by Jenna | Feb 22, 2024 | ScriptMag Articles
In this month’s “Ask the Coach” article, I’m responding to a question from a reader about self-doubt and feeling like an impostor or not a “real” writer.
Dear Jenna, I keep feeling like I’m not a “real” writer and that I’ll never be good enough. But I want to write! How do I keep my self-doubt and feeling like an impostor from affecting my writing and creativity?
Feeling like an impostor or not a “real” writer is tough. It can even feel like maybe you’re not allowed to pursue this career you want. But every writer starts out from not being a writer. Some start earlier, some later, but we all start somewhere.
Many writers think we can’t call ourselves writers until we are sold, optioned, hired, produced, or published, and stick words like “aspiring” in front of the word “writer” until reaching one of those states, almost as a way of atoning for the temerity in adopting the identity at all.
In my response, I discuss:
- Writing regularly as an antidote to feeling like a writing impostor.
- Claiming your identity as a writer with the words, “I am,” while also taking the actions to back it up.
- Seeing your access to the challenges of being human as a tool for helping you develop deeper characters.
- Working with a compassionate mentor.
- Framing what you’re telling yourself about writing and about who you are as a writer.
What are you telling yourself about writing and about who you are as a writer, and is that story serving you? If not, tell a better story.
Want the full scoop? Get all the details in the full article on Script Mag:
by Jenna | Sep 21, 2023 | ScriptMag Articles
In this month’s “Ask the Coach” article, I’m addressing a set of questions from a reader about managing self-doubt in writing.
“[My] fear of failure has several prongs for me:
1. What if no one likes my writing? I’m trying to make it as truthful as it is filled with emotion and colorful descriptions, but maybe it’s just me because I relate to it all.
2. I’m currently writing a memoir that involves some memories of my parents and their failures — but good memories also. I feel guilty/disloyal for writing about their failures, but to some extent that’s where the strength of the story lies.
3. What I create in my head as I’m falling asleep never seems to be as great when I put it into my computer.
4. I suffer off and on with imposter syndrome, but I usually like what I write in the end.”
This is a set of challenging questions so many writers wrestle with. It reads to me like issues of self-doubt more than a fear of failure, though the two are intertwined.
First let me say this: In working with writers all over the world, being a writer myself, and reading first-hand accounts of seasoned, professional writers, so many if not all writers deal with self-doubt and fear much of the time (including me).
Here are the 6 antidotes I discuss in my response:
- Use self-doubt as a clue that what you’re working on is important.
- Trust that truth transcends differences.
- Ask yourself empowering questions.
- With memoir, write for yourself first.
- Embrace the vision while also welcoming imperfection.
- Trust the process.
The real key to all of this is learning to manage the doubts and the fears so they don’t stop you from writing, and so that they don’t make the experience of writing miserable along the way, by triggering overwhelming negative self-talk, habitual procrastination, perfectionism, and even shame.
Want the full scoop? Get all the details in the full article on Script Mag:
by Jenna | Aug 8, 2012 | Writing Articles
“Impostor syndrome” — the feeling that you are a fake or a fraud — usually goes along with a fear that people will find out you are not actually good at what you say can do. Or perhaps that you can’t do it at all.
Most of my clients and colleagues all mention feeling this way at one time or another. I have felt this way myself, in everything I’ve ever undertaken, including graduate school, urban design, coaching, and writing. The internal message runs something like, “I don’t know what I’m doing and someone is going to notice. I’ll be found out. They’ll know I’m a fraud.”
Is this for real?
Wikipedia describes impostor syndrome as a “psychological phenomenon in which people are unable to internalize their accomplishments,” and that “despite external evidence of their competence, those with the syndrome remain convinced that they are frauds and do not deserve the success they have achieved. Proof of success is dismissed as luck, timing, or as a result of deceiving others into thinking they are more intelligent and competent than they believe themselves to be.”
Apparently this feeling is most common among people (both men and women) who are highly intelligent and who are high achievers.
Isn’t this interesting?
The “impostor cycle”
I’ve read that impostor syndrome is not actually a psychological problem but rather a cultural phenomenon tied to learned behavioral patterns of high achievers who get caught in an “impostor cycle” of over-preparing and procrastination. To me, this reads like part of the formula for perfectionism too.
What can we do?
On the days when you feel like a fraud:
- Remind yourself of all the things you HAVE accomplished: The work you’ve done, the lives you’ve touched, the relationships you’ve built, and the experiences you’ve had. If it helps, make a list and keep it handy for an emergency.
- Remember to ratchet back your expectations to aiming for great work rather than pushing yourself past all reasonable human limits striving for perfection.
- Recognize that you’re probably feeling insecure because you’re venturing into new territory or wanting to reach for something bigger.
- Don’t let yourself go into hiding or hold yourself back — keep reaching for your dreams.
Warmly,
