The 1 Perspective Shift That Obliterated My Imposter Syndrome
I’m a whiskey lover.
Similar to Daniel Throssell, I always have a few bottles on rotation.
And last summer, I took it a step further by signing up for my local whiskey club.
I get 4 “special” releases per year, shipped directly to my doorstep.
Each one is a delicious, one-off, unique whiskey that only goes out to club members.
This month, it’s a bottle using wheat grown in the high desert of Oregon.
And up until recently, shipping has never been an issue.
Then, I moved.
From the high desert of California, back to Oregon.
From a 2-bedroom house in a podunk town to an apartment in the city.
This confused UPS.
(They deliver the whiskey.)
And thus, my most recent shipment went from a simple, 1-day shipment to a 10–day zig-zag all over the city.
First they tried to deliver to my apartment complex.
They couldn’t get in the building.
Then they tried again. Same thing.
Then I had them hold the whiskey at a UPS location.
They did that, then the next day, they decided to try and deliver it … again.
Even though I told them to hold it.
ZIG ZAG, ZIG ZAG, ZIG ZAG!
After a couple more days like this, they FINALLY held it at the UPS pickup point.
I went and picked it up.
And last night, I finally tried it. It was delicious.
But this story — while frustrating to recall — is not about whiskey.
It’s about imposter syndrome, and how to defeat it once and for all.
See … while I was going through this whole ordeal, something occurred to me.
The way UPS was handling my special whiskey is eerily similar to how I used to deal with client work in the first few years of my career as a copywriter.
I’d finish my final edits on a piece of copy and have a “product” ready to be delivered to the client.
Then, for at least a week, I’d ping-pong back and forth and back and forth about tiny little things I could change to the copy.
“Will the client like this line?”
“What if this CTA is too aggressive?”
“Am I using the market language correctly?”
It’s nauseating when you think about your copy like this. And when I was going through it, I realized that it’s not actually a reflection on what I think of my writing …
It’s a reflection of how I think of myself.
I was worried I wouldn’t be liked, I would be laughed at by a client, I would look like a fool and an impostor.
Maybe it’s just me who feels this way. Maybe you don’t experience this at all.
But I’ve been in the field long enough to know that this is a VERY common issue for many copywriters … and for that matter, a whole host of creatives.
So what can you do to defeat it?
My solution is simple: Train yourself to adopt a “continuous learning mentality.”
What I mean by this is that everything you deliver should always be tested, and the copy you write — and how it performs — should be a constant opportunity for you to learn.
Write the best possible copy you can come up with, of course.
But deliver that copy with the expectation of proving it against the market.
This perspective change quickly shifts you away from wrapping up your identity in the copy, and towards the freedom that testing affords you.
I know it helped me.
It made me a faster writer. It made me a more confident writer because I stopped being so outcome dependent.
I can now do my research, come up with 3 different angles, test my “top” angle … and if it doesn’t work, I can just easily move on to the next angle.
Any good client will know that copy should be tested.
But you should adopt this mentality even if your client feels differently.
Because what works in market “A” today might not work the same even 6 months from now.
And if you’re operating on a fixed mentality of needing to provide perfect copy every single time, you disregard the ever-shifting sentiment of the market.
In other words: test everything. Always.
I talk about defeating imposter syndrome — and other things that ail copywriters — in my daily newsletter. You can sign up at www.stealthiscopy.com.
David Patrick
