One Simple Trick for Artists to Fight Imposter Syndrome

overcoming self-doubt

Most artists and creatives have felt like an imposter at one point in their lives. Imposter syndrome is when you feel like you don’t know what you are doing or that you are a phony, a fake, or a fraud.

We fear that the imposter police, also called the fraud police, will knock on our door. They will carry us away embarrassed and humiliated to imposter jail. The imposter police are a fictitious enforcement agency with imaginary bureaus everywhere. Thankfully, the imposter police are not real and have no jurisdiction anywhere.

While most of us know the imposter police are not real, that does not stop us from imagining them. My own imposter police officer is a little bit like a keystone cop from an old Buster Keaton film. His name is Montgomery. Officer Montgomery never sleeps and is always on the job. Waiting to catch me.

Self-doubt haunts us all. Artists like Leonardo da Vinci, Vincent Van Gogh, and Jackson Pollock suffered from self-doubt.