Imposter Syndrome

I am an artist. People like my work. People will buy my work. My work is worthy of being shown. I am good enough.

Over and over again I have to try to convince myself of all of these things. But that can only go so far. I feel more often like someone masquerading as an artist who makes cool things rather than believing that I am indeed an artist who makes cool things.

The first step in overcoming this barrier is saying out loud the things I want to believe are true despite how much my inner saboteur tells me otherwise.

Three months ago I made the decision to start saying “I’m a stay at home mom and an artist” instead of just “I’m a stay at home mom”. The more I say it, the more easily it comes. The next hurdle is being willing to show strangers my work. That’s part of why I’m pushing myself to write here, this is a way for me to gently ease into showing my art without feeling immediate judgement.

I need to work on my confidence in increments. I know it won’t all come at once and I know it won’t come as easily as I wish it would.

My goal is to build an online portfolio and shop and actually be able to sell some work. The pie in the sky goal being that I want to showcase and sell work at a local art and craft fair held every summer in my town.

The past few years when I have attended this fair I have looked at the art and with no negative judgement said to myself “oh I could totally do this”. To clarify, I am not belittling the artists work at the fair but rather it’s a rare instance where I actually feel on the same level as these professional artists.

Now the challenge is to push myself to feel comfortable thinking positively of myself and my work. Thank goodness I have an excellent therapist.