The Real Cause of Imposter Syndrome

What if you created something from your wildest dreams and then you spent the rest of your life being afraid of losing it? Imagine this on a looping cycle? This is what most of us call Imposter Syndrome.

Imposter Syndrome isn’t resolved by someone telling you that everyone feels that sometimes. That’s comforting because it feels good to not feel alone but it only feels good temporarily because there’s nothing comforting, long term, about realizing you’re in the same stinky swamp as a thousand other people. Eew.

Imposter Syndrome isn’t just a thing we all get sometimes and need to figure out how to live with. It’s a specific result when you create something you want BEFORE you have the thinking that says you can have or keep that thing. (Read that again and really sit with it.)

When you create something by way of effort and practice and focus, but you don’t yet self identify as someone who can have or keep that thing, it will always result in imposter syndrome. This is where awesome actions can get ahead of growth and where a lot of gurus suggest dialing back the action to just be.

Just like no amount of action alone will diminish the level of imposter syndrome that comes up, no amount of inaction will either. You’ll either feel like an imposter because you don’t yet identify as someone who can have/create what you’ve created OR you’ll feel like an imposter because you’re not living out the creations that are calling you to bring them into being. Either way, the solution is in changing how you self-identify. No matter what. How much you’re doing or not doing is irrelevant.

The first Lesson in The Unstuck Artist is aaaaall about Identity. EVERYTHING you create or don’t create is rooted in your self identity and friends, it’s SO MUCH MORE than just declaring yourself an artist.

I really want you with me in this Unstuck Artist journey. I want you to know yourself on whole new terms. I want you to feel deeply connected to that endless well of creativity that is in you that both has no need to prove anything to anyone but also has in it the ability to accomplish incredible feats of success as an artist.