If a writer tells you that they don’t experience imposter syndrome at some point, they are likely lying. Almost every single writer, including myself, struggles with feeling less than other writers or decides that they need a new career because they suck. After talking to 60 writers this summer, I realized how prevalent it really is – it came up in some form during pretty much all my calls. And I realized how much I’ve battled imposter syndrome over my career. 

Here are some ways to help stop the endless cycle of imposter syndrome that have worked for me: 

Remind yourself that it’s business, it’s not personal. 

Most of us are writers in our souls. It’s who we are. It’s how we relate to the world. Writing is how we communicate. And how we process things. There is a creative and artistic aspect to it that can’t be separated, which means that part of creating is always going to feel personal.  

But at the same time, we’ve also chosen to write as our job. For companies and publications that have a business to run. They have a board of directors. And customers. And annual goals. They make hard business decisions every day that often affect our content. Sometimes it means that a project is discontinued. Other times they bring all the writing in-house. They may even try ChatGPT to create articles. And it may mean that your piece gets torn up in revisions because they want a specific messaging that they just decided on 15 minutes ago and didn’t tell you. 

Most of the time when something like that happens, either a client doesn’t like something or you lose a client, it has nothing at all to do with us. But because we put ourselves into our work, we assume it is about us. Becoming more confident starts by taking a deep breath and reminding ourselves that it’s business, not personal. Whatever happened is likely no reflection on your ability as a writer. Once I was able to really believe and understand this, I started spending less energy feeling like a failure and was a heck of a lot less stressed. 

Realize that you are not going to be a fit for every client. 

Whenever a client doesn’t like my work or I get let go from a project, I get the worst case of imposter syndrome. It’s easy to convince myself that I suck and need a new career. Or that the client is awful and it’s all their fault. But I’ve realized most of the time, it’s neither – me and the client simply aren’t a fit. And that’s totally okay. 

A few years after I started freelancing, I learned that clients that talk about wanting a “detail-oriented” writer are not going to be a good fit for me. Then I realized that B2C projects almost always turned into disasters – so they just weren’t my jam. So I stay in my lane with B2B. 

And recently, I realized that I had been let go from two clients in the past few years with the same audience – financial executives – and they both said the same thing – my writing wasn’t sophisticated enough for the audience. So I’ve realized that while I can write tech content for tech executives I cannot write for financial executives, unless they are a CIO or CTO, which is more of a tech audience. 

Yes, I still get upset. And yes, I will start to go down the rabbit hole. But instead of getting imposter syndrome, I now take a look at why we weren’t a fit so that I can do a better job in the future of only accepting clients where I’m likely to become their favorite freelancer. And by looking at this way, I’ve been able to do a much better job of finding the perfect clients for me as well as saving myself a lot of stress when it doesn’t work out. 

Let go of freelancing rules you think you should follow. 

When I first started freelancing, I really wanted to do everything the ‘right’ way. I read so many books and tried to follow all the advice I could find. But most of it didn’t work for me. And I kept feeling like I was less than other writers because I wasn’t following the traditional rules. 

For example, I had read a lot about work-life balance and keeping set work hours so I tried to stick with that. But it didn’t work for me. I hated it. Then I realized that if I wanted to take a Tuesday off and work on Sunday, that was totally fine. Or if I wanted to take the morning off and then work till 2AM, that was totally fine as well. I needed to do what worked for me. 

Once I started doing what worked for my strengths, weaknesses, personality and goals, then I was happier. And my income skyrocketed. And my work-life balance got much better. I also stopped having imposter syndrome because I felt like I was doing things the wrong way. I realized that there was no wrong way and that I needed to have the courage to build the business that fit me. 

Be inspired, not intimidated by others’ success. 

I used to see another writer who was making a lot of money or had high profile clients and I felt less than that other writer. Hearing about their success made me feel insecure. And then it turned into full blown imposter syndrome. So of course, I would stop all the things that would make me more successful, like marketing. Because if I sucked anyway, what was the point?

Then a very close writer friend broke $200K. At first, my imposter syndrome kicked in. Then I realized that if she could do then so could I. We had similar skills and writing ability. And instead of feeling bad about her success, I realized that $200K was possible for me too. I also realized that the most successful writers weren’t always the ones who were the world’s best writers but instead those who were persistent, fast and focused on clients that were a good fit. 

