We all learn rules as we grow up, we internalize definitions, and we establish metrics that set limits on our world.
Just as we need to define success for ourselves, we also need to rethink the way we define our roles.
When I was a kid I read incessantly, but it never really occurred to me that actual people wrote the books that filled my days (and nights, under the covers with a flashlight). Books were a magical thing all by themselves, an artifact that simply appeared unbidden on the shelves of the library or the paperback rack in the dime store. I didn't think much about how they got there, I was just grateful that they existed and could educate and entertain me.
Doors like this were the entrance to a magical land. What lay inside was the work of magical creatures called 'writers.' How could I ever be worthy of that title?
When I began to understand that authors wrote books I thought of them in the same way. Magical creatures that created worlds out of nothingness. I could not imagine them as mundane mortals with lives outside their creations.
Even when I gained at least an intellectual understanding that creative people were still people with lives and families and bills to pay it didn't change my perception of them.
They were something magical, with powers and abilities far beyond those mortal men. They were supermen. (And I still hadn't figured out that some of them were women.)
That. That right there is why I had so much trouble calling myself a writer. While my head knew writers were just regular people whose job was to sit in a room and make up stuff, my heart knew differently. Writers were magical, maybe even mythical - and I was neither. I was just a normal, boring girl who followed the rules and never did anything remotely magical.
This is what that little voice is saying to you. You're not authorized, you don't belong. It's time to silence that voice - but that's easier said than done!
And if I wasn't magic, I certainly wasn't a writer.
That was the root of my imposter syndrome, the foundation for that little voice that told me I shouldn't call myself a writer, shouldn't claim membership in that mystical band. That I was a fake, even after everything I'd done.
Now that you have given up your old identity as a butcher, baker, or candlestick maker, and embraced your new identity - however tentatively - if you haven't encountered imposter syndrome you will soon.
In our day jobs we didn't have any trouble identifying ourselves as clerks or managers, lawyers or accountants, linemen for the county, truck drivers, nurses or doctors. These were easily identified roles, and we fit neatly into those slots because they described the actual jobs we did.
Now our first impulse, as I discussed elsewhere, is to say, "I'm retired," rather than claim our new creative identity. But even when we do use our new description we tend to downplay it, at least in our own minds.
We can call ourselves a writer, or a quilter, or a cabinet maker, or a programmer, but there is always that little voice in our heads telling us we aren't really. We're just someone who dabbles in that pursuit, who's a wannabe, a dilettante.
An imposter.
Much has been written about imposter syndrome in recent years. Perhaps one of the most well-known example was from world-famous author Neil Gaiman, posted on his blog on May 12, 2017 (https://neil-gaiman.tumblr.com/post/160603396711/hi-i-read-that-youve-dealt-with-with-impostor). I urge you to read the entire post, but the short-and-sweet of it is that Gaiman was at a conference and lamented to another attendee with the same first name that he was sure he didn't belong. The other man replied that he felt the same way; he hadn't done anything, he had only gone where he was told. That man's last name was Armstrong.
Yes, that Neil Armstrong, first man on the moon.
Even the man who left this footprint had his moments of "imposter syndrome."
Now maybe Armstrong was just that humble - acknowledging that it took a huge team to achieve the goal of landing a man on the moon - but Gaiman's account certainly doesn't feel that way.
The point is that no matter what we do, how much we achieve, we all have uncertainty about whether we belong, whether we deserve the title we are claiming. This is perhaps even stronger when we move from a familiar role to a new one. When we are an old dog with a new trick.
This is more than not being the best; this is not being anything. A pretender. A fake. A fraud.
It is your own insecurity telling you that you're lying when you call yourself a writer, or an artist, or a maker. Telling you you're none of those things and you don't deserve to call yourself one.
Confession time. I am really, really bad about this. Even after dozens of publications I live in the fear that someone is finally going to realize that I'm a fake, that they are going to tear down the curtain and expose me for the humbug I am.
It doesn't matter how much I create, I still expect to be revealed as a fraud. It is a battle each of us has to face again and again.
More important, though, is the point illustrated by Gaiman's story linked above. Everyone lives with this fear. The writers I know and love, the ones I talk with about our lives and our work, our hopes and fears? They all feel this way. People who have been at this for thirty and forty years still worry about being unmasked as pretenders. We worry that we will be exposed, that someone will discover we have no clue what we are doing, and our deception will be uncovered for everyone to see.
The truth is that none of this matters. I have to keep reminding myself that we are defined not by our results, but by our actions. If you write, you are a writer. If you paint, you are a painter. When it comes to creative pursuits, your proof is in the doing.
Every creator has days, or weeks, when they simply cannot move forward. When the words won't come, or you can't get your seams aligned. When you have to walk away and take some time to regain your equilibrium. When your life interferes (more on this in another post), but as long as you keep coming back, keep practicing your particular craft, you are a creator, and you can call yourself whatever you want.
Don't let those voices in your head tell you that you are an imposter.
Maybe it's time to examine where those voices originated.
Think about what rules and definitions you've internalized over the years. About the myths that have formed around those magical creative people you don't think you belong with. Chances are there are plenty of those old attitudes hidden deep in your heart.
Take them out, examine them, and then discard them. Silence the voices that tell you you're a fake, an imposter.
Choose your new role based on what you do and what you love. That's all that matters.