Feeling Like A Fraud – WN 034

This is The Write Now Podcast with Sarah Werner, Episode 34: When You Feel like A Fraud.

Welcome to Write Now, the podcast that helps aspiring writers to find the time, energy, and courage you need to pursue your passion and to write every day. I’m your host, Sarah Werner, and I’m having one of those days. So I spent some time over my lunch hour today, preparing some notes and some outlines and such for today’s podcast episode because I often record in the evenings after work, and it’s that kind of day where I got home and I was really excited to podcast and I opened up my files, and I was like, “Oh no”, I left all my notes at my desk at work. So I could do one of two things, I could say, “Oh, well, I tried”, and close up my computer, unplug my microphone, put all of my stuff away and record another day, or I can just go for it and be confident in the fact that I know what I’m talking about. This happens to me sometimes when I’m writing too and maybe sometimes it happens to you.

So I like to do my writing from coffee shops a lot of the time just to get away, get a change of scenery, see interesting people interact with interesting people, and get good coffee, and so often I’ll pack up all of my stuff, my laptop, my headphones, my cell phone, my idea journal, I’ll pack it all up. And then when I drive to the coffee shop or bike to the coffee shop, or what have you, and start unpacking and settling into my little corner knowing that I have X amount of hours to write, inevitably, just inevitably, I realize that I forgot something. The thing that I forgot is usually something that I’ve told myself I need to have to write, so maybe it’s my headphones, like, “Oh, how am I supposed to block out all of this espresso steam and people jabbering to each other without my headphones? I can’t possibly write like this. I can’t possibly write like this.” Or maybe I’ve forgotten my laptop adapter and I have 37% battery remaining. Or maybe I forgot my little idea book where I had outlined all of the little things I wanted to write about that day. Seriously, every time.

A lot of the time what I do, and I’m not proud of this, is all say, “Oh, I can’t possibly write without this” and so I’ll pack up and I’ll go home and I won’t write. This is not good. I’ve realized that this is not good and so I’m really challenging myself this year to not do that, to not make excuses and to say, “You know what? I don’t have my headphones and it’s loud as heck in here, but I’m going to see what I write anyway.” Or, “I don’t have my laptop adapter, okay. I have 37% battery remaining, let’s see how many words I can get and save before my laptop dies.” So I’m applying that thought method to today’s podcast episode because if I don’t record today, then I don’t get to record this week because my schedule is super busy. So cross your fingers and bear with me. Now, it should be a pretty good episode, I have a good idea of what I want to say.

So one of those things that I want to say is, thank you. Thank you to you for listening, first of all, but I received some really lovely emails this week and I want to share some of those with you. I know I’m going to sound a little cheesy, but this is absolutely my favorite part about podcasting is when I’m able to engage in a dialogue, when I hear back from the people that I’m talking to. So Write Now, I’m talking into this semi-circle of audio foam, and there’s a towel to dampen the sound, and I’m just looking into this sparkling gray mass of foam and I’m talking, and so it’s so nice sometimes to know that people are listening and sometimes talking back. So I got the nicest emails. I want to read two of them.

The first one is from podcast listener, Tracy, and she says, “Hi, Sarah. I just wanted to take a minute to thank you for your podcast. You are like a good writing fairy. I so appreciate your calm reassurances and the piece that resonates from your voice. Many people are talking about writing, but none talk about it quite like you, so thank you.” Tracy. Thank you so much for your kind and encouraging words. I really appreciate it.

The second email I received is from podcast listener Misha who says, “Hey, Sarah. Love the podcast and so appreciate the tips. I listen mostly when I’m at work and it takes me at least an hour to get through an episode, no matter how long it is, because I’m working and will rewind or start over, pause episodes for hours if needed just so that I don’t miss anything. I just finished listening to the, Do I Need a Website episode, I learned so much in that 29 minutes. I’m currently on a mission to become a copywriter and just the tips regarding your position as a content strategist was dead on. Thank you so much for those. I’m an avid listener to the podcast and really wanted to say, to keep up the great work. Thank you, Misha.” Misha, thank you. My gosh. I love that you’re on a mission to become a copywriter. Getting paid for writing is, I think that most folks listening Write Now would agree, is a worthy endeavor, so absolute best of luck to you and thank you so much for your kind and inspiring words. We all need encouragement and inspiration, and I hope that my podcast gives you just as much as you give to me.

