Understanding Imposter Syndrome: Why So Many of Us Feel Like Frauds

by Matthew R. Paden

Sunday, May 24th 2026

Understanding Imposter Syndrome

For years, I did not know there was a name for what I was experiencing.

I simply assumed everyone else had some level of confidence that I had somehow missed out on. I would look at other artists online and convince myself they had figured out a secret formula while I was still pretending to understand what I was doing.

The strange part is that these feelings often showed up during moments that should have felt encouraging. Someone would compliment my work and I would immediately downplay it in my head.

A client would hire me and instead of feeling proud, I would quietly think that maybe they just happened to need someone at the right time. Maybe I got lucky. Maybe they simply had not realized yet that I was still learning.

Looking back now, I can see how distorted some of those thoughts were.

But when you are living inside them, they do not feel irrational. They feel convincing.

That is one of the reasons imposter syndrome can be difficult to recognize. It rarely arrives with warning signs attached to it. It often sounds like your own internal voice, which makes it feel like truth instead of fear.

Over time I started realizing something important. I was not just doubting my work; I was doubting whether I deserved to be where I was at all.

What Imposter Syndrome Actually Is

The term imposter syndrome was first identified by psychologists Pauline Clance and Suzanne Imes in the late 1970s. They described it as an “internal experience of intellectual phoniness,” meaning people can experience success and still struggle to believe they genuinely earned it.

What makes this experience so frustrating is that facts often do not seem to matter.

You can build a portfolio, complete projects, receive praise, or gain experience and still feel like you somehow slipped through the cracks. Instead of seeing success as proof of growth, your brain starts explaining it away.

You tell yourself you were lucky, that timing worked in your favor, or that people simply overestimated your abilities. I think many creative people know this feeling well because creativity places us in a constant cycle of evaluation.

We create something, compare it to others, notice flaws, and immediately think about how much further we still need to go. Sometimes growth becomes difficult to recognize because we are too busy measuring distance instead of progress.

Psychologists originally focused their research on high-achieving women, but later studies found these feelings exist across many professions and backgrounds.

It turns out that feeling like you do not belong is not nearly as uncommon as many people think.

Why I Think Imposter Syndrome Starts Showing Up

I have spent a lot of time thinking about why imposter syndrome seems especially common among artists and creative people. I do not think it happens for one reason.

“Each time I write a book, every time I face that yellow pad, the challenge is so great. I have written eleven books, but each time I think, ‘Uh oh, they’re going to find out now. I’ve run a game on everybody and they’re going to find me out.” - Maya Angelou

I think it grows from several smaller things that slowly pile on top of each other until they become difficult to separate. Comparison is probably one of the biggest contributors.

Years ago artists might have compared themselves to classmates, coworkers, or people in their local communities. Today we can compare ourselves to thousands of artists around the world before we even finish our morning coffee.

The problem is that social media rarely shows the entire story. We see finished illustrations, client announcements, successful launches, convention photos, and big career moments.

We usually do not see the failed sketches, the rejection emails, the abandoned projects, or the nights someone sat in front of a blank page wondering whether they were good enough.

I think our brains quietly start doing something unfair.

We compare our complete reality to somebody else's edited highlights. Perfectionism can also play a role. Perfectionism sounds productive because it disguises itself as ambition.

It tells us we simply have high standards.

But I have started wondering if perfectionism sometimes comes from fear more than excellence.

For years I convinced myself that confidence would finally arrive after I reached some milestone.

Maybe after improving my work. Maybe after landing better clients. Maybe after building more experience.

The problem was that every time I reached a goal, another one appeared immediately afterward.

The finish line kept moving.

Eventually I realized that I was treating confidence like a reward I would someday earn instead of something I needed to build internally.

The Mental Health Side of Imposter Syndrome

I think people sometimes talk about imposter syndrome in casual ways because the phrase itself has become common online.

People will jokingly say they have imposter syndrome before a meeting or before posting artwork. But I think there is a more serious side that deserves attention, especially when it starts affecting mental health.

Living with constant self-doubt can become exhausting because your mind begins treating every achievement as pressure rather than relief.

Instead of enjoying progress, you start worrying about whether you can repeat it. Success becomes something that needs defending rather than celebrating.

For me, I noticed that self-doubt sometimes created behaviors I did not immediately recognize. I would overwork because I felt like I needed to prove myself.

I would spend too much time correcting tiny details because I thought mistakes meant exposure. I would dismiss compliments and focus almost entirely on criticism.

Researchers have observed similar patterns.

Self-doubt can lead people toward overworking, procrastination, anxiety, and chronic stress because they feel like they constantly need to prove they belong.

“You think, “Why would anyone want to see me again in a movie? And I don’t know how to act anyway, so why am I doing this?” - Meryl Streep

What struck me was not simply who said it. It was the reminder that these feelings do not automatically disappear with success. We often imagine successful people eventually crossing some invisible finish line where confidence suddenly arrives.

But human beings rarely work that way.

Success does not always silence self-doubt. Sometimes it simply changes its shape.

What I Believe Now

I do not know if imposter syndrome completely disappears. Personally, I think what changes over time is not necessarily the feeling itself but your relationship with it.

Years ago I believed every doubtful thought that entered my head. If I felt like I did not belong, I assumed that feeling must be accurate. If I felt behind, I assumed I actually was behind.

Now I try to look at those thoughts differently.

I have learned that thoughts are not automatically facts.

Just because I feel unqualified does not necessarily mean I am unqualified. Just because I feel uncertain does not mean I somehow fooled everyone around me.

Awareness creates distance. Once I started recognizing the pattern, something shifted. Instead of saying, “I am a fraud,” I started thinking, “I am having thoughts that I am a fraud.”

That may sound like a small difference, but I do not think it is.

One becomes identity. The other becomes an experience. If someone reading this struggles with imposter syndrome, I think there is something worth remembering.

You are probably paying far more attention to your doubts than your evidence.

You are probably remembering mistakes more than successes. And you are probably speaking to yourself in ways you would never speak to another person.

I know that because I have done exactly that myself.

These days I wonder if feeling uncertain does not always mean something is wrong. Maybe sometimes uncertainty simply means you are growing. Maybe it means you are trying something difficult.

Maybe it means you care deeply about what you are doing.

For me, understanding imposter syndrome has not meant making every doubt disappear. It has meant recognizing that not every fearful thought deserves to be treated like truth.

And maybe that voice telling you that you do not belong is not revealing some hidden truth.

Maybe it is simply revealing fear.