Who am I to tell you?

 Let's talk struggle.  Not the "good for you" type of struggle like lifting heavy weights, learning how to do something difficult, or having a hard conversation.  I'm referring to the the kind of struggle that can keep you from not only doing things you need to do, but worse, things you want to do.  The kind of struggle, that at its worst could keep you from getting out of bed or force you to give up on something you've dreamed of.

Imposter syndrome is defined as "the persistent inability to believe that one's success is deserved or has been legitimately achieved as a result of one's own efforts or skills".  Inability to believe actually seems like too nice a way to define this.  Debilitating and sometimes crippling seems a bit more accurate.

Imposter syndrome was a prevalent topic in 2 of the groups I spend my time in this past week.  Selfishly it is comforting to know that I am not alone with this struggle, but at the same time I hate to see anyone struggle with this or anything else for that matter.  Because it has been on my mind so much this week, I thought I'd slide what I was going to write about to another time, and jump right on this.  What I didn't count on was how powerful the imposter would become when I decided to commit to this. 

 Let me invite you under the covers on this one...I decided this was what I was writing about on Wednesday.  I stopped overthinking (so I thought) on Friday and wrote the first 2 paragraphs, and here we are on Sunday before I finally commit to getting it done.  Why?  Who the fuck am I to share anything with anyone about this, or anything else!?  Wow!  How's that for a dominant imposter?  I don't have a PhD in anything and in fact I'm not an overly educated guy period.  That's what my imposter hangs his hat on.  

The reality though, I'm a guy living life, experiencing everything in my own way, and would be doing you all a disservice by not sharing my perspective.  Maybe I'm a lap ahead of you in life and could spare you from having to go through something I had to.  Maybe we walk a similar path and by sharing my thoughts I enable you to realize something about yourself (wouldn't that be cool!?  it would be for me.).  Perhaps you are a lap ahead of me, but by reading what I've got to share you see something in a different light.  Or maybe we are polar opposites.  I guessing if the last is true, I must have become a sensational writer, because why else would you be looking at my content!? lol

A bit of research on the topic helped me to understand a little better.  First, I found that there are 5 main types of imposters.  The Natural Genius, The Perfectionist, The Soloist, The Superhero, and The Expert.  I can look at each of these labels and put a name to it of someone I know personally.  Don't worry, I'm not going to out you here, your secret is safe with me.  If you know me well enough, you know which I am...The Perfectionist.  Damn!  What an exhausting bar to live up to!  I should be proud of plenty of accomplishments in my life.  Instead I look at every single thing I have done and critique the hell out of it to see what I missed or did wrong.  Worse than that, I hold myself back from starting or participating in things with the fear that I won't nail it 100% and look foolish.  Take this blog for example.  This has been on my radar as something I've wanted to do for better than 6 months.  It took some serious mindfulness work (yes fellas, mindfulness.  It's okay to dive deep into working on yourself internally as well as externally.) for me to realize I have a story worth sharing.  You may not think so, but real talk...so do you.

Where should we go from here? Great question.  I bet at least one of you is hoping to find the answer to overcoming this nasty syndrome, no matter which of the five you struggle with, am I right?  Well, when you find it, come back here and comment so you can teach me!  In the meantime, how do I handle it...sometimes not well at all!  As someone who deals with the inner perfectionist, it can be difficult to share any insight I may have.  You see, even though I may have experience in something, I will almost always question whether or not I am 100% sure I am right.  Isn't that ridiculous!  Notice that's a statement, not a question.  It is absolutely ridiculous. It is also a sample of what goes through my head before I do almost anything. Perfection is not a thing, and it is okay to be wrong.  Read that again.

So what am I doing to cope and persevere at this point in my journey?  A mentor of mine uses the phrase "walk into the punch".  When he's using this line, he is typically talking about having the hard conversations you know you need to have, or doing the hard things you know you need to do.  I feel like it fits here because getting past the imposter can truly be a hard thing.  So what do I do?  I quiet the imposter, take a breath, and just do the thing!  Yup, that's it, just do the damn thing.  Whatever it is.  Guess what else.  Since the first time I have consciously decided to go at life this way, things have only gotten better, not worse as my inner voice told me they would.  Imagine that.

Now, I'd be lying if I told you I'm cured.  Remember just a few paragraphs back I talked about how long it took me to see this through.  It's a constant struggle for sure, but what I can tell you from my experience is that once you decide to "walk into the punch" of quieting the imposter and decide to be you, more often than not people are going to look up to you for sharing, not belittle you because you aren't the PhD.  Sure, there's one in every crowd, but does that one opinion really change your life?  Nope, of course not.  Something pretty profound I heard this past week went something like "Once your dead and gone, even your family will eventually forget about what you did or didn't do, so why worry about what anyone thinks of what you're doing while you're living?  Just live!"  I wish I had the power to get that into my teenage sons' heads so they would live their lives to the fullest.  Real talk, if I could go back and tell my teenage self just one thing, this might just be it!

Anyway, my suggestion to you.  Just live.  Be you.  If we were all the same, life would be pretty boring.  You and I bring our own awesomeness to life.  Share yours and I'll share mine.  Continue to work on overcoming that imposter.  I am.