Impostor Syndrome

If you’ve only ever heard of impostor syndrome, I envy you.

But for my purposes here, humour me and imagine that you and the person other people speak to don’t seem to be the same person. They're just housed in the same body, and you’re permanently at risk of disappointing everyone when they find out.

So you have to spend half your life trying to step up in your head to meet yourself where you seem to have accidentally found yourself in the real world. And the rest, talking yourself down off a ledge over, “But what happens when people find OUT?”

In my case, it’s my ego’s fault.

I’m quite happy to demonstrate my authority. I’m quite happy to stand on the fact that nobody knows what I know the way that I know it because they weren’t taught it like me. Challenge me on it, and I’ll meet you there. 

Start talking to me like you’ve just accepted all that as fact and treating me accordingly? I’m all, “No, no, no, no, no you’ve got the wrong person. Fuck you ego, fuck you. Now look what you’ve gone and done.”

Why is this a pressing issue now?

It’s always a pressing issue. I’m always playing catch-up with myself. It’s just extra right now as I’ve somehow levelled up to hosting a fortnightly Monday night meeting in my network, and it feels like a very big step I have to make. We’re called leaders for a reason. I have to step up and lead within a network whose live event I was on the edge about attending because I still wasn’t sure I belonged.

I thought I was doing well having in-demand spotlights. 

So you might be asking yourself, “If it’s such a problem, why do you do this stuff.

Why do you say yes, why? That doesn’t make sense.”

You’re right. But remember that thing I said about my ego earlier? That. It’s pretty insufferable. So I can't pass up on things. It won’t let me. And if it’s not my ego, it’s my pride. As in, I’m just not willing to let anybody else find out about this complicated little cocktail I’ve got going on.

Unless I decide to tell them. My way.

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