Feeling like an impostor can be good for you
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I keep a card in my pocket to remind me of what I don’t know.
When I arrived at Harvard for seminary, I already felt like the admissions department had made a mistake. My parents didn't go to college. I never imagined I'd be at a place like this. I was with people who referenced philosophers I'd never heard of. Their parents attended fancy schools and "summered" places. I never knew anyone who “summered.” Hell, I didn’t know that “summer” could be a verb.
They used a lot of words I didn't understand. A lot. I was embarrassed. And so, I developed a habit of writing down words I didn't understand to look up later. It was my secret. This was before the days of having the internet on a phone or reliable Wi-Fi. I’d write the word on an index card and head to the library after class to look it up.
A couple of years ago, I cleaned out a drawer at work, and I stumbled upon one of those old index cards. I was afraid to look at it. My own handwriting was a trail of evidence leading back to an old, familiar fear. Written on it were three things: William Blake’s “Marriage of Heaven and Hell,” “Pyrrhic Victory,” and the word “quotidian.” I was embarrassed at the time to not know these references. I could’ve just asked in class, but that wasn’t going to happen. That would reveal everything.
I was scared that my classmates would realize what I feared all along: I didn’t belong. Maybe I tricked someone into thinking I was smart, the admissions department made a mistake, or I just wasn’t cut out for this. I was terrified someone would out me.
Impostor Syndrome doesn’t have to be a bad thing
Psychologists call this feeling “Impostor Syndrome.” It is the fear that you don't deserve to be where you are, and one day, someone is going to expose you as a fraud. Fun, right? It’s a common experience that people rarely admit out loud. A secret hidden in plain sight.
Parts of impostor syndrome are painful and destructive. We hide what we don’t know, work beyond our limits to prove we know what we’re doing, and isolate ourselves in fear. But it doesn’t have to be that way. You can put the feeling that you might be an impostor to good use. It can make you more creative and alive.
If you feel like the expert in the room all the time, you are in the wrong room. If you’re growing, feeling like you’re out of your league isn’t something you experience once and then get over. You face that feeling again each time you outgrow yourself and have to reveal your new self to the world.
If you never feel impostor syndrome again, or something like it, then it means you aren’t growing. You can avoid it if you want by never taking risks or believing that you have nothing valuable to share with the world.
Everyone experiences it from time to time, especially people who work hard and create new things. In her book, Yes, Please, the comedian Amy Poehler says, “You will never climb Career Mountain and get to the top and shout, ‘I made it!’ You will rarely feel done or complete or even successful. Most people I know struggle with that complicated soup of feeling slighted on one hand and like a total fraud on the other.”
So then, how to make the impostor feeling work for you
Surround yourself with people who want to grow and learn at a rapid pace. Put yourself in environments with people smarter than you, with more experience than you, who dazzle and impress you. There’s nothing to be gained other than ego comfort by being the smartest in the room.
Remember that if you create at all, you already succeeded. If you are a writer, designer, artist, teacher, speaker, or anyone who creates, you were victorious the moment you stepped on stage. Anyone who is coming to you for content wants you to succeed. Aside from total jerks, a person comes to your class/church/event/business/blog for a reason, hoping to benefit from what you offer. Remember the secret hidden in plain sight. Almost everyone else in the room fears they aren’t enough.
If you create, if you do anything that feels risky at all, most humans are terrified to do what you do. Public speaking, teaching, putting your art, blog, designs, or book into the world – The vast majority of people won’t ever take the first step to do those things. You’ve won the second you hit publish or walk onto the stage.
Be kind to your past self, and your future self will be kind to you. That index card in my pocket is flimsy, blurry, and frayed. It’s fallen apart a few times, and I’ve taped it back together. But I know it’s there. Every single day it reminds me of a person who was afraid to admit what he didn’t know. It reminds me of a person who felt like an impostor and could be outed at any moment. It reminds me to be humble and proud. I’ve come a long way, and I have so much left to learn. I’m guessing it’s the same with you.
If you feel like an impostor sometimes, it means you’re a human being doing something worthwhile. It’s a feeling that will come back again and again if you keep taking risks and trying new things. Maybe it’s not an index card in your pocket, but my guess is you have something to remind you of how much you’ve grown. Don’t trust the feeling of always being an expert. That’s for people who quit transforming. Surround yourself with people who make you want to grow and change. Remember that you’ve succeeded the moment you put your creation into the world. And get ready, because any life worth living is going to take a new person to live it. That’s you.
