Your alter ego. Now you'll uncover the version of you that is just a one step ahead, and the one who will take you by the hand and guide you when times get tough. Before you can do something you first must be something or quote there from Gurda. Confession time. My name isn't really cat rose. It's Catherine rose and Nelligan.
I know there isn't anything wrong with the name I was born with. But when I went to art college, I decided my name would no longer be Katherine, I would introduce myself as cat. At first, this was a way to escape the uncomfortably long multisyllabic name I was given, which I was also associating with being told off and replace it with an easier option. Also a nod to my favorite animal species on the planet. But I seem discovered it was much more than a simple drop of six lessons. I found a new kind of confidence in my name when I started art school, introducing myself as cats, even if it felt a bit uncomfortable at first started to make me feel like a different person.
Like I might actually fit in with all these cool artsy hipster kids with names like puppy and Hudson. There's nothing wrong with my family name either, despite the countless mispronunciations by admin staff over the years, but rose is a pretty good middle name, and one that most people can pronounce. So I upgraded it to my last name. With that cat rose, my alter ego was born. Over the years, she's come into her own, she's determined that the clothes I wear, the words I use, the places I go for fun, and through no conscious effort, the people who are drawn to or repelled by me. She's the one I call on when I need to step on stage and talk to a roomful of unknown expectant faces.
She's the one who speaks my pre planned words on each podcast, who selects the cadence and emphasis on slips in the cheeks where you see a parasite, something that lives inside me in it. let out on occasion. No, she's just my alter ego, or what Carl Jung might refer to as my persona. The persona as young defines is what we would like to be and how we would wish to be seen by the world. The word persona comes from a Latin word that literally means mask. In this sense, the word can be applied metaphorically, representing all the different social masks that we wear, for different groups of people and different situations.
I don't recommend over identifying with your persona or alter ego, as this is not your whole self. Instead, seeing it as your translator, your bodyguard, your sexy frontman, the one who helps you stand your ground and do what you need to in society. If something doesn't make it, big deal, isn't your whole self. Just a carefully chosen sliver of self am I suggesting you change your name, start dressing differently, adopt an accent whilst all of that Could be great fun, it really isn't necessary. You all three go could be as simple as a picture of you that you hold up in your mind's eye. As someone who stands up tall and meets people with a smile.
When you step into this imaginary state and practice it, magic starts to happen. You become that version of you. Keep it real ish. Creating an alter ego in this class does not mean faking anything. This is part of my ongoing war against fake it till you make it. There's a good chance you've heard of or read this common piece of advice at some point, that what we have to do in order to appear more confident, appropriate or successful, is to just fake it.
Whilst acting as if might work for some, for the majority of creative introverts I've encountered. Feeling like we're faking something, it doesn't breed confidence, if anything, it just increases imposter syndrome. What is impostor syndrome? Well, one of the reasons you might lack confidence in a situation is feeling like an imposter. Like you're a total fake just waiting to be found out. I've experienced this throughout my life, whether it was in my first job Junior web designer, with no real experience in web design other than my own experiments in Dreamweaver, to starting my freelance design career, and wondering if I was even invoicing correctly.
I haven't found hard evidence to support why imposter syndrome is so common in creative introverts, but Laura Woods offers a plausible answer. introverts tend to be highly, perhaps overly analytical and self aware. It could be that the route of imposter syndrome is really just self absorption, spending too much time worrying about yourself and how others see you. However, there are plenty of outwardly confident people who are also struck by this fraudulent feeling to celebrities such as Natalie Portman have openly admitted to feeling insecure about their abilities. She reported. I felt like they had In some mistake that I wasn't smart enough to be in this company, and that every time I opened my mouth, I would have to prove I wasn't just a dumb actress when she was driving at Harvard as a freshman.
Basically, no one is safe from feeling like a fraud, regardless of achievement or fame. Hopefully, this news won't destroy your hopes of growing out of imposter syndrome. But we'll illustrate the point that imposter syndrome has nothing to do with your level of talent or skills. The problem comes from feeling like we're faking something which inherently makes us feel guilty, insincere, like we're going to be found out. The reason I bring this up is to emphasize why finding an alter ego that aligns with your most authentic True Self is so important. When your Alter Ego is working for you.