So I was having a conversation with a friend the other day, she’s just one of those friends that always understands exactly where I’m coming from because I think that she is going through a lot of the same things as well, and so we use each other as sounding boards and give each other advice and keep each other from going insane or blinding ourselves with our own self-doubt and all those lovely things. She’s deeply creative and deeply intelligent, and I have the feeling that this might apply to you as well.

So we had a lovely conversation over coffee, and that conversation continued into a series of texts and finally, she sent me a text saying that she was at the end of her rope and she felt like she had no self-confidence. She says, “What can I do to get more self-confidence?” I replied, “Well, not to sound like a snot, but why do you have no self-confidence? Is it because you feel worthless? Because I feel worthless a lot of the time, I feel like I can never do enough or be enough to live a life as valuable or as meaningful as the people I see around me.” I mean, outwardly, I think that I put on a good show, and maybe you do too, I smile throughout the day, I put my heart and soul into everything that I do, and I think, overall, I think I seem pretty put together.

I texted my friend back and I said, “I hope that this isn’t the case with you” and of course her response was, “That’s exactly the case with me.” She said, “And I’m afraid people will see the real me and they won’t like it, and faking it is just so exhausting. What do I do?” There is something in us that is deeply afraid. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly where this comes from, but I do know that it manifests in this little voice, this nasty, mean, nagging little voice that says things like, “Who gave you permission to call yourself a writer? You’re a fraud.” Do you ever feel like that? Because I do.

Sometimes I sit behind this mic and I’m like, “Oh my gosh, who am I? Who am I to call myself a writer?” I know that in previous podcasts I’ve encouraged you to proclaim yourself a writer and to give yourself permission to say that you’re a writer and that by saying that you’re a writer, by saying it out loud, by telling people, you make it so because words have power. The way that you define yourself, that’s up to you.

So if I say my name is Sarah Werner and I’m a writer, you get chills when you say that, and I’m smiling. You can hear the smile in my voice because I said that out loud because it feels good to say that. It feels good to say something that you want to be true, that is something that you’ve wanted your whole life. I can say it now, but later on, whether it’s tomorrow or this weekend or six months from now, that voice is going to call my declaration into question and I’m going to say, “My name is Sarah Warner and I’m a writer”, and that voice is going to say, “Yeah, what have you written lately? You call yourself a writer? You’re a fraud.” I hope that this voice isn’t something that you have to deal with, but I have the sneaking suspicion that it might be.

I mean, there are presidents who have stood in the Oval Office and said, “Oh my gosh, what am I doing here? How did I get here? I’m not the president”, but they are the president. They’ve been elected. They put in all that time and hard work campaigning to get to that place, but once they’re there, they feel like a fraud.

The New York Times published an article in October, 2015, entitled Learning to Deal with the Imposter Syndrome by Carl Richards. What really drew me in was a couple things. First of all, simply the name, imposter syndrome. How many times have you sat down to write and felt like an imposter, a fraud? The second thing that hooked me was the header image for the article, which shows a Venn diagram. The circle on the left says, making something look “easy”, the circle on the right says discounting its value, and in the center where the two circles overlap, there’s an arrow pointing to that section that says the imposter syndrome. I’ll make sure that I link to this in today’s show notes so that you can see this as well and read the article because I think it’s very good.

The third thing that really stuck out to me is a story about author Maya Angelou. The article says, “One of my favorite discoveries involved the amazing American author and poet, Maya Angelou. She shared that I have written 11 books, but each time I think, ‘Oh, they’re going to find out now. I’ve run a game on everybody and they’re going to find me out.'” The article continues.

Think about that for a minute, despite winning three Grammys, and being nominated for a Pulitzer prize, and a Tony award, this huge talent still questioned her success. Think about that. What is it in us that feels so unworthy, even once we’ve accomplished so much? You’ve accomplished a lot, you work hard, you do what you can. Why is it so hard for us to see value in ourselves?

