Doing it your way, beating imposter syndrome
This post is for all the people with lived experience out there who do not think they are skilled enough, have enough resources, or even have the right things to say! I am here to tell you that you CAN achieve your advocacy goals and you DO have what it takes.
In lived experience spaces, we talk a lot about ‘imposter syndrome’ and feelings of not meeting up to the expectations that we think others have of us. We feel like a fraud, and like someone will figure out that we don’t know what we are talking about, or tell us that we don’t belong.
Let me ask you this though. Who knows your learning from lived experience better than you, who lived it? If you really didn’t know what you were talking about, why would you be out there, working to draw on your lived experience to create change? Remember the deep motivation that pulls you to continuously expose your lived experiences. Remember that one voice is enough to make a difference and STOP comparing your success/profile/work with other people you see on social media!
If you are like me, you see lived experience advocates online or in public who seem to “have their sh#t together” in ways that you can’t even imagine to get close to matching. In my advocacy journey, I never even wanted to get close to the public profile of other advocates. I was happy working in the background, building up the movement from behind the scenes. My fellow introverts would understand the anxiety and personal pressure that comes from being noticed in your work.
This is normally how the magic happens for CriticLE, nothing more fancy than puppy cuddles.
As my experience and confidence has grown in the space, I am now more comfortable being noticed. I have learnt lots of things along the way and realised that its not actually that hard to build a public profile. You don’t need to spend lots of money on marketing or systems, you have all that you need available at your fingertips, if you know where to look. So if you are getting to a place where you are wanting to get noticed, unsure about whether or not you can really do this work or want to kick some goals in 2023, read on for my top tips!
Make your purpose clear
Suicide seems like such a BIG issue with so many things that need to change, that it can be hard to focus in on what is most important first. When I first started in suicide prevention, my sole purpose was to “make sure that no one else went through what I went through” and this is a common place that we start. Over time, working on lots of different projects and with lots of different people, my purpose shifted to a more action oriented purpose. It became things like “increase a compassionate response in emergency departments” and “stop seeing people who experience suicide as fragile”. Through my work in advocacy, I started to form beliefs about what needed to be done and why. I was starting to see how my lived experience fit within the broader suicide prevention space.
When I got to this understanding, I turned to the organisations I worked with and started to raise what I was seeing. I wanted these organisations to think better about the way they engaged lived experience. I wanted them to provide more diverse opportunities for people with lived experience. But probably most importantly, I wanted to get these organisations to provide the training and development opportunities we needed, to empower people with lived experience to be more. When I didn’t get the traction I wanted, my purpose was clear.
It is at this point where a movement can be born. You have a burning desire to see a change. You know what that change is, and how to achieve it. You can clearly articulate the change to others and you realise that the way to achieve the purpose is not the way we have been trying. Capture this purpose and create a mission statement. It will guide you when your activities seem to slide off track. Revisit it and remind yourself each day, why you are doing what you are doing.
Creating a ‘brand’
Love it or hate it but branding is essential in today’s world if you are wanting to get a message out. Branding is more than just a logo and a colour and font scheme. Think of it as a character, your superhero avatar and the thing that people associate your message with. For me, I wanted to create critical thought about lived experience partnerships. I wanted to challenge what we know and get people talking and sharing ideas. I saw that we all had a piece of the puzzle and we just needed to work together to get the right picture. Enter stage left, CriticLE (LE for Lived Experience). I drew the logo by tracing two pictures together, using an online, free, image creator. The images were from a free clipart database. I chose colours I liked, a font I liked, and when I create content, I make sure to that it represents the non-judgmental and curious persona that I want CriticLE to embody. You don’t have to have a logo, but think of how to embody the values that you set in your purpose. My top tip here is to look for free imagery to use via databases like unsplash but make sure you check the terms of use!
