I’m such a fake

But when I woke up, I got this strange feeling in my gut. I don’t even know where it came from or what triggered it, but it was there and it was strong.

I felt like too many people thought too much of me. I felt like I didn’t really know what I am doing. I felt like I had just been winging things all along and somehow, sometimes, I got lucky and they worked out. It was a strange realisation that I am delusional, that I really have no clue what I am talking about.

The voices were loud and attacked me relentlessly:

Who do you think you are? You’re just a kid. You’re barely 20! What do you think you know about life? Or productivity? Or running a business? Or building digital products?

And you’re even writing about these things? What makes you think you are qualified to tell people about them, when you are yourself a young hot mess of disorder and undirected enthusiasm? Do you know that there are people who are much more qualified? There are people who have done these things for years. There are people who have built entire careers and earned several degrees in these things. And you, a confused kid, toot your horn about how you ‘know how to manage an impossible load’?

I was confused, sad and scared. It’s hard to come to terms with the fact that you are insignificant. Here I am, thinking I’m awesome, and telling people that we are all awesome, but I’m really just a big fat phony. Me, this whole writing thing with the “I am awesome” catch phrase; it’s all been a big fake. Someday, someone will figure out that I really don’t know what I am talking about and rat me out. Heck, I’ve already ratted myself out.

“Impostor syndrome” is the fancy name that the internet spat at me after some googling (because, of course, the internet is our everyday psychiatrist). Indeed, I came across scholarly articles and hit blog posts about what impostor syndrome is and how to get over it. I don’t know how much better it made things.

I found a comprehensive and inspiring post about impostor syndrome. It gave me great ideas about how I could deal with this and how it affects even some of the most accomplished and successful people in the world. That made me feel a little better.

But I had it worse than I thought. The relief was short lived. When I started writing this post, It was a post about how to deal with impostor syndrome. But when I read that post, I felt like my writing was crap. The fact that that post was better than anything I could ever have written, chipped away my self worth. “There are lots of people out there somewhere producing better content than I ever could”, I thought.

What am I doing then? Readers would get much more value from all these much smarter people. What’s my role here?

It doesn’t matter

Too many people fall into this trap of self degradation. I have since found that it is one of the biggest hindrances to learning and progress.

The very process of learning entails starting at zero. It entails being not very good at something. It entails starting by doing things wrong, and then doing them a little less wrong every day after that. It entails working day in day out until someday you look back and realise that even though you may not be where you want to be, you have made progress. And progress is what really matters. The only comparison to go by is between the person you are today, and the person you were yesterday.

Any other kind of unhealthy comparison is self defeating. It will only blind you in self pity, and stop you from moving at all. That’s exactly what it did to me. But when you realise that there will always be people who are greater than you, the fact that right now you aren’t the best in the world ceases to matter.

You are the only you

You may not be the best in the world, but you have something going for you. No one else in the world is the bundle of stories, experiences, successes, failures, emotions and idiosyncrasies that bears your name. You are the only you, and you do it better than everyone else in the world.

Who cares If you don’t have 10 years experience as a writer? If you think you have something you want to share, and people would benefit from hearing, nothing stops you from doing it!

“I could never …” — The voices

I could never make the team, I could never get the job, I could never learn that skill or play that instrument, I could never get that fit, even if I tried.

Who told you? Have you actually tried it? Have you actually put in the work every single day for a prolonged period of time and failed? No? Then Stop speculating and just do it. Stop killing your dreams with words and realise that you have nothing to lose. Pour your heart into it and have unwavering confidence in yourself. Be steadfast in what you really know, and accept what you don’t, with a focus on quickly moving things from the latter list to the former. And if it turns out that people think you are awesome, it’s probably because you actually are.

I still wake up on some days and feel like this. But I fight the feeling, because I know deep inside, that it’s just a distraction from what really matters.

I will leave you with this popular and powerful quote by Marianne Williamson that perfectly sums things up.

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people will not feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone and as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give others permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

You are awesome. Repeat that under your breath, get it in your head, then go out there and be awesome.

Until next time.

Bonus

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