Part of this might come from the fact that we’re taught to be humble, or at least I was taught to be humble. “Oh, don’t brag and don’t talk about yourself too much. Make sure that you listen to what other people are saying. Make sure you respect other people and compliment them. Make sure you give credit where credit is due.” I think that that’s good because I don’t want to live in a world where everybody’s always like, “Look how great I am. I’m pretty amazing. Look at me, look at me.” I don’t think anyone wants that. But when people who are doing good work, people who are writing amazing things, people like you, feel like a fraud, feel like their work is worthless or that they themselves are worthless, that’s a problem. It’s a problem I deal with and I hope it’s not a problem that you deal with, but like my friend, whom I was texting, I have the feeling that it might be.

The New York Times article includes a definition for imposter syndrome and once again, I’ll be sure to link to this article in my show notes so that you can read it for yourself. The article credits two American psychologists, Pauline Clance and Suzanne Imes for naming imposter syndrome in 1978, and describing it as follows, “A feeling of phoniness in people who believe that they are not intelligent, capable, or creative, despite evidence of high achievement. While these people are highly motivated to achieve, they also live in fear of being “found out” or exposed as frauds.” Again, I think there’s a line here. Obviously, it’s not healthy to think that you are the savior of the universe and that your writing is going to liberate the peoples and all that stuff, but then there’s the other side where you’re feeling worthless or you’re feeling like a fraud, and you really shouldn’t because you’re not a fraud. You’re a writer and you have worth as a person. I want to repeat that, you are a writer and you have immense worth as a person.

One of the problems that comes from imposter syndrome is believing that you have no self-worth, so how do we deal with imposter syndrome? How do we stop discrediting our achievements and how do we make ourselves realize that the fact that we make something that we do look easy means that we actually have a skill for it?

Carl Richards’ article for the New York Times suggests that we acknowledge the feeling, realize where it comes from, and that is a certain depth of intelligence and creativity partnered with our natural or learned humility. That we invite that feeling in to have a seat at the table, acknowledge its presence and continue to work and move on without letting it rule us.

I don’t know if that’s 100% feasible for me. I wish that the article would have gone on to provide a couple more ways to deal with imposter syndrome. What I want you to take away is that feeling like this is an indicator that you have the depth of intelligence and creativity it takes to be a writer. I want to let that sink in for a minute. Once it sinks in, I want you to pause this podcast episode, if that’s something you’re capable of doing, I don’t know if you’re mowing the lawn or something, or if it’s strapped onto your arm while you’re running, and maybe don’t do that. I don’t want you to get hit by a car or lawn mow one of your toes off. But if you can pause this episode, take a deep breath, say, “My name is” and say your name “and I am a writer.” Go ahead and do it. See how it makes you feel. I’ll do it with you, my name is Sarah Warner and I am a writer.

People will talk about the power of affirmation, and some people take it seriously and some people dismiss it as new age crap. I don’t really care what camp you fall into there, I don’t care, I want you to do it. I want you to do it often and even more than that. I want you to prove that voice in your head wrong. When you feel like a fraud, I want you to write anyway. When you’re feeling worthless, I want you to say, “Screw you feelings of worthlessness. I’m awesome. I’m going to sit down and write a chapter of my novel just to prove you wrong. I’m going to write a blog post today just to spite you, feelings of horribleness, low self-esteem, lack of confidence. Screw you. I am a smart person. I am a creative person. I was made to create things. I am a writer.” I think that the more you say stuff like that, and the more that you act on it, not just words, but actions, the more you do that, the stronger and stronger you’ll become. You’ll become a better writer, a more powerful storyteller, and you’ll become more and more secure in your identity.