So I changed my self-talk from “They are better than me. I suck.” to “If they can do it, so can I.” At first it was just talk and I didn’t really believe myself. But I kept saying it. And eventually I believed it. The difference it made in my confidence and my business was pretty shocking to me. I started to take another writer’s success as inspiration and sometimes as a challenge to show myself that I could achieve that level as well. 

Focus on tasks you can control instead of landing a new client. 

As I was building my business, I would send a few emails and get upset that I didn’t get a client right away. So I would very rationally decide that there was a secret forum where all the editors in the world had conspired not to hire me. 

Then I realized that the problem was I was making my goal to land a new client or three. But ultimately, we cannot control whether we land a new client or not. But we can control the amount and type of marketing activities we do. Because I was judging my success on something that I had zero control over (a client hiring me) I would get frustrated and do less of the tasks that I needed to do (marketing activities) to make that happen. 

I stopped making my goal to land a new client. Instead, my goal is now based on marketing activities. For example, the past month I’ve been trying to do 5 marketing activities every single day. And I’ve let go over the result and focused on doing the things that will eventually lead to landing clients. So once I send out my emails or LinkedIn messages then I’ve achieved my goal and I’m a success instead of a failure. So because I feel like I’m succeeding then I am more likely to keep it up. And then eventually because I am putting all the right things into the universe and consistently marketing myself, then I will land a new client. For me, shifting my goal and mindset was game-changing, both in terms of me feeling confident and landing new clients. 

Create a network of freelance writers. 

Often, we only see the Facebook version of other writer’s careers – their successes and their bylines. But every writer has the exact same struggles – they lose clients, clients hate their work, they have no work. And if they say these things haven’t happened to them, then they are lying. Or they will all happen to them tomorrow. 

Since most writers don’t share all their screw ups publicly, we all need a writer network where we feel safe and supported. You can share what you are worried about and your client disasters. And most importantly, you can hear firsthand other writer’s journeys through the exact same thing. Once I saw that I wasn’t alone or that I didn’t have more disasters than any other writers, I began to realize that these things didn’t happen to me because I sucked as a writer and needed a new career. But instead, they happened because it’s just part of the job. 

For me, having an accountability buddy that I email with daily and a Mastermind group have been so important for overcoming my imposter syndrome. Check out this post on how to start one. And when things go my way, I have people to celebrate with me. For me, this has made a world of difference. 

Let go of your ownership of a story once you turn it in. 

There was a time when I opened up the draft of an assignment I’d been working on and my heart sank. The client had so many changes. So it was obvious (to me anyway) that I totally sucked and needed a whole new career. Getting lots of revisions used to be a dagger in my soul. Then I realized that some clients just liked to change things. And others I wasn’t a fit for. And sometimes I just needed to learn the client’s style through the revisions, especially with a new client or new project. But it didn’t actually mean I sucked. And I couldn’t stay in this business if I was going to take revisions personally. 

So I reframed my perspective of my job. I now view my role as to create a first draft that is as close to what the client wants as possible. But once I hit send, then it’s no longer mine. Or my work. The part of the job where I put my soul into it is over. The client owns it. If I get revisions, then I view it as making changes to the client’s piece that the client wants, not as criticism of my work. 

Of course, there are going to be exceptions to this, such as stories where I personally care about the topic or the person whose story I’m telling. But those aren’t the majority of my work and they definitely aren’t 7 Ways to Grow Your Business or How to Fight Ransomware. 

Now I just hit send and let the story go. Revisions hurt a whole lot less now. And I’m more productive because my energy isn’t sapped from feeling defeated every time a client marks up a draft.

Start a positive email folder. 

Every time a client says something nice, I put the email into an email folder titled Nice Things About Me. And then when I decide that I suck as a writer and all my prior success has been a fluke, I open the folder and start reading. I am reminded of all the clients who loved my work and loved working with me. I also make a point to solicit LinkedIn recommendations from those clients and will also read them when wallowing in my sorrows. It’s impossible to listen to my negative self-talk too much when I have such nice things in black and white from so many people I respect. 

Do you struggle with imposter syndrome? What has worked for you?