Messy Your Way Past Imposter Syndrome

Listen to this post as a podcast or read below.

Hi, Christine Thomas here with more notes from my Root Deep to Weather Storms series to support our thriving in chaotic times. 

Creativity, like life, is inherently messy. You know this. I’m just reminding you, reminding myself. Making something new from your inspiration and your desire is hard, is messy, is often fraught with obstacles. It’s risky. It’s frustrating at times, and oh, it’s what we humans do. Really well!

Whether we’re creating songs or yummy soups, books or clay pots, funny videos or new social movements, protest signs or miraculous cures, garden fountains or knitting patterns, straw bale houses or kinder dog collars, the creative process, usually, is messy, is one of trial and error. Whether we’re creating something new or desperately seeking new solutions to tough problems or we’re transitioning into entirely new territory, there is often a lot of error and maybe some terror. Will this work? Will they like it? Is it worth the effort and cost? 

You know this – life is messy. Relationships – so very messy. Beloved children – messiness personified. Democracy – super messy. Any kind of collective decision making – beyond messy, messy on steroids, crazy-making, chaotic, manic messy. 

I’m feeling better as I vent about this. And I’m feeling the need to share a bit about my relationship with messiness. Full disclosure here: I’m revealing my messy strategy up front because my intro into podcasting was made possible due to this strategy.  Messy is one of the ways I resist the inner critic. It’s one of my work-arounds the Imposter Syndrome. Hear me out.

For decades I’ve been coaching and teaching about the inner critic, the inner voice that we all have that reminds us we don’t have what it takes to do just about anything. We all have some version of these internal message of our not-enough-ness, a voice that holds us back, that demands perfection – which even then is never enough. This rotten inner judge goes by many names: the imposter syndrome, the inner critic, the inner judge. I love how Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes describes the inner critic as the predator that devours our dreams. 

My science brain calls this internalized oppression. My sci-fi brain swings way out there. I’ve got a funny older video on my site calling out the inner critic as a devious plot by extraterrestrials to keep humans from our full, brilliant creative power.

My rebellious brain says, “Oh yeah? Watch this!”

One of my strategies for facing imposter syndrome is to embrace messiness, to use a tolerable level of messy as an invisibility cloak to slip past the harshest hold-back messages. I messy my way through the limiting lies of unattainable perfection, the constantly moving bar of good enough. 

Because I know I have to break the spell of my nasty, imposter syndrome, inner critic, predator that wants to chomp on my dreams. I have to break the spell by doing something. Usually my first take of the new something whatever it is, is messy, is amateurish, because in new endeavors we are amateurs. Or maybe I can call it beginner’s mind. Anyway, I learn by doing, by exploring, by allowing my dreams and my desires to motivate me, by taking risks, by learning from success and failure. 

When I’ve learned through my doing in all of its messy iterations, I can go back and edit or adjust or explain, or not. Because I’ll likely keep learning and changing and trying new things, in my un-perfect way. I embrace messy, mostly because I’ve realized that even attempting to approach perfection or get an A+ or any other measure of excellence, for me is a bit like trying to win at tick tack toe. Success is only possible if you make the first move.

Sure the critic can do some “I told you so,” trashing, but it’s not as loud or as bullying or nearly as powerful as it could be by snarking to me about what I’ve haven’t done, how I’m too chicken, too disorganized, too out of touch, too unreliable to myself, to un-tech savvy to do anything. 

In overwhelming and chaotic times, the imposter syndrome has an advantage. We are often exhausted, vulnerable, and facing enormous challenges or unanswerable questions. It’s ripe territory for the inner critic to tell us we are not enough to make any difference, to effect any change, to even handle where we are. It’s dangerous and we need to hold back, to play it safe, to stick with the familiar. 

I know that imposter syndrome is a lying liar who lies! Yes, you and I do indeed face ginormous challenges in our lives. Yes, we have super big dreams we are here to manifest. And, given that’s it human to have inner thoughts that hold us back, we really need to explore various strategies for getting past them. 

If I’ve gotten you curious about this strategy, I ask you to consider something new or creative that’s alive in you. How might you ditch all pretense of the need for perfection and instead embrace some level of messy and unsurety, and make the first move towards that dream of yours?

Messy-ing through the imposter syndrome is just one way to evade the predator. In coaching we have various tools and perspectives to push past our imposter syndromes. You, too, have found ways to get past these limiting messages. I’m always up for collaborating on how we face the predator, so know I’d love to hear from you. 

And know if you follow me on podcast hosting sites other than my website and then you get what seems to be rerun episodes sent to you from my mailing list, that’s part of my messiness reveal. No confusion intended. My purpose, though, for these podcasts is clear and sure: to support our thriving in chaotic times. 

More to come on this imposter syndrome topic in future podcasts. For now, all good wishes for your creative process! And don’t let the liars, inner or outer, deceive you or hold you back. Create away! We need you in all of your messy brilliance!