If you don’t, think of Maya Angelou, that wonderful, beautiful woman who even after publishing 11 books and receiving all those awards, still felt like someone was going to find her out. It’s such a funny thing when you write, when you release your thoughts out into the world and they take on a life of their own, I think that’s maybe part of where Maya Angelou’s disbelief came from. She had written these things and people had responded to them in a way she had never imagined that they would, and so I think it’s quite a natural response to say, “What? This is just me. I just put my thoughts out there. I’m not this hero that you think I am”, but yeah, you are. She is a hero. She just had difficulty conceptualizing and realizing the profound effect that her words had on others. They had become so much larger than she was. So she wasn’t a fraud. She may have felt like one, but she really did all that stuff. She moved people. She changed lives. She became a larger than life figure, but she stayed humble, she stayed human and she kept writing.

So the next time you feel like a fraud, please know that you are not a fraud. You’re feeling that way because of imposter syndrome. You’re feeling that way because you are intelligent and creative. And because you are intelligence and creative, you have all the more reason to stand up, declare yourself a writer and write. Once again, I will be linking to the New York Times article in today’s show notes so that you can read the whole thing for yourself.

I’ve been fighting a cold recently so I’m sorry if my voice is a little off. In fact, when am I not fighting a cold? I don’t know. Sort of speaking to that, you may have noticed a post on sarahwerner.com that says podcast 2016 release schedule updates, and basically what it says is that I’m not going to stop podcasting because I love it and I love talking to you, and I hope that you love listening. But what I’m going to do is make my schedule a little bit more manageable, achieve that work-life writing balance thing that I’m always talking about. So what I’m going to do is I’m going to continue to release new episodes on Mondays and the podcast episodes for the first, second, and third Mondays of each month will be regular traditional Write Now podcast episodes, exactly like this one that you’re listening to Write Now. You get it, Write Now? Puns. Yeah.

The fourth Monday of each month will be when I release my Coffee Break episodes. I don’t know if you’ve been listening to those or not, but Coffee Break episodes are when I talk to a writer, or a creative personality, or some such about being creative and about writing and about what they do to find inspiration and all sorts of other cool stuff. So those will come out on the fourth Monday of each month and then if there’s a fifth Monday, like I know there’s a fifth Monday in May, 2016, that will, once again, just be a traditional Write Now podcast episode.

So previously what I had been trying to do was release a Write Now episode every Monday and a Coffee Break episode every Thursday, and you might have noticed, I was not… I’m going to use some words that I’ve heard at work, and that is I did not set myself up for success. With everything else I have going on, it was not really a feasible thing to commit to. So starting this week, I’m going to be switching to my new podcast release schedule. I’ll continue to send out emails every time I release a new episode.

Speaking of making podcast episodes, I would not be able to make any episodes at all without the generous sponsorship of my Patreon supporters. Patreon is a secure and free to use third-party donation platform. What you do is you set up an account, and every time I post a new podcast, my Patreon supporters follow through on their pledge and donate 50 cents per podcast episode or a dollar per podcast episode, et cetera, et cetera, and that helps me cover hosting costs and any other costs associated with podcasting. So yeah, I’m very grateful to these wonderful people.

If you would like to become a Patreon supporter, I’ve made it easier than ever, all you do is go to my tip jar page. You can navigate to it from the main page at sarahwerner.com or you can go to sarahwerner.com/tip-jar. There’s two ways to give, there is a link to Patreon, which lets you give for each episode that I post, or I’ve also set up a paypal.me page where you can just go and give a one-time amount if you are so moved to do so.

This week, I would like to give a special shout out to my longstanding Patreon supporters, including official Cool Cat, Sean Locke, official Rad Dude, Andrew Coons, and official Bookworm, Rebecca Werner. You are all lovely and wonderful and I thank you.

If you would like to support the Write Now podcast in a nonfinancial way, that is equally as awesome. Actually, one of the best things you can do is simply refer this show to a friend, a fellow writer, or a teacher, or a creative who just might need a little bit of encouragement and inspiration. What you can do is share a link to the show or have them subscribe on iTunes, anything like that, however you think they would access the show. Spread the word, let them know, become an evangelist. My gosh, I’m such a dork. Seriously though, that would be immensely awesome.

I know that I have a couple people who are like evangelists. I know that podcast listener [Rashaun 00:23:20] in Detroit has done an amazing job telling people about the Write Now podcast. Rashaun, bless your heart. You are magical and wonderful, so thank you.

