Why I Love Having Imposter Syndrome.
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Imposter syndrome is characterised by feeling inadequate like you are an imposter in the field you are working in. In layman’s terms, you fear that everyone around you will suddenly find out you don’t have a clue what you’re doing. Join the club.
I have had (and still do) Imposter Syndrome since I published my first novel, and every subsequent novel thereafter. I get it whenever I do an interview, get a great message from a fan, or tell someone what I do for a living. Whenever someone highlights an issue with a story, I hastily rush to fix it. If I get a bad review. If I get trolled. At any moment, I fear will be exposed as a charlatan, and be cast outside into the rain and mud.
And yet, I embrace it. Here’s why –
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Why do we have this feeling? Well, put simply, it comes down to two things –
1 – We care about what we’re doing.
One of the fundamental reasons that Imposter Syndrome can be so prevalent in our minds is that we are working on something we care about. We spend hours at the desk in solitude, crafting a world, characters, and storyline to share it with the world. It’s our passion that keeps us up late into the night, day after day, working away at our creation. If we didn’t give a shit, then we wouldn’t care if we succeeded or failed, and we would simply stop when it got hard.
2 – We lack confidence in our own abilities.
This is the biggie right here. We lack self-confidence in our abilities. We take every negative comment and every bad review to heart. It breaks the fragility of our confidence, and we find ourselves crying into our half-completed manuscript. But this is real life, guys. There are no safe spaces here. Suck it up and roll with it.
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How do we overcome imposter syndrome? This is very simple. Are you ready?
You outwork your self-doubt. Read that again.
You must outwork that feeling of thinking that you aren’t good enough. You must identify the reason why you feel the way you do. Is it because you don’t feel like you know enough about the subject you are in? Well, then learn more. Read books on the subject. Research your industry. Speak to others in the world you have found yourself in. Try new things. New ways of doing what you’re doing. You can never know too much.
If it’s monetary or scalability on your business, then go back to basics. What makes your product unique? Who is your target market? Identify who these people are, and then build connections with them. Start from the bottom again, and work through the fundamentals. You can move up a rung on the ladder when you have a strong foundation.
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Don’t stop creating.
Many writers have written tonnes of books that barely moved off the shelves, but they kept going at it. They kept working, building a fan base, and improving their craft.
Comparison is the Thief of Joy.
I love that saying, as cliché as it is, because it’s so true. If you compare yourself to JK Rowling or George R R Martin when you haven’t released your first book, then you will never write a single word. But here’s the secret – at one point, they were just like you - staring at a dog shit first draft and feeling sick at the sight of it. We only see people when they are successful. We don’t see the thousands of hours they invested into their craft with nothing happening.
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Use Your Current Successes as Evidence.
Remember when you got that awesome review? Released that new book? Got a message from someone you had never spoken to who told you that they loved your work? Those examples are all evidence that you are doing what you are meant to be doing, and that you are good at it. Use that knowledge, that back catalogue, as fuel to your fire when moving forward and upskilling. Acknowledge what you did in the past, identify any mistakes you have made, and then learn from them. Identify, refine, and replicate.
Imposter syndrome is the vulture on our shoulders. It’s that part of our brains that tells us that we aren’t cut out to be doing what we’re doing, regardless of all the evidence surrounding us that tells us the contrary. We can focus on the one thing that isn’t going right and lose sight of all the things around us that got us to our position in the first place. In other words, you can’t see the forest because you’re focusing on a single tree.
Imposter syndrome isn’t a bad thing. Welcome it into your life. Let that fear of failure, getting it wrong, and not being good enough propel you into work and learning. Only through hard work and dedication to what you’re doing, bit by bit, will you get where you need to be.
Stepping out of your comfort zone will always lead to self-doubt. You’re going against the curve, putting your head above the firing line. But if you work at it, maybe in a year, maybe ten, you will get where you want to be. The best time to plant a tree was yesterday. The second-best time is now.
Creating a business is like trying to paint a mountain one layer of paint at a time. It’s a huge task, but little by little, effort after effort, you will get there.
Jay Darkmoore
Jay Darkmoore is a UK best-selling author with a background in crime and investigation. He is a huge fan of all things dark - exploring the macabre, demonic and darker aspects of the human psyche.
Jay likes putting his characters in terrible situations and then turning out all the lights. To date, he has self-published novels of horror, crime and dark fantasy dystopia. His inspirations are Stephen King, Keith C Blackmore and Nick Cutter.
When not at his desk, Jay spends his free time making YouTube videos to help writers in their craft, promoting other books he has enjoyed, as well as hitting the gym and taking wild cold plunges with ducks.
He is a single parent to his son Joe who is his biggest fan.
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