I was listening to an episode of the Futuresteading podcast last week (I think it was the one with Sophie Hansen of Local is Lovely) and the subject of imposter syndrome was raised. Now here were three amazing women, all doing fantastic things in their own fields, discussing how they still feel like imposters, of not being good enough to offer advice or assistance in the fields they clearly know some stuff about. And I realised this is totally me every time I post on Instagram or Facebook or here.
Who am I to be showing how I do things or what I’ve made? I have no qualifications or authority in anything. In fact I’m almost embarrassed when I share things. I post a lot more on Instagram, where most of my followers don’t know me from a bar of soap, and only occasionally tag the posts to share on Facebook because I worry all my friends may roll their eyes and think ‘Oh, here she goes again’ or ‘What crap is she doing now?’.
Is it simply because I feel I have no authority to be showing these things or is it because most of society doesn’t value these old skills? Knitting feels like an integral part of my life and the online community in this area may be lulling me into thinking that this is normal but when I look around at the people I actually know, almost no one knits or makes soap or grows vegetables and I feel very alone.
And deep down I know feeling like this is silly. This sharing of skills was how things were always taught. Our great grandmothers and grandfathers didn’t go to special classes to get a piece of paper to say they were able to make bread or repair furniture or grow their own food, they learnt by the sharing of these skills by the people in their lives, their own mothers, fathers, grandparents, aunts and uncles. And what’s more, these skills were essential to everyday life even if they no longer are.
In the last few weeks I have run into several friends who, because our children are no longer the littlies they were, I don’t see as often as I used to. And these friends have all commented, without prompting, how much they love to see what I’m making and what I’m up to and each of these comments has made me stand a little taller.
What I do may no longer be commonplace but that doesn’t mean these skills are worthless. In fact they do have worth, not just to me but maybe to others too. So I’m determined to conquer this feeling of being an imposter and share more of what I do.
Because chances are, I might actually know what I’m talking about. Or then again, I may have no idea what I'm doing but I'm hoping someone out there has conquered their own imposter syndrome and is sharing their knowledge with us too.
xx
R
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