adulting all over the place and assume that they all knew what they were doing. They had jobs, and homes, and in some cases families, so they obviously knew what they were doing. But the older I got, the more I realized that nobody actually knows what they’re doing. We’re making this up as we go. All of us. Every single one of us. It’s a rather terrifying thought to consider, but at the same time it’s a small comfort knowing we’re in this together. As long as we’re out there doing our best, we can honestly say that we’re doing our best, and isn’t that a wonderful thought: knowing we’re all just trying to do our best.
Some years ago, I was lucky enough to be invited to a gathering of great and good people: artists and scientists, writers and discoverers of things. Standing at the back of the hall I started talking to a very nice, polite, elderly gentleman about several things, including our shared first name. And then he pointed to the hall of people, and said words to the effect of, “I just look at all these people, and I think, what the heck am I doing here? They’ve made amazing things. I just went where I was sent.”
Neil Gaiman, from his website
And I said, “Yes. But you were the first man on the moon. I think that counts for something.”
And I felt a bit better. Because if Neil Armstrong felt like an imposter, maybe everyone did. Maybe there weren’t any grown-ups, only people who had worked hard and also got lucky and were slightly out of their depth, all of us doing the best job we could, which is all we can really hope for.
At the end of the day, there might not be a cure to overcome imposter syndrome. Instead, we just have to accept it as an inevitability of being creators, and decide which is more important: our fear, or our work.
Choose the work. Our work is the mark we leave in the world, and the thing we leave behind.