Insecurity Can Kiss My Ass: I’m Taking My Power BACK!
Not good enough. I feel this way a lot. Do you ever feel this way? Tell me I’m not strange and alone.
Maybe it’s that I feel I don’t fit in with any one crowd. I’ve never been smart enough to be the nerd. I don’t know how to play Dungeons and Dragons, I only vaguely know who John Green is, I can’t name all the Star Wars characters (except Han Solo … because … Harrison Ford), and *gasp* I’m not part of the Harry Potter cult. Feeling inadequate sucks and honestly? I’m tired of it: I’m taking my power BACK!
Insecurity Can Kiss My Ass: I’m Taking My Power BACK!
Perhaps the most frustrating: I feel this way at work. I think my ideas and projects are prodigious, until I read or see anyone else’s work. I want to shove my work in a drawer, and act like I just didn’t complete it. Perhaps it is because I’m so afraid to put myself out there that people tend to pay me no mind. I found out this is called Imposter Syndrome, and it turns out, I’m not alone.
I guess, if I could take anything from this lifelong sentence of feeling invisible and inadequate, it would be this: Do hard things, put yourself out there, and don’t give a crap what anyone else thinks. This is so much easier said than done, but if I would have heeded my own advice from the very beginning, I could have saved myself a lifetime of feeling invisible and inadequate.
Start now, my friends. Here’s how:
1. Do Hard Things.
Do those things you don’t want to, that you’re afraid to. Write that novel that’s been in the back of your head. Register to finish getting your diploma. Have that hard conversation you’ve been putting off. A wise person once said something that amounted to: The only way to fail at something is not to do it. If it scares the crap out of you, that is probably the thing you need to be doing.
2. Don’t be ashamed of your awesome talents.
Trust me, you don’t suck nearly as bad as you think you do. See number one, above. You aren’t the only one who has these feelings of inadequacy. That person you look up to? They started exactly where you are now. I promise you, they were scared. They were afraid they weren’t good enough. They were afraid they would fail. They didn’t have any idea what they were doing. You know what they did? They did it even though they felt scared and embarrassed. It’s okay to have doubts and to be scared. Do it anyway.
3. Most importantly, it doesn’t matter what others say or think.
People usually say negative things out of fear of their own inadequacies. That may also be why they sometimes seem to ignore you. I’ll let you in on a little secret … they think they suck too. Just be you, and own it. You’re not invisible at all!
