Imposter syndrome among creative professionals

Impostor syndrome among creative professionals

Why self-doubt doesn't mean you're a fraud, but perhaps the opposite

You've just finished an assignment. The client is satisfied. Maybe even enthusiastic. And yet that voice is back again. Very soft, but viciously clear: they don't realize it yet. Soon they'll discover that you don't actually know what you're doing. That you've been lucky. That the next project will be the moment when everything collapses.

Does this sound familiar? If so, you share something with three-quarters of all working women and half of all men in the Netherlands. This is according to research by Vréneli Stadelmaier, the first Dutch person to thoroughly study imposter syndrome. And among creatives, designers, photographers, artists, and makers, that percentage is probably even (much) higher. What's also remarkable is this: the more successful someone is, the more persistent that doubt often remains.

 

What do we actually mean when we talk about imposter syndrome?

The term was coined in 1978 by American psychologists Pauline Clance and Suzanne Imes. They describe people who attribute their successes to luck, timing, or, even worse, deception. Anything but their own abilities.

But importantly, it is not an official diagnosis. Jasmine Vergauwe of Ghent University has conducted extensive research on the subject and deliberately prefers not to use the word syndrome. She says: it is not a psychological disorder, but a set of feelings that you experience somewhere on a spectrum.

So the question is not: do I have imposter syndrome? The question is: when and how often do I experience those feelings? And what do I do about them?

 

Why do creative people feel this so strongly?

There is a reason why fear of failure runs so deep in creative work. As an accountant, you know at the end of the day whether the books are correct. As a designer, you can never be completely sure. Creativity cannot be measured. You can only rely on what you think of it and what others think of it. And those two rarely align neatly.

Photographer Bertien van Manen has been active for more than fifty years. Her work hangs in museums all over the world. And yet, in an interview, she says: "I am incredibly insecure, I really need that appreciation, and if it doesn't come, then I'm not good enough." Fifty years. World fame. And still that voice.

And Ed van der Elsken, perhaps the Netherlands' most famous street photographer, describes his connection with a group of bohemians in Paris as fitting with his "feelings of insecurity, anger, depression, defeatism, the whole shebang." Those feelings don't get in the way of his work. They are, in fact, the driving force behind it.

 

The bar is always higher

What distinguishes creative work from almost all other professions is this: there is no finish line. Athletes usually stop when they have won all the medals. Creative people don't. Every assignment feels like a new beginning. Every time, that empty canvas. That blank document. That idea that doesn't yet exist.

And with every step forward, the standard shifts. What was a breakthrough yesterday feels like the minimum today. The bar is higher. Always higher.

Lucebert writes: "Everything of value is defenseless." That line from his poem De zeer oude zingt (The Very Old Sings) is written in large neon letters on a building in Rotterdam. It is endlessly quoted, sometimes misused, but the core remains intact. What is truly valuable cannot defend itself. It is vulnerable. Fragile. Defenseless. Creative work makes meaning visible, and meaning is all too often defenseless.

 

So is doubt actually a good sign?

This is where it gets interesting. In 1938, John Steinbeck wrote in his diary: "I am not a writer. I am fooling myself and others. I have no idea what I am doing." A year later, he published The Grapes of Wrath. He then won the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Bertrand Russell puts it even more bluntly: "The fundamental problem of our time is that stupid people are full of confidence, while intelligent people are full of doubt."

True imposters, people who are genuinely incompetent, usually do not doubt themselves. They lack the capacity for self-reflection needed to see how big the gap is between who they are and who they pretend to be.

So your doubt is not proof that you are inadequate. It is proof that you see the complexity of your profession. That you know what you don't know yet. That you have standards. Neuroscientists are discovering that uncertainty activates both the left and right hemispheres of the brain, precisely the combination that stimulates creativity. Uncertain people are not creative in spite of their doubts, but also thanks to those doubts.

 

 

When does it become a problem?

Doubt that keeps you sharp is valuable. Doubt that paralyzes you is not. It becomes problematic when you turn down assignments because you think you can't handle them. When you lower your rates because you don't believe your work is worth it. When the fear of being exposed becomes greater than the urge to create.

That voice in your head, which Stadelmaier calls the imposter voice, literally costs you money. Research shows that women charge lower hourly rates than men on average, even with the same education and experience. This is partly due to sector differences, but also partly due to something else. Women are more likely to attribute their success to external factors. They negotiate less. They doubt more.

As an entrepreneur, insecurity translates into lower income, working overtime to compensate, and ultimately... burnout? The creative condition, that eternal cycle of doubt, creating, letting go, and starting over, then becomes a pitfall instead of a driving force.

 

How do you deal with it?

There is no five-step plan. No checklist that makes doubt disappear. But there are things that help.

It starts with recognizing that it exists. Just knowing that almost every creative person experiences this makes it less lonely. You are not an exception. You are not a fraud. You share an experience with everyone who has ever created something that matters.

Gather evidence. Not to convince yourself that you're brilliant, but to compare reality with your feelings. Positive feedback. Repeat assignments. The simple fact that you've been earning a living from creative work for years.

Talk about it. Research shows that support in the workplace, a culture in which it is normal to express doubts, is the strongest buffer against imposter feelings. This applies to teams, but also to freelancers who consciously build a network around themselves.

And maybe this will help too: accept that it may never go away completely. And that's okay. You can do excellent work and still wonder if you're good enough. The two can coexist perfectly well.

 

Protecting meaning

Perhaps this is the crux of it all. Creative work is not a product that you perfect once and then repeat. It is a leap into the unknown from the high diving board, over and over again. Without a safety net. Without a guarantee.

What you create is how you give meaning to your existence. And precisely because it is so valuable, it is also defenseless. Vulnerable to criticism, to misunderstandings, to legal claims, to periods when you cannot work. To everything that threatens the space to create.

You can't take away that vulnerability. But you can make sure that the practical side, the financial, the legal, the business side, doesn't become yet another source of uncertainty. So that your energy goes where it belongs: to the work itself.

You don't have to reveal yourself. You just have to keep creating.