Imposter syndrome is real, and it’s scary.

Sometimes it creeps up on you quietly, sometimes it hits you like a freight train.

Last week, a brand I'd collaborated with briefly in the past launched a new campaign. The artwork felt eerily familiar, definitely not a copy, but just close enough that I couldn't stop thinking about it.

The work was created by an artist with ten times the audience I have, and if I'm honest, it has rattled me.

Not because I think I own a particular style, and certainly not because I believe most creative ideas emerge in a vacuum. But because it forced me to confront something I've never really had to before.

Because for the first time in my creative career, I didn't know how to respond.

The loudest voice wasn't frustration, it was self-doubt. It was the voice that tells me I’m imagining it. The voice that says my work isn't that original anyway. And, most confronting, the voice that says speaking up would make you seem dramatic, self-important or difficult.

I suspect most creative people know this voice.

Because making things publicly means exposing yourself to comparison. Sometimes with people who are more experienced, more visible, more successful or simply louder.

And often the hardest part isn't protecting your ideas, it's protecting your belief that your perspective has value.

Confidence isn't really something creatives achieve once and keep forever. It's something we have to rebuild over and over again. Sometimes after a wine nd sometimes after a setback.

And sometimes after seeing something that makes us question ourselves.