The 1 Perspective Shift That Obliterated My Imposter Syndrome
I’m a whiskey lover.
I always have a few bottles on rotation.
And last summer, I took it a step further by signing up for my local whiskey club.
I get 4 “special” releases per year, shipped directly to my doorstep.
Each one is a delicious, one-off, unique whiskey that only goes out to club members.
This month, it’s a bottle using wheat grown in the high desert of Oregon.
And up until recently, shipping has never been an issue.
Then, I moved.
From the high desert of California, back to Oregon.
From a 2-bedroom house in a podunk town to an apartment in the city.
This confused UPS.
(They deliver the whiskey.)
And thus, my most recent shipment went from a simple, 1-day shipment to a 10–day zig-zag all over the city.
First they tried to deliver to my apartment complex.
They couldn’t get in the building.
Then they tried again. Same thing.
Then I had them hold the whiskey at a UPS location.
They did that, then the next day, they decided to try and deliver it … again.
Even though I told them to hold it.
ZIG ZAG, ZIG ZAG, ZIG ZAG!
After a couple more days of this, they FINALLY held it at the UPS pickup point.
I went and picked it up before they could change their mind again.
And last night, I finally tried the whiskey.(Yes, it was delicious.)
But this story — while frustrating to recall — is not about whiskey.
It’s about imposter syndrome, and how to defeat it once and for all.
You see … while I was going through this whole ordeal, something occurred to me.
The way UPS was handling my special whiskey is eerily similar to how I used to deal with client work in the first few years of my career as a copywriter.
I’d slave over a piece of copy for weeks … But when I was finally ready to deliver the “product,” I would freeze.
Then, for at least a week, I’d ping-pong back and forth and back and forth about tiny little things I could change to the copy.
“Will the client like this line?”
“What if this CTA is too aggressive?”
“Am I using the market language correctly?”
It’s nauseating when you think about your copy like this.
And when I was going through it, I eventually realized that it’s not actually a reflection on what I think of my writing …
It’s a reflection of how I think of myself.
I was worried I wouldn’t be liked, I would be laughed at by a client, I would look like a fool and an imposter.
Maybe it’s just me who feels this way. Maybe you don’t experience this at all.
But I’ve been doing this long enough to know that this is a VERY common issue for many copywriters … and for that matter, a whole host of creatives.
So what can you do to defeat imposter syndrome?
My solution is simple: Train yourself to adopt a “continuous learning mentality.”
Then write, deliver, and test.
What I mean is this: Everything you deliver should always be tested, and the copy you write — and how it performs — should be a constant opportunity for you to learn.
Write the best possible copy you can come up with, of course.
But deliver that copy with the expectation of proving it against the market.
And then taking those learnings (good or bad) and adapting them to what you write.
This perspective change quickly shifts you away from wrapping up your identity in the copy, and towards the freedom that testing affords you.
Because with this mindset shift, you no longer have to “perform.”
And performance anxiety KILLS creative breakthroughs.
This process is not easy. But it made me a faster writer. And it made me a more confident writer because I stopped being so outcome dependent.
I can now do my research, come up with 3 different angles, test my “top” angle … and if it doesn’t work, I can just easily move on to the next angle.
Any good client will know that copy should be tested.
But you should adopt this mentality even if your client feels differently.
Because what works in one market today might not work in the same market even 6 months from now.
And if you’re operating on a fixed mentality of needing to provide perfect copy every single time, you disregard the ever-shifting sentiment of the market.
In other words: test everything. Always.
A couple of practical tips for you to employ this mentality today:
If you’ve written your copy to the best of your ability, but you catch yourself freezing up when you go to deliver it, deliver it anyway. The more you practice this, the easier it will become.
Learn market research techniques to help you feel more confident in the angles you run
If a client responds to you with copy they “don’t like,” but they don’t have a good reason for why they don’t like it … ask them if they’d be willing to test it anyway, and that you’ve done your research. If they STILL don’t want to run it, ask them if they’d be willing to A/B test your version against one with their suggestions.
Practice these 3 things regularly, and it should become automatic.
David Patrick
