{"id":24893,"date":"2018-06-29T23:06:33","date_gmt":"2018-06-30T04:06:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.davidmcelroy.org\/?p=24893"},"modified":"2021-03-19T02:25:16","modified_gmt":"2021-03-19T07:25:16","slug":"even-when-people-praise-my-work-my-secret-fear-is-i-might-be-a-fraud","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/?p=24893","title":{"rendered":"Even when folks praise my work, my secret fear is I may be a fraud"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I have a deep need for people to praise me. And I desperately need folks to adore my work — even though this praise and adoration make me feel embarrassed at the same time.<\/p>\n

Why?<\/p>\n

Because no matter who I become and no matter what excellent work I might do, I am terrified that people will suddenly realize I’m a fraud.<\/p>\n

I’ve suffered this secret fear since I was a child. For many years, I thought I was the only one who felt this way. When I was a kid, people praised me for being “so intelligent.” They used superlatives such as “genius” and “once-in-a-lifetime talent,” but I knew better.<\/p>\n

On the inside, I was just me. I didn’t feel smart. I didn’t feel talented. I just felt like someone struggling to make it through a confusing childhood. I assumed I was “normal” and I was simply surrounded by idiots. I was certain someone would come along any day and expose the obvious fact that I’d been wrongly praised for years.<\/p>\n

I expected that day to come — and I knew it would crush me when it did.<\/p>\n

I eventually learned that other people felt this way, too, and that it was called “imposter syndrome,” but that didn’t make me feel any better. I felt tortured by the desperate need for people to praise me and tell me I was great — because I needed to prop up my fragile ego by believing the things they told me — but the praise also shamed me, because the more they believed good things, the more certain I was that they were wrong.<\/p>\n

When I started my first newspaper job as a freshman in college, I was a lowly part-time reporter\/photographer. The publisher was an important man way above me. He worked in a fancy office and didn’t spend time with people like me. He left the people in the newsroom alone and he managed the business. I didn’t know he even paid attention to what we did.<\/p>\n

But one afternoon soon after I started, I came in to find that publisher Shelton Prince had left a note on my desk, which I’d never known of him to do for others. It was brief, but he told me that a story I had done — which had run in that day’s newspaper — was “great.” Actually, he made that word all caps and used an exclamation point. He said it was “GREAT!”<\/p>\n

I kept that note for years, but I’m not sure what finally happened to it.<\/p>\n

I have two predictable reactions when I get such praise. First, I feel fantastic. I feel as though maybe I might have some talent after all. I feel as though maybe I can do the great things I want to do.<\/p>\n

And then comes the downside. The doubts return. Then there’s the voice in my head which says I’ve merely fooled whoever praised me. Or maybe I’ve gotten lucky. Either way, I won’t be able to do something which will be praised that well again. And then I’m scared to do more work — because surely the next work will be terrible and everyone will be disappointed in me — because they’ll know I had just been lucky. They’ll know I was a fraud.<\/p>\n

I’m been thinking about this again all week. Two things happened to bring it to mind.<\/p>\n

After I posted a photo on several social media sites — a fairly routine picture of one of my cats or dog — a woman commented on it and said, “You are a very talented photographer! I was an art director in NYC for many years and I’d hire you.”<\/em><\/p>\n

My heart did the old two-step. I was elated that someone with professional experience in the field thought I was good and it made me swell with pride. Then the defensive and fearful part of my brain kicked in. I deflated at the thought that I must have her fooled. Or maybe she just didn’t have great judgment. Either way, she would probably be disappointed if she saw more of my work. Right?<\/p>\n

Early Friday morning, I got a message from an older woman who I met by chance late last year in a restaurant. We talked that night for a couple of hours and she told me a lot about her life and issues. It was a pleasant conversation and she found me on Facebook to become friends. Her message this morning was very thoughtful.<\/p>\n

“Although most anyone we know would say that a chance meeting between a young man and an elderly great-grandmother was just that, pure chance, I now know it was part of my karmic evolution,” <\/em>she wrote. “You are perhaps an Older Soul than I am. You have led me to avenues of growth I might have never found, except for you. Thank you for a friendship I know was freely given.”<\/em><\/p>\n

She made me feel fantastic, although I thought she was giving me too much credit. But as good as it made me feel, I felt that old familiar embarrassment — the fear that she would think differently of me if she knew who I really was. I felt fear of being found lacking by not being who she thought I was.<\/p>\n

My rational mind can tell me that my fears are probably groundless, but that fear takes such a powerful hold over part of me that it’s useless to argue.<\/p>\n

Tonight, I spent a few minutes browsing my two Instagram accounts. As I looked through those pictures — mostly animals on one<\/a> and mostly sunsets<\/a> on the smaller one — I found myself thinking, “Hey, these are pretty good. Maybe I’m better than I fear sometimes.”<\/em><\/p>\n

I’m terrified to believe in my own value, but a part of me sees the value anyway. Those opposing parts of my mind are at war with one another. I need the confident part to win. I need the fearful part to die, just as the man who created that part also died two months ago.<\/p>\n

The confident part of my mind knows I’m smart and talented. That part knows I can do anything I attempt. That part knows I’m capable of great things. That part knows how much I have to offer to the world and to a family and to friends.<\/p>\n

My imposter syndrome needs to die. I need to move on from a place where I was always waiting for someone to criticize me or give me back-handed compliments.<\/p>\n

The fearful part of me doesn’t want to let me think this, much less allow me to say it, but I know I’m capable of great things — that I’m going<\/em> to do great things — as soon as the fear can get out of the way.<\/p>\n

Then I can finally become who I’ve always needed to be.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have a deep need for people to praise me. And I desperately need folks to adore my work — even though this praise and adoration make me feel embarrassed at the same time. Why? Because no matter who I become and no matter what excellent work I might do, I am terrified that people Keep Reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[362,263],"class_list":{"0":"post-24893","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"tag-imposter-syndrome","8":"tag-psychology","9":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1x9iR-6tv","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24893","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24893"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24893\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33734,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24893\/revisions\/33734"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}