What if they Find Out?

I am a recovering perfectionist. 

I have now admitted my problem.  Acknowledging the problem is the first step. 

Perfectionism is a little demon who comes to watch me whenever I am creating something--and when I start designing, writing, or any kind of artistic endeavor, she is my audience. She heckles things like "you're not good enough," "you'll never be good enough," and "maybe you should stop trying." 

She says "look at all these people, the artwork is perfect."

Those put-downs have made me stop what I was doing and not publish anymore. My art sits locked up in the iCloud with poorly written poetry, goofed-up acoustic covers and half-finished blog posts. A lot of it has never been seen by another soul. 

One of my friends is so brilliant and I'm glad God has placed her in my life. " She says to me, "you need to give yourself some grace. You are new to this new line of work. You aren't going to be amazing the first time you do it. The only person you need to compete with is yourself. It's not a growth mindset."  

I am currently studying in a creative discipline that uses a lot of graphic design. 

I do not have a background in graphic design and I feel like I'm an amateur in a sea of professionals.

I feel like I am trying to show "I am a designer," and people will see my work and just say the absolute worst: 

We've found her out--she doesn't belong here. 

I've been told that's impostor syndrome.  You feel like you are masquerading as someone else and at any moment it can blow up in your face, if and when you are found out. 

I have had some experiences in my life, where I felt like whoever I was working with, found me out. 

My disguise had been destroyed. 

I was not who they thought I was or I could not do what they thought I should be able to. 

This is where Perfectionism started to become really close to me again and I think about this a lot. 

If I could've just been better, this wouldn't have happened. 

My mom and dad always said to me, "whatever you do, do the best you can do. If you did the best you could do, you can't be upset with yourself, because you gave it your all. If you put in 100%, then you can't put any more into it." 

I used to have a hard time with algebra. Not because I didn't understand the process, but because I was overwhelmed with the amount of time I had to solve the problem and the amount of work I had to do. Week after week, test after test, a 60% or lower. I didn't think it was fair to only have 50 minutes to do an algebra test with 60 problems that each took 5-10 minutes to solve. I had homework that had that many problems on it, but it always took me longer than 50 minutes to do it. I perceived this to mean that something was wrong with me. 

The reason I am sharing this story is because this was the first time in school I really struggled with school work. I was not this academic student who was good at school. How was it, that other people found these things so easy, but I found them so difficult? 

Why couldn't I just do it? Why couldn't I do it better? 

The problem was, I probably could do it--but felt like I wasn't given the chance to. That left me feeling frustrated, untrusted, and grasping for any kind of support or trust. 

This is when Perfectionist invites her friend Doubt over. I really don't like her friend Doubt. 

I have worked a few jobs like this, and once someone found out I was not their perfect candidate, it didn't end well. I was found out, and it did all crash and burn. 

Doubt fuels impostor syndrome. When Perfectionism invites Doubt over, they gang up on lil' Self-Esteem and she doesn't have a chance.  Her frenemies start telling her all of those lies about "this isn't good enough," "this isn't as good as other people's work," and "good luck, loser." Doubt has gotten into my head, maybe she's gotten into yours too. She subliminally whispers "you won't do it." And sometimes, I'm going to be honest, I agree with her. 

I have heard a lot of creative people say they experience these demons. Let's be real, they are demons. And you know what demons are? They are evil spirits meant to sabotage us. But why do we entertain them?

Because if we didn't think they were a little right, we wouldn't be so threatened by them. Any doubts we have about ourselves, they just love to amplify. 

I am inspired by the words of this scripture. 

Isaiah 55:8-9 

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.

Since I believe the scripture is true, I have to acknowledge my thoughts about my creative endeavors are wrong. Big, fat, untrue fibs.  I'm going to move towards the growth mindset--One that says, I don't know what I am doing, but I want to opportunity to learn more. 

I guess my point is, that I will not let Perfectionism and Doubt stop me from producing anymore. I will just post my imperfect things. I will post the best versions, but I will not obsess over every little detail anymore. I will do my best, but I will not let those demons sabotage my self-esteem anymore. 

Still recovering. This is a journey.