Oh my gosh, I just realized I didn’t do the book of the week. See, this is what happens when I leave my notes in the office, I just have no idea what I’m doing. This week’s book of the week is Among Others by Joe Walton. I don’t know what to tell you about this book other than the fact that I was absolutely in love with it. I was completely entranced by this book. While I was reading it, I felt like I was at home. It was immensely powerful.

So the premise of this book, and it’s a little bit unusual, it’s a fantasy that talks a lot about sci-fi, so it was right up my alley. The premise is there is a girl who is going to a boarding school and she has a twin sister who has passed away, and she and her twin sister come from a very special family. So because of this, the two twins are able to see what they describe as fairies. Although you come to realize, as you read the book, that they’re not talking about Tinkerbell, they’re talking about deeply powerful elemental beings. I hope I’m not spoiling this too much for you, but it’s just told in such an amazing way. It’s told in diary format. The main character is writing all these things that are happening to her.

I think the most amazing feat that this book pulls off is the fact that it takes place after the big showdown has happened, so it’s like if this was Harry Potter, it would take place after Harry Potter has defeated Voldemort. It’s such an interesting premise for a story. What you get out of it is not this like, “Oh, and then the sword did this and there was a huge fight and this happened and tension and drama and dragons and blah, blah, blah.” What you get is this really gentle story of a twin who is in mourning for her sister, who still lives in this world and is dealing with the aftermath of this giant climax that she just faced, and she’s becoming more and more herself and she’s discovering who she is without her twin sister. It’s just beautifully written.

I don’t know if it was just me, if I’m biased, because a lot of the book and a lot of the diary that the main character keeps talks about her love for science fiction and she alludes to a lot of these things that she’s reading. The story takes place, I think in 1979, and she talks about, “Oh, I’m reading this by Ursula Le Guin”, or, “I’m reading this by Andrew Nivon” or, “I’m reading this by Robert Heinlein”, and she just… It’s fascinating to me. I’ve never seen another book do this, but the character is an avid reader, and she weaves in the thoughts and inspirations that she has while reading with everyday life.

If you are an avid reader, this is something that you’re familiar with, when I’m reading a book and I put it down and go brush my teeth, I’m still thinking about that book while I’m brushing my teeth, and I’m thinking about that book while I’m eating dinner, and it affects what I’m thinking about while I’m walking home from work. The author, Joe Walton, does a beautiful job of just portraying the way that an avid reader lives life and thinks about life. I love it. There’s a point in the book where the main character says, “I am in love with interlibrary loan”, and that was just so delightful to me. So if you’re an avid reader, I highly suggest that you read this book. It will not be the sort of fantasy that you’re used to perhaps, but it is certainly worth reading. Okay, I had the book of the weekend, Among Others, by Joe Walton.

As a special bonus, I have to tell you this because it meant the world to me, I got up at 4:00 AM, I was so into this book I couldn’t sleep, and so I think one of my cats had jumped on my stomach or something, and so I woke up at 4:00 AM and I was like, “Oh man, I’m reading this great book” and so I finished it between 4:00 AM and 6:38 AM I finished this book. So I tweeted at work the next morning, “I loved this book. I got up at 4:00 AM to finish it. It was amazing”, and I tagged the author in it, and she retweeted me. It was just the most amazing, magical moment ever, and it sort of just solidified my absolute love for this book.

So give it a read, let me know what you think. In fact, let me know what you think on pretty much everything that I’ve talked about in today’s episode. If you feel like an imposter, if you feel like a fraud, what is the root of that and how have you been dealing with it or have you been dealing with it at all? I’d love to hear what you have to say.

Normally, this is the part of the podcast where I’d go into my thank yous and such, but I’ve already done that, and so thank you once again for listening. You are intelligent and creative. You are a writer. And even if you don’t feel like it sometimes, I still want you to go out there and write every day.

With that, this has been episode 34 of the Write Now podcast, the podcast that helps aspiring writers to find the time, energy, and courage you need to pursue your passion and to write every day. I am Sarah Werner and I am a writer.