Member-only story
Impostor Syndrome Almost Ruined Me
How I finally got to write online
Two years ago, when I started writing on Medium, if someone had told me I’d still be here, I probably wouldn’t have believed them.
Before my first-ever article, I hadn’t published anywhere else. And it wasn’t because I wasn’t writing—I was! The only problem was I didn’t have the confidence to get my writing out. I had this nagging voice in my head that kept telling me I wasn’t a writer and that no one would be interested in anything I wanted to write about.
I struggled with this voice, and it almost made me give up until I learned an eye-opening lesson from Austin Kleon’s book, “Steal Like an Artist.”
Kleon opened my eyes to the fact that this nagging feeling wasn’t unique to me—it’s a shared experience.
I realized that some of the most successful people who do creative work feel the same way. It’s not because they’re not good enough; it’s just that they also doubt their abilities.
They sometimes feel they don’t deserves their success or as if they achieved it by stroke of luck and would be found out to be a fraud.
For example, the legendary Maya Angelou once said,
“I have written 11 books, but each time I think, ‘uh oh, they’re going to find out now…
