Impostor Syndrome

Other Stories, Work,

Recently I had a meeting with a potential client. While we were chatting about what I might be able to do for them, they asked for help on identifying funding sources. I immediately panicked.

‘I have to tell you right now that I’m totally the wrong person for this. I have never in my life submitted a funding application and I have no idea how it works and I have no contacts and you really could get someone far better than me to do this.’

So we moved on to the next item on their list. A bit later in the same meeting, I found myself talking about the Digital Development Fund; Xenos; Indycube Ventures; Finance Wales, Jobs Growth Wales, when I became aware of the client looking at me, confused.

‘I thought you said you didn’t know anything about funding? You’ve just mentioned a whole bunch of stuff that sounds like funding to me…’

YAY there’s nothing like looking like a muppet when you are trying to persuade someone to pay actual cash for your skills!

And then a couple of weeks ago,  I had to pop in to see a director at work about something.

‘Ah come in, can you close the door a minute’ says she.

‘Close the door? CLOSE THE DOOR? I’m gonna get fired, I’m gonna get fired, I’m gonna get fired’ says my brain.

It turns out that this is not a conversation about getting fired, but a conversation about a possible leadership training scheme and an increase in hours and best of all, the chance to work on an absolutely AMAZING project.

Only I was so convinced I was going to get fired that it took my brain a while to catch up and I suspect I managed to witter incoherently just enough to mess up any good impression I might have inadvertently formed. Muppet, again.

I’ve always been inclined to doubt myself whilst apparently giving off an air of cockiness and confidence; but I do feel that this internal failure monologue is getting stronger as I get older.  My natural reaction is to take on more stuff and set myself more goals to prove to myself I suppose that I can be the best at something – anything. Whilst my rational head can see the futility of this, my muppet head just keeps urging me onwards. I’m actually considering an ultra marathon at the moment – that’s 50 miles – for no other reason except that I feel like I should be able to do it.

I’ve read enough to know that this isn’t an unusual form of self torture – in fact, it even has a name, Impostor Syndrome – also known as the fear of being found out. Apparently 70% of people suffer from it at some point in their lives; it’s a hallmark of high achievers, and it appears to be more common in women than men though as this article points out this may be down to the fact that us ladies are better at admitting it. But giving it a name doesn’t detract from its insidious effects. Hell, do you know what I am thinking RIGHT NOW?

I’m thinking that I can’t possibly suffer from impostor syndrome because I’m not actually a high enough achiever; instead I should probably just get used to the fact that I’m actually a muppet and prepare myself for when the world inevitably finds out.

FFS! I’m actually getting kind of bored with myself here. I mean I’m forty flipping two, and isn’t your forties when life is all supposed to come together and make sense and you’re supposed to finally be comfortable with yourself? Yet here I am impostorising and fear-of-being-foundouting more than ever. I know that I need to get a grip on it or I’ll actually end up talking myself out of opportunities as I’ve so nearly done twice in the last month.

I’m going to assume that at least some people reading this post can relate to some of this (that is if I can get past the voice in my head telling me that nobody will still be reading this far down) and send out a plea for help…If you have any suggestions for managing this, or know of any good books or resources out there, please do comment below or message me privately.  And I will read, review, and not only cure myself of this dastardly condition but will also announce THE definitive cure, and make it free for everyone, and become a world renowned authority on the subject, and win awards, all without apparent effort.

Oh dear. I really, REALLY, need those suggestions.

You want to start a blog? Stop reading, start writing!

LearnerBlogger

I’ve had a run of real-life people over the last couple of weeks saying kindly things about my blog – for which thank you – but what’s struck me is that without fail, every one of those people has followed up with ‘I’d love to start a blog. But I don’t have the time/I can’t write/I am useless with IT/I’d be scared nobody would read it’.

None of these are reasons not to START a blog. They might be reasons to start one, decide it doesn’t do that much for you, or you’re not getting enough out of it for the time you put in, or simply that you don’t like writing after all – and then stop. But there’s no shame in that!  Unless you start, you’ll never know how it ends…

So. For you lovely people who want to know (you know who you are!) – and assuming we’re talking personal rather than professional blogs, here’s my top tips from the fifteen months that LearnerMother has been A Thing….

1 IGNORE all online blogging advice and how-tos – for now.

You only need to google ‘How to s’ on Google and the autocomplete comes up with ‘How to start a blog’ – followed by 2,640,000,000 search results – shortly to be 2,640,000,001 when I hit publish. My advice is not to bother with any of these – YET. (Except this one, which I am sure will be in the top 3 rankings in, uh, no time at all…) I know this seems counterintuitive but the more time you spend ploughing through blogspeak and social media advice and general clickbait, the more flummoxed you will get, and it’ll likely put you off  doing anything at all. Once you’ve been blogging for a bit then go back and delve through at your leisure, it’ll all make much more sense!

2 Don’t worry about what you’re going to write about.

This advice flies in the face of every blogging how-to I’ve ever read. But – again, assuming we’re talking a personal blog rather than a professional one – what matters is whether you want to write, not what you’re going to write about. If you have a niche that you know a lot about, that might be a good place to start – if not, just write about what comes. You’ll soon figure out what works for you.

3 Do choose a name – but don’t sweat over it!

The standard advice on this is to choose a catchy name and then check its availability as a domain name and with social media. For a work blog this is entirely sensible. For a personal blog, it’s not bad advice exactly, it’s just that it’s another item on the To Do list that will stop you actually getting on with things and writing stuff. You can start a blog under whatever name you like – and then if you want to (or have to) start again with a new whizzy name, you can import everything you’ve done so far anyway. And THAT’s when all the blogging how-tos will come in useful.

4 Anonymous or not?

The pros of being anonymous: you can be extremely frank; you are protecting your family’s privacy; you can blog about work and work issues without compromising your professional role.

The cons – firstly, it can be much harder to get your blog out there and read without being able to share it on your social networks; secondly (and this is the big one for me) you could end up outed – and potentially causing more harm and upset to the people whose privacy you were trying to protect in the first place. Oh, and getting fired. Hmmm.

This is a tricky issue and only you can decide in the longer term what you want to do. But I’d also say that it doesn’t really matter which you choose to start with. Just start writing. If you’re ‘out’, and want to become anonymous, you can always close down and start again; if you’re anonymous you can always out yourself later.

5 Common sense

If you carry on blogging, especially if you choose to work with brands, there is stuff you’ll need to find out about what you can and can’t do on your blog. But to START blogging, you don’t really need to know it. You just need to use your common sense. So – if you’re given something to review for free, say so. Don’t publish photos unless you took them (or you have permission). Be respectful with photos of other people and even more so if children are in them. Don’t slag off your boss. Do a spellcheck before you hit publish. None of it’s rocket science – it’s just common sense. And that’s all you really need to get started.

6 There’s always people who will help

Whatever problem you come up against, you can find the answer online; or if you do Twitter, you’ll be able to find someone to help. So getting stuck on something, or flummoxed by some ridiculously in-depth ‘basic’ blogging tutorial isn’t a reason to give up. There is ALWAYS someone who can explain it in words of two syllables.

7 Start a Blog!

You can set up a wordpress or a blogger page in, literally, minutes. Click the link, follow the instructions, write something, share it. It really is as simple as that.  In the time it’s taken you to read this post, you could have set up a blog and started writing.

What are you waiting for?