Yesterday I talked about how I leverage my imposter syndrome to my advantage. Today I want to talk about how I overcome imposter syndrome.
There are a lot of definitions of the word “imposter” floating around, but I like this one from dictionary.com:
> a person who practices deception under an assumed character, identity, or name.
On some level, we all are in this line of work. We assume an identity and do our best to align with it.
The person who is a graphic designer has a mental construct of what a graphic designer should do. Then they attempt to conform to that mental construct.
Imposter Syndrome is essentially the fear that everyone is going to uncover the game they’ve been playing.
People sink a lot of time, energy, and money into fighting this fear. They want it to go away, and for some reason they think the best route is to continue playing its game.
There’s an easier way: stop and walk away.
Imposter Syndrome is trolling you. It wants to provoke a reaction.
The cure for imposter syndrome isn’t to fight back... it’s to see it for what it really is and to just leave it alone.
You are an imposter, and that’s fine. We all are. We’re all attempting to conform to a multitude of roles that aren’t inherent within us: father, mother, sister, friend, boss, artist.
Problems only begin to arise when we forget what it is we’re doing.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to spend my life conforming to a socially constructed ideal so well that I end up believing the lie myself.