Dreams Start With Patience #51

Reading time: 3 minutes

March 16th, 2023.
The day I wrote my first newsletter post on Beehiiv

Up until then, I was always afraid of sharing my writing and ideas with the world.

If you're looking for the answers to defeat the imposter syndrome or sense of fear/judgment from showcasing your writing in public.

Read on, I'm writing this for myself.

But I hope it can be of use to you.

I've always loved to read, this was the first passion I had.

I remember being in my 4th grade class and my teacher Ms. Jones would read about the world of Percy Jackson.

Throughout the school year, we read all 5 books of this fiction series about Greek gods and demigods with dangerous monsters and incredible adventures.

But before I began to read fiction, my stepfather had another idea.

Around this time, I started being a bit of a troublemaker and whiny child with my parents.

My punishment?

Writing.

My dad used to make me write whole pages out of complex books about philosophy and politics without even realizing what it was.

I mean, come on...

I was 7 years old, how am I supposed to know about liberty and freedom?

It wasn't until my young adult years that everything started to make sense.

I was "a writer" before I began to read.

You can laugh but we all are constantly imitating those before us.

As a result, I never wanted to have "hard" conversations about religion or politics.

I never cared enough, I just wanted to dive deep into fantasy worlds and video games.

As a child, I didn't have a competitive drive outside of playing Halo 3 and Modern Warfare 2.

Video games became a way to escape an uncomfortable setting in my life.

A new home, with a new blended family, and a lot of angst about my biological dad not being around anymore.

As it happened in the past I wouldn't understand the difficulty my parents faced raising 6 children in a Brady Bunch-escque manner.

Life became mundane, growing up poor in monetary means but rich in love.

This was the mantra of my parents, who worked exceptionally hard to support all of us.

When you're young you are ignorant to the harshness of reality.

You believe the grass is greener on the other side, i.e. the other homes of family and friends.

But, you must understand this if you want to defeat your imposter syndrome.

Personality is an accumulation of your experiences from your said environment.

I don't put much stock into genetics shaping our personality.

I'm not even aware of any scientific studies that show it to be true.

(If I'm wrong I'd love to be educated.)

My personality is the sum of my step-father's influence.

Even though we don't share the same genes and blood.

His beliefs were passed down to me as a mental offspring.

With all the positive beliefs, the negative ones were also inherited.

To grasp this idea, we must acknowledge the behaviors of ourselves and those we love.

Which is hard in practice, but easy in theory.

Alcoholism, stoicism, fear, and realism became my everyday.

In my teenage years, I didn't have any drive to succeed or compete.

Life felt black and white, grades were dull and average.

The only thing I wanted to do was escape.

Escapism became a default, but the only downside was the partying.

The drugs, the endless nights binging video games without any means of productivity.

This is my story, of how I went from a party-goer and drug-addict into something more.

All by the pursuit of passion from a camera lens and now into writing.

Photography forces you to accept reality for what it is.

Writing forces you to keep a clear understanding of yourself.

Without either of these pursuits, I might've ended up hospitalized or even worse.

Dead.

All because I cared way more about what others thought of me rather than my feelings.

My connection to self was severed.

I just wanted to escape, and quite frankly I thought that made me special.

Only to realize, that everyone my age seemed to feel that way.

Most people are so paralyzed by the ideas of luxury, lust, and life.

We all want what we can't have (especially in youth)

The keys to a happier life, come from a lack of gratifying behaviors.

It's what led me away from photography and chances are I might've lost my creative routine.

A quote from a friend I respect:

"Self-improvement is more powerful when it comes from love rather than lack."

-Jack Moses (@jackmoses0)

Photography and self-improvement became a catalyst for me to get the things I wanted out of life at the time.

But it was because I operated so heavily out of scarcity.

I thought taking photos and making art gave my life meaning because people would "feel" something about what I made.

Inevitably it became a form of procrastination for what I needed to do.

What did I need to do to get better and overcome my imposter syndrome?

Push past ignorance.

Focus on my health.

Make money.

Only then will happiness and my confidence rise to my expectations.

The solution to my pain was not found outside of myself.

The solution exists inside my mind.

This is true for all of us.

I want a family above all else because I want to be the father that my drug-addicted dad wasn't.

I want to be able to provide because I watched the people I love struggle after 2008.

I want to operate out of love and forgiveness because many individuals (including myself..) seem to do the opposite.

Nothing is set in stone with your existence except death and change.

The idea of perfection and "a path" to follow doesn't exist.

But, you can choose.

That's the beautiful thing about it.

The choice to see life in black & white or as wonderful tones of gray and color.

Imposter syndrome is a tricky field to navigate.

The positive center you must reside in to beat imposter syndrome is this:

Stack as many wins as you can to gain confidence:

Wins in:

• Emotional regulation

• Cognitive performance

• Behavioral self-engineering

An understanding of your past helps

When you commit to something, let’s say for instance you commit to better communication skills.

You begin to see how all these parts within emotional, behavioral, and cognition interact with one another.

This is why we examine our past to see what led us down a spiral of chaos.

The imposter syndrome gets destroyed once you enhance your awareness.

There’s no such thing as wrong-doing from awareness.

You will start to see things as they are from a place of observation rather than from the judgment of others.

Awareness of life, the finitude of time, and the beauty of the ability to live.

All of this gave me one solution:

To stop caring about the thoughts and opinions of others when it came to sharing my writing online.

Thanks for reading!

Another way I can help you when you are ready.
1. Work with me! Coaching for writing and recording long-form content

2. The Patience Paradigm (curiosity → passion course)
   FREE DIGITAL PRODUCT
   
   Your friend who has recently been taking a much-needed break and redirection in life.
   -Zachariah