“Imposters don’t get imposter syndrome.”
Changing your own mindsets is HARD. And changing this mindset is one of the hardest things I’ve done.
I got this quote from a Zapier blog post, of all places. I wouldn’t have expected something this profound to be on the blog of a service all about automating and interconnecting every app and service you use, but here we are.
It’s true though: real imposters KNOW they’re imposters. That’s the whole point to them. They are very purposefully somewhere they’re not supposed to be, getting something done that is probably going to impact people negatively one way or another. Remember the whole kerfuffle about the Fyre Festival, the luxury event so bad that it spawned not one but two documentaries? I’m pretty sure that deep down, the guy who organized it knew he was an imposter. And if not…well, I hope he realized it as soon as they started passing out cheese sandwiches.
But you? Going to work or serving clients, trying to put yourself out into the world, doing the best you can and feeling like you’ll never measure up?
You’re not an imposter. Definitely not.
If you have enough awareness of your own limitations to think you’re not good enough, then you’re MORE than good enough.
I think I’ve heard it said that being a true expert means you start to recognize and appreciate what you don’t know, the “known unknowns” as they’re called. If you’re at that point, that you look at your chosen specialty and all you see are the holes in your own knowledge, then congrats! You’re an expert! Because you know where your expertise ends, and you know what to do to plug the gaps.
That’s what being an expert is all about.
(P.S. if you’re curious, here’s the link to the Zapier blog post that inspired this. In this house, we cite our sources.)