I am a Fraud. My struggle with Impostor Syndrome

When I was 12 years old I remember waking up one day grabbing a notebook and scribbling my first designs and confirming to myself I will be a fashion designer. I had the backing from my mom who already put me in a sewing class at 9, bought me endless patterns and fabric. My grandmother who bought me a new sewing machine at 16 and her supplies and my grandfather gave me various supplies from when he retired his embroidery shop. I had many things working in my favor to follow my dreams but I was hesitant because I didn’t believe in myself.

I liked to sew almost daily throughout High School. I figured out how to trace my own clothes to make new things on my own before the internet was full of all the sewing information and easy platforms to gain the knowledge from. I even sold here and there and sold it to people period without any confidence in my own talents no matter what others told me. Negative thoughts ran through my mind telling me I’m not good enough, my sewing is crap, why are you even trying no one really likes it. Does this sound familiar to you?

Toward the end of high school so I was set to go to design school to hone in my skills and become we’re worthy of sharing my designs with the world. Sadly, this fell through for me and I wasn’t able to go. I thought to myself “I’ll never be good enough without proper instruction, what am I going to do? “One day I’ll go to school for design and I’ll figure it out, just keep sewing until then.

At the age of 20, so I buckled down and worked at a 9 to 5 job so my husband and I put what we wanted on hold for the moment. My sewing took the back burner as work became more demanding and I couldn’t find much energy. At one point I realized I didn’t touch my sewing machine for almost 2 years straight, my machine sat in the office in my house and collected dust.

The near decades since high school my sewing skills became better as I found as well as utilize the growing resources for my craft. However, my negative thoughts never left and I still thought my sewing will never be good enough without formal training. I frustrated my husband as I berated myself while sewing, he tried so hard to praise my work and help me see how talented I really was. All I could see were the flaws in my work, no matter who applauded my creations.

Over the years I slowly got into the popular social media hubs such as Facebook and Instagram to be specific. I realized you can learn so much from the platforms if you know where to look on them. I found Facebook groups for things like designing and sewing clothes and I was a spot inspired to start back up my passion and desire to be a fashion designer. I started an Instagram page (@Anahs.Designs) and I took it seriously this time, and I actually got traffic on the page but not as many bites for actually buying things as I would hope. This felt like defeat which only fed my negative side of my ego. However, it came the comparing myself to others, but interestingly this became a small yet significant turning point for me in a good way.

As I scrolled through various social media pages daily I watched others post their work I started to critique it in my mind noticing that so many people’s skills were on the novice end. As well on the group’s so many women showed the garments they made for paying customer but they were only sewing for 2 months, 6 months, or even just a year. I couldn’t understand how I had been selling for 20 years at that point but I wasn’t getting customers like the other women I saw online. I wondered how they could be better than me, so intrigued I studied them to find their secret.

Around the same time, I started indulging in self-help and development books. I learned about a sneaky little thought process called “imposter syndrome”.

Imposter syndrome ( AKA imposter phenomenon, impostorism, fraud syndrome or the Imposter experience)

Wow, that was a mouthful!

It is a psychological pattern in which an individual doubts their accomplishments and has a persistent internalized fear being exposed as a “fraud”.

This is the full explanation given by Wikipedia.

Being able to define my internal feelings was so eye-opening. I’m here now, and I kind of know what’s wrong, so now what do I do with the information? First, I picked a part of the problem, I only felt like I was not worthy. I like certain things that others may detest and vice-versa, however that didn’t make either of us right or wrong. I had to stop comparing myself to others there were just as many people out there that would love my things and wants to buy them. But you see the difference between me and those people, is that I let this imaginary fear take over and solidify a self-fulfilling prophecy. Turning this around was not easy.

Here are some people that you may know that have shared the same internal feelings of impostorism.

Getting over of this fear is an ongoing battle. Even while writing this post, I thought to myself “No one’s going to read this, your writing is terrible, and no one cares”. But I’m not going to let that noise stop me because if I do I’ll never know if someone does care or if I was able to inspire someone.

Now I have a silly little trick that helps me get through my negative thoughts like those, and that is remembering the various things and which I would be nonsense that is popular in the world. For instance, there is a guy on YouTube that does live videos of him sitting and smiling for 4 hours straight. Surprisingly he currently has almost 200,000 subscribers with millions of views on his channel ( Benjamin Bennett ).

My point here is that there will be people out there that care and there will think you’re great so don’t be afraid to put your work out there to attract those people. And even if you’re not the greatest at first you will grow and learn the more you practice in your field or Niche. I hope the rambling of my shortcomings and overcoming them could open your eyes, mine, and heart to know you’re able to do the same.

Do you think you have imposter syndrome?