Building an online presence
Where you put your message online will depend on who you want to reach. The profile and wants of Tik Tok users, for example, are very different to those on LinkedIn. Some advocates only have a social media presence and some also have websites. There is no magic recipe for what will work for you. So think back to your purpose. For me, I wanted a place to share ideas and start conversations. I wanted these to be open, not in a closed Facebook group and I wanted somewhere people could go to get information without having a subscription to a social media platform so I chose a website. This, I pay for. I pay for a domain name, a website hosting subscription and a custom email address. There are cheap or free options but these often come with advertising and relaxed privacy and security settings. Social media is free and so if you don’t have money to pay, it can be a great place to start.
When it comes to building a presence, don’t forget that you are “building”. It can be frustrating to produce content and put yourself out there, only to have one or two likes, comments or traffic over your content. It takes time to build a social movement and keep your purpose in mind. You know what you are doing is the right thing. Talk to people and see what they think. Pay attention to feedback you get, both direct feedback, and critical reflection on your work that may indicate indirect feedback you are getting. In running our online ProfessionaLE series, we were getting low attendance during the sessions, but high rates of viewing recordings. This hints to me that the scheduled time was not great for people. Then we got some comments that clearly let us know that the time was unsuitable. Use feedback like this to adjust your advocacy.
Getting training and finding the free stuff
There are lots of social enterprises who offer free training and skills development as part of their for-good work. Look beyond the mental health and suicide prevention sectors for things like marketing and business development training. I find that if you keep learning, you feel more and more authentic and less of a fraud in delivering your purpose. When thinking about how to get my advocacy messages out, I found some cool organisations like Impacto Consulting, who offer free social impact training. It has been really helpful in getting my head around branding and creating messages with impact. Universities also offer short seminars on topics that might help you; they love getting their research out there! At the University of New England, my university, they have a thing called the Smart Regional Incubator that offers free public training for developing regional businesses. A lot of it might not seem relevant and you might think, my message is advocacy, not money making. If you think this, I challenge you to dig deeper. Business communicate to their “customers”, to promote their products and motivate people to purchase their products. We could re-think advocacy as getting “customers” to “purchase” our ideas and spread them. Training like this helps us create messages that motivate and reach the people we intend.
Protecting yourself
When you start to formalise and put your message out there, others may respond to it in ways that you didn’t intend. You might also look around at others doing the same thing and think that they are doing it better or seem to be in competition with your work. Protect yourself and think about how you might respond when this happens. Since launching CriticLE, I have faced much resistance to the messages I want to get out there. At times I feel like I am making zero progress and that no-one cares about the changes I want to see happen. The reality of the matter is, some people don’t care and actively disagree with me. When this happens, remember your purpose and keep your end goals in mind. Stick to your values and keep your head down. Respond to resistance gracefully and with patience!
We often pay attention to the negative, the people who disagree or work against us, but the truth of the matter is, you will always be able to find supporters. When I launched ‘more than just storytellers’, I wondered if others felt the same as I did and if they agreed that we needed to rethink the value of the work of people with lived experience. The more I spoke to people and captured their stories, the more I was reassured. Each person I spoke to said how grateful they were to have the opportunity to add their voice to the campaign and reaffirmed my thoughts about what I was doing. Pay attention to comments of support and remember them when that imposter voice creeps in. It is not easy to stand up and be noticed and you deserve all the kudos you get for taking that courageous step.
Keep it simple
Lastly, don’t overthink it. You don’t need a recording studio to create video or audio content. You don’t need a marketing guru to create your brand. You don’t even need a tech company to build you a website! There are so many tools to help you do things like build websites, create visuals and manage your work. To be honest, I use a free Google Drive account to store my documents, I use Google Slides to create my social media tiles, I get my images for free from an open database and I film my presentations in my step-daughter’s bedroom, on the family computer! Get creative and share ideas with others about how you do your thing.
The very limited edition ironing board film studio used to film my Three Minute Thesis presentation.
If you have ways that you beat imposter syndrome and get your messages out there, let me know! I find myself doubting my role in suicide prevention sometimes too and LOVE learning from others. Share your thoughts in the comments or get in touch with me. Let us support each other to do better in suicide prevention.
