I have been absent for more days that I care to admit. Trying to give my hands and eyes a break. Then there is that thing called the mind; it called in some time off. It was long due. But there was something else. Something I could not name.
I was listening to Mur Lafferty's fine podcast called "I Should Be Writing." In the November 24th show she talked about the imposter syndrome. Mur is nobody's imposter. She is a published writer, audio producer and involved with all kinds of folks.
Yet she was talking about how this feeling creeps up in her that people will find out she is a fraud.
That icky voice that says you can't do what you have been doing AND dismisses other people that have told you that they have liked your work.
I write. I take photos. I am not doing as much video as I would like. I also have a day job and other responsibilities. I live in a 24 hour day and part of that time must be spent sleeping.
We gotta let go of that perfection hammer. How are we going to do good work if we criticizes ourselves for recording a small bit of video? Because the imposter syndrome can move from haranguing you about not being perfect to gnawing on that bone about trying to do anything at all.
It is a nasty sucker.
Yes, we want it to be good. Great. Perfect. Before any of that can be evaluated the work first must get done. The icky voice, the litter hater, the devil on the shoulder has to be banished.
Not so easy to do but necessary.
If you are interested you could check out Dr. Pauline Rose Clance's web page about Impostor Phenomenon
or you can check out XOJane - Overcoming Imposter Syndrome
I'm still tussling with mine but I won this round.
I wrote this post.
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