Thursday! 3-17: So What If You're an "Impostor"?
V3, I17
Earlier this week, I wrote this on Twitter:
I don’t think I need to explain in any great detail what Impostor Syndrome is for you all. You’re artists. You get it1. All of us have felt utterly unqualified for some endeavor connected to our art, including making even more art. We believe that since we don’t have Great Credential Y we can’t even try to do Great Thing X2 because we simply don’t have what we see as the appropriate bona fides.
So what, though? Does it really matter if you’re an impostor? Will anyone care that you’ve shown up with all the talent and experience you’ve gathered and the confidence you have because of that?
No. Heck no. Double heck no. Let me tell you a secret about how you feel when you take on something new and cool that you feel might be a little beyond you Ready? Lean in close.
IT DOESN’T MATTER!
Your worthiness or unworthiness won’t decide whether you accomplish what you want except in one important way. That worry will steal focus from what you want to do. After all, if you believe you’re an impostor, your main worry is if you’ll be caught, not if you’ll do the thing you set out to do. So quit it. Seriously. Stop, because it doesn’t matter if you’re an “impostor”3. We humans aspire, don’t we? We reach up and out. Musicians don’t practice a song so they can play it exactly as well as they played it last time. How silly would that be? They practice to get better. Writers write the next book not only to tell another story but also to become better storytellers. Artists try new techniques because they’re curious but also to make themselves better artists.
Let me give you a personal example. I’ve moderated several panel discussions in my life and enjoyed all of them except one — my first. When the conference organizers needed a moderator at the last minute, I offered my help, but I was honest. I told them I’d never been a moderator before but I’d do my best to be competent and professional. I didn’t fake it. I didn’t walk in as Mr. Master Moderator. Far from it. In fact, I made mistakes. For instance, I let one panelist yammer on and one until she had taken not only most of the last panelist’s time but also the entire time for audience questions. It wasn’t great, but the next year, those conference organizers asked me to moderate two panels.
Now, did it matter that I thought I did a terrible job? Did I consider myself an “impostor”? Was I worried someone would find me out? Not even a little bit! I went in as the person I was right then and there. I was honest about who I was and what I believed I could do — good and bad. Of course, I figured maybe the organizers might have thought more of me than I deserved, so I resolved to learn from my mistakes and do better, and I did! The next time I met a panel, I did not fail!
What I’m saying is this: you can only be what you are right now, so be that. Tomorrow, if you have said your prayers and eaten your vitamins, you’ll be more skilled and more accomplished. Maybe the person you will be tomorrow will be the person who reaches the goals you set today. Maybe not. You can’t know, so don’t sweat it. Do your work today. Be who you are right now and don’t give a moment of worry to who you might have, could have, should have, will be, could be, won’t be, don’t be, do bee. Your work will make you better.
Ah, but there’s just one more thing!
Do you have any idea how many doors confidence can open? I don’t mean confidence in what you might some day be — Impostor Confidence. I mean confidence in who you are right now and what you can accomplish right now! I bet you can think of someone whose confidence you admire, or have admired in the past. My Dad had that confidence. He could walk into a room and make friends in a heartbeat. He never put on airs or pretended to be, know, or believe any more than he was, knew, or believed the second he entered the room. He was confident in his current self and whoa was he amazing to watch. Effortless. Stunning, at times. I want to be like that. I want you to be like that.
And you can be. Want to know how? Stop wishing you were more and dig on who you are today, here, reading this. You’ve made cool art! You’ve done stuff that would make another person say, “Whoa, cool!” Run with that. Make more art. Be more you. Tomorrow’s you will be a little bit closer to those ideals you hold, toward the “more” you’d like to be. Truly. No fooling.
Try it and see. And don’t worry about being an “impostor”. You’re you. That’s just fine.
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What I Wrote Last Week
Fancy a story or poem? Read all you want at JimmieWrites.
Buy my picture book of poems about werewolves and atomic monsters!
Read “The Paper Swans of Ellendell” in Postcards from Mars!
ONE LAST THING! Down under the footnotes is a little empty heart. I’d like it a lot if you’d click on it. There’s no guarantee it’ll do anything besides turn all red and happy, but you never know, right? Maybe Substack will tell more people about Thursday! if we all click the heart. Let’s see.
If you really don’t, drop me an e-mail or tell me in the comments. I’ll fill you in.
That credential, by the way, can be anything — a degree, a certain level of professional recognition, or even another accomplishment.
I’m going to put this in quotes from here on out because the word doesn’t have an absolute meaning in the way we’re using it. If you can do the work, do the work. If you can’t, then you won’t. In either case, you’re no impostor, no matter what you nor anyone else says about it.