Carpe Diem Society

According to Google, Imposter Syndrome is “the subjective experience of perceived self-doubt in one’s abilities and accomplishments compared with others, despite evidence to suggest the contrary” it’s surprisingly more common than we think and as soon as I was aware of mine I did everything to break it. Through-out the years of my college life up-till now I tried different things, here’s some of my methods.

I simply hated doubting myself while doing it. Call it narcissism or perfectionist or whatever. When I doubted my ability to execute ideas or communicate them, I chose to risk it. And that didn’t come easily. It came from observation.

When you’re observing others you tend to extract yourself out of your body, out of your thoughts and doubts, which helps immense amount if you also have analysis paralysis along with your imposter’s syndrome. Try judging others more than yourself. That will stop you from putting others on a high pedestal and encourage you to share your thoughts.

I got frustrated. I surely doubted my own creative ideas and the projects I wanted to share, but it was suffocating that I didn’t see examples of such projects come to life. Especially, the way I pictured it.

Now, there will be people who execute similar ideas wonderfully and from years of experience. But they’re not doing it the same way you want it. I’m sure you have heard this a lot, I did. I truly felt it when I realised I might be gone before I make my own print in the world. I feared being invisible. A ghost.

It was frightening, more so than the idea of ridicule or mockery. Just with that fear alone, being nothing but someone who was too afraid to make a move, made the fear of being exposed pointless.

Back to observation—now I realised how important it is—observing people who have made it makes, probably, the hugest difference.

I know, it’s one of the causes of imposter syndrome. But like most causes, it’s a double-edged sword. You will need a little mindset change. Stop seeing the perfect side of things and observe what went wrong for those people and how they got out of it to become this “superhuman” version you see now.

What makes it different from how you solve your problems? You might need to journal this question.

A few more questions to ask: How do they spend their day? What do they think about when it comes to their work? How do they make it enjoyable? Why do they enjoy it?

Put yourself in their shoe for a moment. We hear this all the time: they were almost homeless, they worked in their garage, they were lonely, and all kind of desperate situations. But why they still made it?

They had a sole purpose and nothing else mattered. “But people will see my work,” “but my family will see it and make fun of it,” “but it’s not good enough.” The more desperate they were the more these thoughts disappeared.

People grow up different. I won’t say that everyone’s family is supportive. Contrarily, even supportive families tend to be doubtful and instill these paralyzing thoughts from early childhood. That’s why I journaled a lot to find the cause of all of these voices that manifested my imposter syndrome.

That’s the thing I don’t see talked about—or enough— when it comes to the imposter syndrome. It doesn’t belong to us.

To me, the imposter syndrome is a build up of voices I heard growing up. The voices of my parents, my friends and bullies, and the random people that acted like they cared but instilled more fear than assurance. The voices never belong to you.

The only thing we did was allowing it took take over our own voice. So my next act was to rebel against it. To value my voice and ideas. Be more shameless.

To think of it in a different perspective, the people who gave you these voices have their own fears. Projection was the main source. Most of the time, it wasn’t because they were smarter, so why treat them like they were. Once you realize that, the voices sound like an aimless bark of a dog in a calm neighborhood.

When you get rid of these pointless projections, the next best step is to seek people who are one step ahead of you. Seeing the same people will only instill the same thoughts. Now you’re starting fresh, you need thoughts that will represent who you truly want to become.

Reaching for professionals or even amateurs on their way to become experts is how you take yourself more seriously and see how your creative ideas are actually possible.

The thing is, people will never stop projecting, dogs never stop barking. It gets extremely easier when you surround yourself with the right people.

Originally, I wanted to write this about the imposter syndrome when it comes to writing but I made it more general as I went on.

Since I’m still in the process of overcoming it, I have a lot to learn and experience. When I do, I might write another essay focusing on overcoming imposter syndrome for writers.