Overcome the Imposter Syndrome

The Impostor Syndrome is a very really thing, in fact I bet you have experienced it at some point in your life, even for a brief moment, or if you’re a recovering perfectionist like me you deal with it most days. According to Wikipedia, the Impostor syndrome (also known as impostor phenomenon, fraud syndrome or the impostor experience) is a concept describing individuals who are marked by an inability to internalize their accomplishments and a persistent fear of being exposed as a “fraud”.

The impostor experience for me shows up in my art, it’s that constant nagging feeling it could be better, it’s definitely not perfect… in fact it probably just sucks. So, this is when I usually stop the pursuit of whatever I was making, because it just wasn’t that good. The inner critic gets really loud and usually says something like, “there are more talented writers and artists out there so don’t worry about finishing.”

Am I alone? The nagging is so intense somedays it’s like my two-year-old screaming at me when she wants carrot cake. I usually given in, but for all those recovering perfectionist, we don’t have to give in, we don’t have live under this constant fear of being an impostor. Sometimes FINISHED is better than perfect, ok really almost always finished is better than perfect.

When I was making the film JuneBug, a somewhat autobiographical story about a young girl’s journey with grief, I suffered severally from the imposter syndrome. You see, I wrote the film at the age of twenty-six in about three days, shot the film at age twenty-eight in four days, and I’m just now completing the film six years after that.

Why did it take me almost a decade to make a short film? I will give myself one excuse, which is sometimes your side hustle can take a VERY long time, especially when you are a full-time creative director and mom, but if I’m really honest it was the imposter syndrome that prolonged this process by at least three years .
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During the post-production process there were a few cringe worthy moments. I’d evolved as an artist and I felt like I could have made different creative choices. I let this nagging feeling haunt me for years, until one day a fellow artist told me, “done is better than perfect,” and that was the permission I needed to just FINISH.

Sometimes just finishing is the most important thing, so you can give birth to your next creative baby. For me this was the case, I realized my voice did matter, yeah there are always going be more talented filmmakers than me, but they aren’t necessarily going to tell the same stories. We as artist all have a unique viewpoint, it’s the sum total of our experiences that make us who we are — share them even if they aren’t perfect, you never know who just might need to hear you story that day.

I like to think of our collective creative has a woven tapestry made to inspire, encourage and make the world just a little more beautiful for others. So, get your butt in the chair if you are a writer, pickup a camera and start filming, record music in your garage- just create without expectations and then share it for others. You are not an impostor, you are an artist on a creative journey, own it and embrace it.