Last night, I was listening to a podcast about a young woman who wrote a book and published it through Amazon with print-on-demand. Rachel Richards makes regular and fairly significant income from the three books she now has for sale on the site, but what struck me was her voicing her struggle with imposter syndrome. We have all come face to face with this insidious creature, which often causes the negative noise our own minds to drown out all other rational voices and give up on our goals and dreams.
During the podcast, the Richards said something that really struck me. She spoke about how she actually gave up writing the book about four months into the process because the negative noise in her brain became so loud. It took a good friend encouraging her to not quit that got her to continue and eventually finish the book. Richards said it really started to sink in how damaging imposter syndrome is when she started getting positive feedback from hundreds of people about her book in the months after it was published. This made her realize that if she hadn’t written her book, there might still be people out there struggling with money who now have a much better direction because of her.
It sounded counterintuitive to me at first, but the truth is this: if we lock our gifts and talents away because we are too afraid of not being good enough, we are doing a disservice to those who could be helped by those talents.
For example, when I was twenty-seven, I got a job teaching at a very good charter school. I was super happy to get the job, but I developed severe stress almost immediately. I had knots in my stomach all the time in the weeks leading up to the school opening because I knew next to nothing about how to prepare lesson plans–and I was required to create full lesson plans for six separate classes.
Rather than lean into that challenge, I will be forever embarrassed to admit that I quit the job four weeks into the school year. The voices in my head telling me I wasn’t good enough became so loud that I couldn’t hear anything else. But when I look back at that time, I recognize the truth of Richards’ words: I could have touched the lives of at least some of those students. I might not have changed any lives or worked any miracles, but I believe without a doubt that I could have done some good and helped any struggling student learn to believe in themselves. I am good at that, even though, ironically, I have not been able to do that for myself.
So I guess I just want to reiterate what Richards was saying, because it helped me and I know it can help someone else out there who is maybe struggling with feelings of inadequacy and fear: You have something amazing to offer the world. You have talents that can affect the lives of others in a positive way–if you let them. To live in fear of not being good enough is actually depriving others of your light and your strengths. You don’t have to do something perfectly, especially in the beginning.
Picture in your mind those people you want to reach. Are you a personal trainer? A teacher? A freelance editor? A photographer? A stand-up comedian? Over the past two weeks, I have been listening to a number of comedians who perform at the Dry Bar, and while it might not have changed my life, it has numerous times lifted my spirits and given me something I desperately needed in that moment–laughter.
Whatever you do or aspire to be, there are absolutely people out there who will benefit from your talents. Don’t hide them away because you aren’t “good enough” yet. By doing the thing, we will become better. And the better we become, the more we will be able to tune out the devil in our ear telling us we aren’t good enough. We have always been good enough.
