There were times when I thought my stories would never move past the word document phase. I thought I’d always be in this cycle of writing, re-writing, editing, revising, re-editing, and over and over and over again. I dreamed of getting published and sought after this goal for so long, I never thought it’d happen.
Then it did.
That moment was like a rush of pure relief. This thing—this goal that I’d began to accept might be unobtainable for me, I finally managed to grasp. And I wasn’t about to let it slip away. So, I put my head down and kept working, barely acknowledging my accomplishment for fear that if I spent too much time feeling proud, that it’d be gone somehow. This feeling festered as I continued to write until one day I sat down and it hit me all at once.
Nothing I wrote was good enough. My publication was a fluke. I got lucky. I didn’t deserve this. I thought, If someone looks too closely, they might realize I don’t know exactly what I’m doing. I felt like this for a few weeks as I struggled to reach my daily word count in my next book. Then I thought, Why does it matter?
Self-doubt was keeping me from writing—keeping me from my passion. I got so caught up in how others would perceive my work, I forgot about simply doing what makes me happy. The truth is, with or without publication, I’d still write this story and get it out there one way or another. I don’t need outside validation to be happy. I just need me, hard work, and my writing.
Have you gotten sucked into imposter syndrome at some point in your life? How did you overcome it or how do you keep from falling into it?
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