Dealing with Imposter Syndrome

When I was a child, I had a knack for reading and writing. It was simply an area that felt natural to me, and perhaps that was the trade-off for being completely numerically illiterate. Although growing up I was praised by my teachers and my family who continuously encouraged me to pursue writing in University, I resisted. Writing was something that came easy, it was something I could rely on to produce a great mark with little effort, it was never something I considered pursuing as a career choice.

It wasn’t something I took seriously.

That mindset is now a decade old and is no longer an authentic expression toward my feelings about writing. In fact, now my mindset has completely flip-flopped. I came to the realization about two years ago that I would like to change and focus my career path on writing. But this has only translated into obsessively thinking about writing, stressing about the writing I’m not doing, and freezing any attempts of actually writing. So now instead of allowing myself to excel at something I don’t care about, I care too much to the point that it paralyzes my efforts.

If you look up the signs of Imposter Syndrome, I literally check every box.

It took almost 10 years for me to recognize my passion and now I can’t even engage and practice the craft because of my Imposter Syndrome; how ironic.

Behind the scenes of this post has been hours of me staring at that unforgiving blinking line on a white page trying to silence the relentless thoughts discouraging me from writing the things I want to say.

What am I so afraid of? I really wish I knew.

If my ultimate fear is being called out for being a fraud, I think I have done all that I can to ease that. I have returned to University and am currently studying English and Professional Writing. You can’t be a fraud if you’re an English major right? …Right?

But the doubts are still extremely strong. So, the next thing I’m trying is this…

Actually writing!

The fact that this post has been published is a bloody miracle. Let’s not talk about how long I stressed over the keyboard to convince myself it was finished. Hopefully, with time, the writing will get easier and the thoughts will quiet themselves down to a whisper.

There is one positive thing I will say about Imposter Syndrome: The fear of constantly feeling inadequate forces you to never stop looking to improve and acquire knowledge.

I genuinely believe the worst thing we can do is become complacent. To allow ourselves to become stagnant and simply pool in thoughts of excellence when they are unjustified is a crime. We can always improve, and we can always work towards becoming better writers, better people, better anything.

I think the ugliest part about struggling with this issue is the little voice screaming nobody will understand or care about anything that I have to say. Maybe that is true, but if there is a chance of even connecting with one person who is also struggling, then that will make all of this worth it.

So, if anybody has read this far and can relate to these feelings, know you are not alone. Whatever it is you want to accomplish in this world, just do it! The obsessive thoughts of self-doubt and inadequacy are going to be there regardless of if you do the thing or not.

So just do the d*mn thing!

And if anybody has read to the end of this post, thank you from the bottom of my heart. Thank you for proving that unrelenting cruel voice in my head wrong.