At my talk in Auckland I was asked about Imposter Syndrome. It is something people talk to me about quite a lot. Imposter Syndrome is a psychological pattern in which an individual doubts their skills, talents or accomplishments and has a persistent internalized fear of being exposed as a “fraud”.
Point One: This is not a rare or unique experience. Most of us feel this way at some point.
Point Two: As children we tend to think that adults have it all figured out. They don’t. As adults we tend to think that everyone else has it figured out except for us. They don’t. WE ARE ALL JUST MAKING IT UP AS WE GO ALONG!
Point Three: We ARE all just making it up as we go along. You are not worse at your job than anyone else, you’re just learning as you go. Some people may have more experience than you, some people may have been in the job longer than you, but they only got there because that have been making it up as they go along for a little bit longer than you.
How do you get over Imposter Syndrome? Keep going.
Understand those three points. Then just keep going.
I stood on that stage on Thursday night, almost 400 people came to see me say words out of my mouth. Who the fuck am I to tell people what to do? I haven’t actually DONE anything. I’ve just been making it up as I go along this entire time! Why are they even listening to me?! I can’t write, I’m definitely not an ‘author’, why are these people buying my books?!?!
I’ve been making this stuff up as I go along for about 10 years now. But I am not an imposter. My words have value because they are my words. As do yours. I’ve got better at what I do because of this crazy concept called ‘practice’. But at every stage of this evolution I’ve been exactly as good as I’ve needed to be at that particular time and no more.
You are not an imposter. You are not a ‘fraud’. You are just making it up as you go along like every single one of us. Do not doubt your self, you are exactly as good as you need to be right now. Keep going. Practice. And then you will be exactly as good as you need to be in the future.