Imposter or just impossible?

I’ve worked with so many successful people over the years, those for whom their values drive them to make a difference and so many share with me their niggling thoughts that one day they will be found out to be an imposter.

We are all riddled with judgements, those we took on as children, those we make of ourselves, those we suppose exist in the mind of the other. We judge ourself by a hidden ideal. The helpful truth is that most of our pain comes from the gap between the way we believe we and the world should be and the way we in fact are. Who says what we should be. Is it an early authority figure? A parent, teacher a god? Where do we get the idea that we should be perfect when we know at some level that is simply impossible.

The striving to be better, to be more than we are can keep us motivated to making a difference or for some of us even to get up in the morning. The problems come when we start comparing ourselves to our peers. ‘I studied with some of the finest musicians of my generation, so why wasn’t I that able? I went to university with some of the brightest minds, so why aren’t I a genius? I’ve worked with some fantastic leaders, so why aren’t I running a huge organisation? I was born in to a privileged generation, so why am I so poor?’ These whining mantras persist. We look at the gap, the absences rather than gently reflecting on how well we are us. Each primrose, or oak, or mountain or vale is of itself. It is beautiful and part of the rich ecosystem. No good if the primrose wants to be an oak, or the oak a mountain.

Even after years of therapeutic training, leadership development, self-awareness I find myself wistfully wondering what if?

And yet … I sit down to acknowledge what I have actually done in the last week: worked pro bono on two music festivals I founded, helped a coach wondering what next to dig deeper to find some answers, been to the energetic launch of a book I participated in, prepared for a special dinner celebrating friendship, written to the then Home Secretary to ask her to listen ….

So by anyone’s standards that is ‘good enough’.

And yet … I realise that unlike the wellbeing brigade full of good intentioned fridge magnet philosophy my feelings of insufficiency are not individual, selfish and ego-borne but rather a realisation that we exist in scary times where the changes we want to see in the world for it to be fairer, more just, useful, kind and loving feel almost impossible: the changes are beyond one person and beyond one lifetime.

So now I’m faced with the imposter and the impossible.

How do you motivate yourself to keep going? Survival? Lack of alternatives? Or a power for change that comes from a modest and quiet acceptance that each act of loving kindness is and can be revolutionary. Turning our attention to others. What can I do for you? It won’t be perfect. I might not be what my authority figures might have wanted but it will be good enough and offered with love.

Imposter? Impossible? Improver.

… and look I’ve written a piece as well.