Haha. My weird little brain can’t tell which. Which may be a reason for my higher-than-normal anxiety levels the last few days. It’s not that bad, just feeling tight in the neck and stomach. Not sleeping great. But I’ve been coping with some of the tools I learned writing for Threads Podcast: Life Unfiltered’s blog. (It’s a cool podcast that I first guested on, then later took an SEO blogging gig with.) But that’s neither here nor cheese.

I’ve been driving myself a little bit crazy. I’m anxious about my creative work, mostly that I have more stuff that I want to do than I realistically have time to do. I want to get it done now, and I always feel like I should be working faster. And being a creative person (maybe…) I struggle to fairly assess myself sometimes. Maybe you’ve met a person like me, someone you know pretty well, who asks you for validation. Whether it be How do I look?, How did I do?, Are you sure I’m doing this right?, or some variation. Inside I want to know if what I’m doing is good because I want it to be good, and if someone doesn’t tell me anything other than, No, that’s terrible, I don’t believe them. (Elle O’Elle.)

So What Am I: Trash or Class?

To help in my quest, this questant who may someday need Questran, took his questions to the internet where I found this questionnaire: a Gifted or ADHD test. Since I was diagnosed ADD back in the dizzay, I took the test. I hit between one and three ADHD, and the rest were gifted. And no, there weren’t 4 questions. (Get the f**k outta my face with that!)

But answering mostly in the gifted column on the self-assessment could me I suffer from the Dunning Kruger effect. (If you don’t wanna read the link: it’s when people who aren’t good at something truly believe they’re gifted. Can be sports, art, politics (ugh…), you name it.)

Hopefully someone would’ve told me by now that my writing is unreadable and my podcast is un…listen…to…able. Or…shut up!

Assuming in the meantimg I don’t have Dunning Kruger, let’s see what the f**ks at Healthline (relax, f**ks means folks this time. Gotcha!), you might develop imposter feelings if your parents:

• pressured you to do well in school
• compared you to your sibling(s)
• were controlling or overprotective
• emphasized your natural intelligence
• sharply criticized mistakes

I definitely score between 80-100% here.

So maybe I ought to give myself a break, stretch, breath, separate the physical feelings from the mental reactions, yadda, yadda, yadda, and just be happy that I’m regularly putting out a podcast that features creative talent from all around the US, that my book is coming out this summer, and that–

Oh ya, my book is coming out next summer (2022). So in the coming months I’ll most likely be sharing more on that. (You f**ks better pre-order it when the time comes…)

Anyway…I ought to check myself as I sit here, like a fool, wrecking myself. Creative shit doesn’t just BOOM happen. It’s a process. A journey. But only if we keep putting one foot in front of the other.

So next time I go too long without putting out a blog, I might just be in a bit of a f**k. (I didn’t even want to write that sentence but I wanted to make you guess another F-word.)

Let’s keep encourage other creatives, and give ourselves credit where it’s due. Beating yourself up don’t do a f**king bit of good. (Yep, I meant it that time.)

What did we learn today?

Imposter Syndrome is something creative people (if not all people) deal with. But we gotta deal with it in a healthy way. Just as the fine f**ks who wrote that Healthline article I mentioned earlier. And get ready to pre-order my novel in a few months. And listen. To. My. PODCAST!

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See you f**ks later! (Take it how you want, haha.)

-CT

Christopher Tallon writes, podcasts, and…wait a second. Are you actually reading this? High five! Follow me:

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