You won't feel like you're going to be found out or that you can't step up to the plate in case you let somebody down. Your alter ego will carry you through it. It's hardly capable and still true to you. After all, You created it. Your Alter Ego is always evolving. Do you start learning to drive a car already feeling like a qualified driver?
Not likely. Instead, you go through the learning process which feels more like becoming than being there. The process of learning to drive is really about learning to feel what driving car is like, so much so that your body intuitively knows what to do when you're out on the road. calling yourself a driver and training or a learner is the way of bridging the gap. It feels authentic. It gives us the permission to get behind the wheel with our teacher, and enough confidence to know that at some point, we'll be licensed to drive solo.
Virtually any new experience can be seen in this light. It isn't a black and white distinction between being a total newbie and being a pro. As soon as we say yes to something new. Our Alter Ego adapts to fit this new identity. We are always creatives in the making. No one can stop us They might be able to delay our journey, but only for a little while.
It's up to us to keep up with our momentum. If you find someone who truly believes they've made it, that just means they've stopped growing. The function of a creative is to always be creating on some level. It feels pretty terrible not moving forward, it feels a lot like depression. Conversely, moving forward too fast without keeping up with our own creative momentum can feel intensely stressful. It can feel a lot like anxiety.
Your Alter Ego is a way of encapsulating a sense of self, a cluster of feelings that adapt when you need to take on something new, enabling you to move in the right direction at the right speed. So how to find your alter ego. You can do one, two, all of these exercises. They're just fun ways to start clarifying who your Alter Ego is, and ways to call on your Alter Ego when you need an extra boost of confidence or anything else for that matter. So, who do I need to be to make this happen? It starts with a simple question.
Who do I need to be to make this happen? And you might have seen that what would Jesus do wristbands? You might ask yourself, what would insert your Alter Ego name to? More importantly, how would they feel? In preparing to speak on stage? I don't expect to feel free from nerves.
I wouldn't want that to my audience. I know a little bit of adrenaline will help bring me the energy I need for an engaging talk. But nor do I spend my time freaking out about making a mistake. Instead, I asked my myself what my alter ego would be doing and feeling in that moment. She might be remembering to take deep breaths, standing up tall with her shoulders back, feeling excited, maybe a bit giddy to share her message and to get to her favorite part, questions from the audience. Just running this through helps me align with the believable version of myself.
This cat rose character then Lady Gaga on stage certainly not she has her own style. And it's close enough to my true self that it feels attainable, but not so far beyond my level of self that I feel like a faker. It's like having somebody just one step in front of you, who holds your hand and helps pull you through in the right direction to your alter egos lucky socks, you don't need to power dress to make use of your alter ego. I do believe in the power of a good outfit or item of clothing that helps you feel like about us. This is very individual, but consider how you like your clothes to make you feel. You might simply wants to feel comfortable.
And this is partly why I refuse to wear stiletto heels. That would be both uncomfortable and a safety hazard. You might want to keep it subtle. Maybe it's a really funny pair of socks that makes you giggle but no one else has to see them. You could wear them to a doll meeting at work to bring a bit of creativity in place your Monday morning. Try on lots of options go Through your wardrobe and ask yourself on a scale of one to 10 how those outfits make you feel.
If you're getting mostly One, two fives, consider going shopping for a new item clothing. It's easy for us to get stuck in a wardrobe ruts and sometimes it means buying something totally new. And unlike ourselves in order to shake it up and feel like someone new entry, your alter egos Day in the Life. Walking through your ideal Day is a wonderful way of imagining what your Alter Ego would do feel and create. When you have this roadmap, you can work out ways of bringing more of this character into your own life. Ask yourself things like what where do all three go during the morning?
What time would they wake up? What would they eat for breakfast? Would they work out? What exercises would they do? How much time would your Alter Ego spend on the creativity? Who would you go spend time with finally ask yourself which of these You could adopt in your own life.
This really is remarkable in that when you start making slight tweaks to your everyday routine, you can over time start feeling like a different person and your alter ego, Lucky mascots. This is a fun quick addition that you can take with you wherever you go. For example, is there a lucky charm that you've used in the past? Or is there something new you can use to mark your creation of this alter ego, maybe it's a little illustrated character you keep on a card in your wallet. Anything that reminds you that you have this ability to tap into the next level version of you. Again, this Alter Ego isn't a different person.
It's simply an extension of you to step version that you can use to take on just about anything you dream of have fun with it.