This month we want to look at how creatives cope with insecurities and struggles and how we can focus up and dial into our creativity in new ways.
Let’s Talk Imposter Syndrome!
Imposter syndrome is when a person feels like they’re a fake or a fraud, in this context, with regard to their creative community and body of work. This most often crops up when you’re claiming your creative title, discussing your creativity with others and getting compliments and interest regarding your creative projects.
Oftentimes it looks like brushing off compliments, mumbling or getting smaller when your creativity becomes the focus of conversation, not mentioning your creativity to anyone, or feeling wildly uncomfortable when your creativity is exposed. Imposter syndrome can also take place in your own thoughts and daily narratives inside your head, things kike, I could never be a real creative, you haven’t done anything to be called a creative, you’re not good enough, not accomplished enough, don’t run a busines or create full time, don’t make money off your creativity.
My Struggle with the Imposter
In my life I still feel like an imposter - sure I run a blog and an Instagram and write my novels and try new things, and create content, but I’m not really doing anything, I’m not published, I’m not an author or a writer, I’m not a creative, I don’t choreograph competition pieces, I just teach, I’m not an artist, I don’t have any sellable pieces, I love my day job. These phrases and thoughts constantly run through my mind, especially when other people engage me about my creativity. However, when I’m talking with others, though I may say, I’m not a writer, I do own my creative drive and my content creation. It’s the small victories we have to celebrate!
I mean, here I am writing regularly about creativity and owning it, and being proud of it, whatever form it takes, and I’m not a published author, or leading authority on creativity or craft or business or anything at all. I just have a love for making things and doing things and I want to share that with all of you and show you by living it, that you don’t have to be an artist or believe you are one to be one at your core.
Because I don’t have a body of work, I’m not a visual artists or a graphic designer or a maker, I am a writer, and it takes time to write books and edit them and polish them before I can even think about someday publishing them. Until I do, until I reach that all important hurdle and overcome it, I don’t know if I’ll be comfortable calling myself an author, a writer. That is what this post is about today. You don’t have to wait to claim that title. You don’t have to be accomplished, whatever that means, to be who you are.
Banish the Imposter
When your thoughts point to you as an imposter it’s time to get physical! Shake it out or plank it out - center yourself in creativity and don’t budge or shake those intrusive thoughts right out of your head and release the anxieties and insecurities that are slowly strangling your creative identity. Sometimes there isn’t a fancy answer or a deep philosophical ideology to apply. Sometimes the answer is in the doing and the making - claim who you are, whatever title you choose, but always know that you are a creative - full time, part time or as you feel it time.
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