Everyone Is Faking It

I have to remind myself of this constantly because it seems like every day I am less prepared, less qualified, and less successful than the day before. And that every single one of my peers has found the secret to gown-up happiness while I am left in the dark, penniless and lacking acclaim.

But while I may often feel like I loser, objectively I’m crushing it.  I live alone in one of the most expensive places in the world, something I never thought possible as I was heaping on student debt studying the world’s most lucrative field—Opera.  I have a job that I like (despite the fact that my title is not “superstar”) and that I am good at. I have great friends and family and am generally in good health. I’m doing great.

Gross right?  Yeah. But let me direct you back to my opening statement:

Every day I feel less prepared, less qualified, and less successful than the day before.

I know in my heart of hearts that I am prepared and qualified, and that I am doing fine.  More than fine, really. But even with all the proof to the contrary, that feeling that my existence is sub-par persists.  I look around at my Silicon Valley cohorts—twenty-somethings that are millionaires and influencers, traveling the world and starting businesses—and I feel insignificant.

Something else I know in my heart of hearts, though, is that I’m not alone in feeling this.

I regularly hear friends and colleagues on the brink of one melt-down or another because they “have no idea what they’re doing”.  Terrified that they will be exposed at any minute for the fraud that they are. The truly unsettling thing: these are the people who I look up to, who I hold as my ideal for success and togetherness.  How can I have confidence in anything I do if those who are smarter and richer and better than me are doubting themselves?

The reality is, though, that it’s more likely than not that the young professional superstars I  compare myself to have a slew of their own issues: flaws and failures in areas where I may be succeeding.  I so often forget that success is relative, something to be defined by the individual; and because I forget this, and continue to compare myself to the people around me who appear to be successful, I have to constantly remind myself that everyone is faking it.

No one knows what they are doing!  Even in the most controlled conditions, no two lives are the same, no day is guaranteed to be like the one before—nothing is certain.  And in a world without certainty, there can be no real “masters”. That’s to say, no one can ever be 100% sure that they will know how to handle their next challenge.  We are all just figuring it out as we go.

OK, so everyone feels unsure of themselves occasionally (to say the least).  I know this. Why, then, does my own doubt give me so much grief? If this is a universal feeling among humans, which I think it is, why does it feel more isolating that uniting?  And given the universality of self-doubt, shouldn’t we have evolved past it? One might think that, eventually, humans could accept doubt as par for the course and carry on. But doubt continues to linger, often keeping us (me) from doing things that make us (me) happy, for fear that we (I) will fail.  

I think humans would have evolved past doubt, were it not playing such an important role.

I think our ultimate success is dependent on a steady stream of doubt to ensure that we are confirming and re-confirming what it is we’re doing, why we’re doing it, and what we are achieving as a result.  The key, though, is to refuse to be controlled by the doubt.

Constantly questioning myself has become my own internal checks and balances.  

If everyday I can go through the cycle of:

What am I doing?

What are other people doing?

Does what they’re doing affect what I’m doing?

Does what I’m doing affect what they’re doing?

Am I doing enough?

Yeah, actually I think I am, or

No, I need to be doing better

Then I can start the next day knowing where I stand and what I need to adjust to uphold my own standards

The tricky part is: I have to compare myself to myself, and not the people around me.  I might look to other people for context, but I think the goal is to have a solid internal meter for success.  Humans have the privilege of having almost entire autonomy. I say almost because the pressures of family, society, etc. are real; but even given those pressures and influences, we ultimately have control over our actions.  We have the power to do things we are proud of.

There will be times when the limitations win: maybe you don’t get hired for your dream job despite the fact that you are perfectly qualified and capable.  It’s those moments when we most want to compare ourselves to others—what do they have that I don’t? We try and change things about ourselves to better fit into the mold of what we think is expected of us.

Take me for example: I studied opera, got both a bachelors and a masters degree in vocal performance, I am a good singer.  In the three years since I graduated, not one established company I have auditioned for has given me a part… not even in the chorus!  And after each failed audition I think about all the ways in which I could change to be a more appealing “package”. I could be thinner, or shorter, have a faster vibrato, whatever.  Some of these things I have control over. Most I do not. I have felt, and still feel a good amount of anger, grief, anxiety, disappointment, depression, what have you, over all of this.  In terms of my dream to be a professional singer, I am failing.

But you know how it goes: when a door closes, a window opens… or something like that.

In my case, a door hasn’t even closed, I’m simply waiting for one to open.  And as I wait for that door to open, I get to think about whether or not I even want to walk through that door.  I get to see windows open left and right that I had never considered.  I’ve learned about strengths and weaknesses I didn’t know I had, failed and succeeded at things I didn’t know were possible, and have generally grown as a person.

If I hadn’t been severely questioning myself these past few years, one of two things would have likely happened:

I would have quit at the first sign of rejection; or

I would have barreled ahead, too afraid to even consider whether I was on the wrong track.

I came very close to doing both of those things actually.  The first time I said out loud that I wasn’t sure if I wanted, or had what it took, to be a singer, I burst into tears immediately.

I was barreling ahead, and I knew it, and stopping was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.

So now I am no longer barreling, and I’m not quitting.  Steeped in doubt, through many internal tug-of-wars, I have been able to clarify (or begin to clarify) what I really want and what really matters to me.  And now, thinking about everything I’ve learned, I still question and doubt all of it. Because that’s how I will grow. People change every day, and if we don’t take the time to check in and see how the ways in which we’ve changed fit with the world we’ve built, we might end up woefully out place—in our own life!

We all have a voice in our head that says we aren’t good enough.  I’m sure that you could go to the most successful person in your life and they would tell you that their moments of doubt vastly outnumbered their moments of confidence.  (If you are still unconvinced, here is a list of some of my favorite influential women speaking on their own self-doubt).  I have learned not to ignore that voice but to listen to it, to lean in to the doubt without letting it call the shots.  If you let it, doubt is nothing more than a guide post, an opportunity to reassure yourself.

All that is obviously easier said than done—really I am writing all this down in hopes of better solidifying it in my own mind—but the most important things to remember are these:

You are not alone

You are doing better than you think

You are capable of more than you know