Give Yourself a Few Kind Words

I often hear from newer editors who are feeling a little doubtful. They experience imposter syndrome and second-guess themselves. This can make it difficult for them to market or to feel confident in raising prices – in short, they struggle to run a successful business because they’re not sure of their skills.

It may not be helpful, but I like to look at it this way: imposter syndrome suggests that you’re worried about letting other people down, that you want to do good work and that you’re worried you may not be.

This is much better than experiencing the Dunning-Kruger effect, which is when incompetent people vastly overrate their competence. Vastly overestimating yourself doesn’t allow much room to learn and grow, whereas imposter syndrome does.

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When you’re experiencing self-doubt, consider asking someone else to say something they think you do well. The other day, I was frustrated about a situation, and my friend, a leadership coach, said to me, “I’ve always admired your ability to just take the next step. Things go wrong and you just pivot.”

I didn’t think of this as particularly unusual or remarkable, but she assured me that a lot of people freeze or avoid in similar circumstances. So that moment was eye-opening for me – and it also inspired me to take a next step to solve the problem I was experiencing (my friend is not a leadership coach for nothing!).

Keep a Kind Words File

If you feel weird about asking people to say something nice about you (I have no shame, but some people do), think about a time when someone has said something positive about you and your work, or think about something you would say about yourself if you were forced to during one of those awful team-building exercises at work.

I keep a folder in my email where I save kind words people have said about me and I consult it whenever I’m starting to doubt myself.

Little things like this can help you move past that moment of doubt.

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Jennifer Lawler has been a freelance editor for more than twenty-five years and has been teaching editing skills for more than fifteen years. She is the founder of Club Ed LLC.