Breaking Through The Imposter Syndrome To BecomeSuccessful

Have you ever felt inadequate as a creative artist? Have you internally credited luck to yoursuccess rather than give yourself credit for the hard work you put in to get where you aretoday? Maybe you even just feel like a fake? All of this even though you have worked your assoff to become the successful artist you are today. I know I personally have felt this way onnumerous occasions. It wasn’t until photographer Sascha Reinking shared a post he got fromBrian Friedman in a Facebook group that I realized there is a name for this condition.

The impostor syndrome, sometimes called impostor phenomenon or fraud syndrome, is apsychological phenomenon in which people are unable to internalize their accomplishments.Despite external evidence of their competence, those with the syndrome remain convincedthat they are frauds and do not deserve the success they have achieved. Proof of success isdismissed as luck, timing, or as a result of deceiving others into thinking they are moreintelligent and competent than they believe themselves to be. – Wikipedia

Often as creative artists we work hard to perfect our craft, learn how to use our tools and see

the world differently. We put in countless hours to do all this and it often shows when peoplelook through our work and validate it by hiring us for another job. Sadly though many of usdon’t give ourselves enough credit for the work we put out there. We discount our ability orattribute the success to luck. Some of us might even just have a hard time acceptingcompliments. These are all symptoms of the imposter syndrome and can come in differentdegrees. Some of us might relate to all of this, some of us might just relate to a part of it but itis a feeling that is quite common among successful creative artists.

Part of this feeling comes from the “starving artist” figure that came about in the early 19thcentury as part of the Romantic period. According to the Caltech Counseling Center,“Attitudes, beliefs, direct or indirect messages that we received from our parents or fromother significant people in our lives early on may have contributed to the development ofimpostor feelings. Certain family situations and dynamics tend to contribute to impostorfeelings: when the success and career aspirations conflicts with the family expectations of thegender, race, religion, or age of the person, families who impose unrealistic standards,families who are very critical, and families who are ridden with conflict and anger.” Have youhad to face the “label” your family attached to you when you decided to become an artist?Many of us can probably answer yes.

According to an article published an Inc.com in September 2006, “Psychological researchdone in the early 1980′s estimated that two out of five successful people consider themselvesfrauds and other studies have found that 70 percent of all people feel like impostors at onetime or another. “Some people, the more successful they become, the more they feel likefrauds,” says Valerie Young, who leads workshops and professional development programs onthe subject. “They feel as though they’re fooling people. There’s a dissonance between self-image and external reality.” Many business owners think they are only successful because ofthe amount of time they put into their business, not because they are talented at their worknaturally.”

Strangely enough many struggling with these feelings will work even harder, more diligentlyto keep people from possibly uncovering that we are just an “imposter.” Our extra diligence,study and perfection of our craft just leads to more praise and compliments whichperpetuates are “feelings and fears of being discovered as just an imposter.” It’s oddly avicious circle that we can get caught in and without recognizing we are in it we will feel likethere is no way to escape it.

Fortunately, one of the first steps to break through the syndrome is to recognize it. By

identifying and becoming aware of what is happening it will break the automatic thoughtprocess that we get caught in and help us to recognize the difference between our feelings andreality. We will begin to recognize all the effort we have put in over the years to achieve thesuccess we have achieved and realize the feelings of inadequacy are not reality.

If you have ever felt this way before I’d highly encourage you to watch this commencementspeech by Neil Gaiman. If you would prefer to read it here is the text to the speech as well.

In his commencement speech Gaiman talks about this ‘Imposter Syndrome’ and how him andhis wife called it the ‘Fraud Police.’ That he feared at anytime someone would show up on hisdoorstep and call him out and he would have to give up what he loved, creating art, to go get anormal job like everyone else. He later relates a story of an encounter he had with authorStephen King. After recognizing all the success Gaiman was having with his comics andnovels King said, “This is really great. You should enjoy it.” Gaiman continues, “And I didn’t.Best advice I got that I ignored. Instead I worried about it. I worried about the next deadline,the next idea, the next story. There wasn’t a moment for the next fourteen or fifteen years thatI wasn’t writing something in my head, or wondering about it. And I didn’t stop and lookaround and go, this is really fun. I wish I’d enjoyed it more. It’s been an amazing ride. Butthere were parts of the ride I missed, because I was too worried about things going wrong,about what came next, to enjoy the bit I was on.” Gaiman concludes with this, “And now go,and make interesting mistakes, make amazing mistakes, make glorious and fantasticmistakes. Break rules. Leave the world more interesting for your being here. Make good art.”

When I read about this ‘Imposter Syndrome’ and watched the talk from Gaiman I couldimmediately relate. It felt liberating to know there was a ‘condition’ that I can now call it, thatothers were going through the same thing and that in fact it was actually quite common. Ihope some of you out there are reading this and feeling the same way. Now that you recognizewhat is you can break through it and credit your success for all the time and hard work youdedicate to your craft. Now, get out there, make good art and feel damn good about it.