Am I Good Enough?

I used to believe I was the only one who felt this way. It wasn’t until my late twenties that I began to understand that pretty much everyone feels the same. But it has still been present my whole life.

The Human Condition

Imposter Syndrome is a drag. A weight that you carry your whole life. Attributing any success to luck, doubting your own abilities, a fear of exposure as a fraud, or always comparing your own efforts to others who seem more capable and qualified.

For me, it's that nagging suspicion that I've somehow blagged my way into somewhere I don't really belong. That everyone else knows what they're doing and, sooner or later, someone is going to notice that I don't.

It’s not about confidence. I’m sure some people would say my confidence borders on arrogance at times. And it isn't necessarily about ability.  It's about being unable to accept your own evidence of competence and worth.

As a teenager I didn’t think I fitted in, that people could feel I was ‘outside’ of their circle. That I could be unmasked as a faker at any moment.

At college I felt the same. I enrolled on a graphic design course simply to stop my mum moaning about me wasting my life, and I found art easy. So, it felt like I was taking the soft option when everyone else on the course wanted to do art for more satisfactory reasons.

When I worked as a graphic designer things didn’t get any better. “You’re colour blind. How can you do graphic design?” It was a question I dreaded, but one that rarely came up. And in reality, it never mattered. I understood the theory of colour, and technology helped when needed to identify tricky colours. Nevertheless, I felt unworthy of the title and that at any moment they would find out I shouldn’t be there at all.

When I left print and went to university aged 40, I felt a complete phoney as I was twice the age of most of the other students. And when I then got a job as a social worker, that horrible sense of not measuring up to everyone else remained, despite all evidence to the contrary.

Reality Check

The first time my assumptions of self-worth were challenged was by a musician friend when I was in my twenties. He was what I would call “A proper musician”. He could read music, had studied music theory, was utterly brilliant. While I was self-taught, played by ear, and felt reluctant to describe myself as a ‘musician’. He was the first person to convince me that I was a musician because I made music and it didn’t matter a damn how clever I was about it.

That advice stayed with me and helped combat that inner voice over time, although it was still there. Despite having had successful careers in both graphic design and social work, having written more than 50 songs and played in clubs throughout the country, and becoming a successful artist – there are still times when I find it a challenge to recognise my self-worth.

I’ve reached that stage of life, having retired, when you start to look back and measure such things. And I realise that it wasn’t luck that got me through school or college or gave me a 20-year career in design, and then another 25 years in social work. It was the result of hard work and perseverance on my part. Possibly made harder because of feeling like an imposter.

But talking about it with others, realising that a lot of people feel exactly the same, and being prepared to talk openly about it all help to push back the self-doubt and feelings of inadequacy. And over the years I have learnt to accept these feelings, acknowledge them, and then ignore them and do it anyway.

My creativity isn’t worthless. I have talent, and skill, and experience. And all that makes me a bloody good musician and artist. Those aren't accidents or strokes of luck. They are a lifetime of evidence.

I just have to keep telling myself that.