I’m sorry about yesterday. I was very cross. Today, I’ve decided that a little cold in the house is refreshing, good for the circulation, and an excellent reminder of how lucky I am. (Because I am mostly not cold, in my life, and that is a luxury.)
I’ve been listening to a lot of podcasts since I’ve had my bug, falling into that kind of fever-dream sleep with voices laughing at me about life skills and the meaning of everything. Last night, I heard a bloke say, ‘Man, where does Imposter Syndrome end? Seven million podcast subscribers? Thirteen million copies sold?’ (The fellow he was interviewing was a super-best-selling writer.) And I thought, ‘Mate!’ Because he was the kind of podcaster who called men of his own age, ‘Mate.’ ‘Mate,’ I thought, ‘you are looking in the wrong place.’
Imposter Syndrome can’t possibly be solved in external numbers. Because it starts in external numbers. The clue is in the title. You can only be an imposter if you are convinced that other people are looking at you and perceiving you that way. Being an imposter means not fitting it. It also means being found out, and you can only be found out by someone else. There has to be someone to tap you on the shoulder and say, ‘Oi, oi.’
So you can have all the millions of podcast subscribers you want and you’ll still have the Imposter Syndrome, and you can sell every book in the world and you’ll still feel like a fraud.
I wanted to go to the young man and say, ‘Stop. You’re all right. Take a breath.’
This is the kind of thing that great-aunts know, and eager hotshots don’t. (Or they know it, intellectually, but they don’t quite believe it, in their deep bones.) The aunts know that feeling like an imposter is a story choice, and that chasing numbers won’t stop it. I also wanted him to have a rest because I remember how exhausting Imposter Syndrome is. I had it at university, because I got in from being a girly swot rather than having a naturally brilliant brain. I remember thinking that one day the Dean would figure this out and that the proctors (or the porters, perhaps) would be sent to tap me on the shoulder and tell me that my imposture was up. I’d had a good go of it, but it was time to go back to school, where I belonged. I would look at the ones I knew who did have the naturally brilliant brains, who didn’t have to queue up at the History Faculty Library for the moment the doors opened, who didn’t stay in Bodley until chucking out time, and realise that we swots would never, ever quite be the real deal.
What a story to tell myself. I believed every word of it. Now I am old and I’ve been on the Red Mare Improvement Plan for some years and I see the nonsense of it. But it was carved in stone when I was eighteen.
That’s where I’d start with my young buck podcaster. I’d tell him to look at the stories he tells himself. I’d tell him to let go of the need for external validation. (Wouldn’t it be lovely if he could do it, just like that? It’s not quite as simple as that, but you never know. Everything is worth a try.) And I’ll tell him that if he welcomes himself to reality, then he’ll never feel like an imposter again.
The reality is - we humans are good at some things, and not so good at others. We’ve learned some things, and we’ve not learned others. We have practised some things, and we’ve not practised others. The reality is that if we want to do something - write a book, speak in public, get really good at Crown Green Bowls - we have to put in the hours. If we put in the hours, then we are the real deal and we don’t need the Imposter story.
I’m going to be speaking in the Midlands next year, in front of a lovely audience of about three hundred people. I’m already practising in the bathroom. I was practising before I was invited. (I give regular bathroom TED talks, which are tremendous successes.) The last time I spoke in public I was shaking so much I literally almost fell over. Some kind chap had to help me away. This time, I won’t be scared for a single second. There won’t be any imposting. The red mare made me do the work, so I did it, and the work worked. I don’t tell myself the imposter story any more, because it’s pointless and it’s non-useful and it’s not reality-based. I don’t want to be lying on my death bed saying, ‘Gosh, I did spend a lot of my wild and precious life feeling like an imposter.’ I work hard and I want to believe in any success I have. So I changed the story, piece by painstaking piece.
And that of course gets us on to what you mean by success. It’s too early in the week to write about that now, but I’ll give you a hint -
It’s not seven million podcast listeners.
It’s not seven million anything. It’s not a thing you can count. It’s something inside, something that has no metrics. And the beautiful thing is that you really can find it, if you try.
PS. I wrote this early this morning, when I was still cold, and quite grumpy. Since then, the kind oil people really pulled out the stops and filled up my tank and I have warmth again. As I re-read this piece, I see that a little bit of my Mabel - my lesser self - was dancing about. My higher self says I was being a little didactic, and I'm quite tempted to delete the whole thing. But, as so often with faintly intemperate pieces, there is a grain of good truth in there, so I'm going to let it stand. I'm not sure this is the best decision, but I'm going to take it, all the same.