The other day I taught an Instagram class.
It was wonderful and aligned (even if my webinar app went all janky and left me flustered... life is glitchy, ya gotta roll with it). I used to play really small. We do that, don’t we? We think the successful humans are better *humans* than us. Like they got the secret handshake and we didn’t.
I got my first real-deal copywriting job a full decade ago.
I’ve worked in-house, for agencies, freelanced, opened my own agency. Yet it was still always “this little online thing I do.” Millennials, right? We’re good with the Twitter—ain’t no big thing.
Sometimes it’s a giggle and a nod when someone at the bar says, “So you do Facebook posts?” Kinda like when I pretend like I can’t cook because I also like to order takeout. Or like I don’t know what I’m doing with this mom thing because I’ve only got one kid...
...is it just me who struggles to own what I’m good at?
Humans are just human. Even the most brilliant of us—we still have to do laundry and navigate relationships and remember to get the groceries. Everyone wonders if they’re doing it right, if someone else knows a better way.
But what would happen if we lived with our ordinary and our weird, our shortcomings and our questions, and still said with confidence “I am really good at this sh*t”?
I’m an amazing writer and a savvy marketing strategist—it’s my comfort zone. The kind of work I do off the top of my head without even thinking about it. Then there’s the things I’ve worked at. The things I knew I needed, and so I worked and read and learned. Quick comfort food and mothering with compassion and strength are skills I’ve worked hard to cultivate.
None of that means that I know all of the answers or that I was given a secret handbook. It just means that I have come to lean into and embrace my strengths, that I accept that success is a matter of sharpening and then owning your skills, and that the only thing separating me from my idols is time and the ability to apply eyeliner.
Not sure if I’ll ever get the knack of the latter, but I’ll keep trying.
xoxo
Hunter