This is for those people who undervalue their passions and accomplishments.

It’s for the college graduate who didn’t find a career straight out of college, graduated late, or is trudging along through coursework and hoping for the best.

It’s for the person who keeps their talents to themselves and gets embarrassed whenever someone gets a glimpse into their inner world.

It’s for people who are advanced or skilled in their profession who still suffer from “Imposter’s syndrome,” doubting their accomplishments and holding the internalized fear that they will be found to be a fraud.

It’s described as the fear that someone will, at any moment, bust down your front door and call you out for being fake. Songwriter Amanda Palmer calls it the “Fraud Police,” which sometimes seems more accurate than the psychological term.

Humility is important, as important as it is to acknowledge that there is always something to learn. Yet, humility can sometimes become meekness and hesitation, especially when it comes to selling one’s accomplishments to an employer, publisher, art gallery, or whatever authority figure needs to be appeased.

I for one despise things like job-seeking and query letters because I fear the Fraud Police and hate bragging. Yet, as someone who is honest to a fault, all the accomplishments I list were things that I did. No one else. Just me. It seems obvious in practicality, but it’s another thing to actually realize.

Artists, writers, and creative people really do seem to struggle with asserting their own self-image and oftentimes undervalue their time and energy. They are usually working in a society in which the “starving artist” is a stereotypical norm. It's easy to bend to the will of a populace who supposes that we should be in average nine-to-five jobs just to get by.

Granted, some people need day jobs to support themselves while they work on their other ambitions. Other people like office jobs, and we do need those sorts of people in the world. However, those with the passion to create something should answer what their soul is called to do.

I know because I am one such person. It has taken a very long time for me to acknowledge that I genuinely want to pursue writing and the publishing world as more than a side-hobby, more than a lot of words that I tuck away out of sight for fear of judgment.

Last year, I read "Letters to a Young Poet" by Rainier Maria Rilke, and I recommend that book to any creative person struggling to really take up their passion as a potential profession. This quote struck me and its words echo in my mind:

Go into yourself. Find out the reason that commands you to write; see whether it has spread its roots into the very depths of your heart; confess to yourself whether you would have to die if you were forbidden to write.
This most of all: ask yourself in the most silent hour of your night: must I write? Dig into yourself for a deep answer. And if this answer rings out in assent, if you meet this solemn question with a strong, simple “I must,” then build your life in accordance with this necessity; your whole life, even into its humblest and most indifferent hour, must become a sign and witness to this impulse.

I answered yes. In the darkest parts of my life and even in the brightest, I have always made up stories and written them down. It just took a while to realize that this was my call, as difficult and hazy a path as it is.

Also, replace the word “write” with anything that you do out of a passion that you have doubts about, and it still captures Rilke’s same conviction. The Fraud Police aren’t going to come for you, particularly if you’re actually doing what you want to be doing. If you don’t know exactly what you’re doing, that’s fine. No one else knows either.

We each have our own journey to finding out what it is we want to do, but when you’re really pursuing art or a certain career or the thing that calls to you in the middle of the night, you accomplish things along the way. It’s important to hold those accomplishments close, to feel proud of your progress, and to be open to new feats.