Nobody Handed Me the Title: Claiming 'Artist' Before the World Agreed

There's a specific kind of silence that happens when someone asks what you do and you almost say it — artist — but your mouth reroutes at the last second. You end up saying something safer. Something with less risk attached. "I make music on the side." "I do some writing." "I'm into creative stuff."

I did that for an embarrassingly long time. Years, honestly. I had notebooks full of lyrics. I had recordings on my phone that I'd listen to alone in my car, windows up, volume low, like even the parking lot didn't deserve to hear them yet. I was creating constantly. I just wasn't willing to call myself a creator.

What I was waiting for, I think, was proof. A record deal. A viral moment. A gallery show. Someone with credentials and a platform to point at me and say, her — she counts. Until that happened, I figured I was just a person with a hobby and a lot of feelings.

Spoiler: that moment doesn't come the way you imagine it will. And waiting for it quietly hollows you out.

The Playlist That Changed the Conversation in My Head

I started keeping what I now call my Imposter Syndrome Playlist not as some intentional therapeutic exercise, but out of desperation. I was going through a stretch where I couldn't finish anything. Every song felt half-baked. Every story I started looked stupid by the second paragraph. I needed something to interrupt the loop.

The first song I added was Lizzo's Juice. I know, I know — it sounds almost too obvious. But there's something in that track that isn't just confidence, it's pre-emptive confidence. It's "I don't need your validation to know I'm the thing." I played it before I opened GarageBand. I played it before I sat down to write. It didn't fix the self-doubt, but it gave me enough runway to start.

Then came Mitski's Nobody — for a completely different reason. That song cracked something open because it wasn't triumphant. It was honest about longing and loneliness and still being in process. Hearing her commit so fully to an emotion that wasn't resolved made me realize I'd been waiting to feel finished before I felt worthy. Like I needed to arrive somewhere before I could call myself a traveler.

St. Vincent's New York made the list because of the line about losing the one thing you can't replace. I started thinking about what I'd lose if I kept shrinking my creative identity to avoid the risk of being judged. And what I kept landing on was: myself. Slowly, quietly, piece by piece.

What Imposter Syndrome Actually Sounds Like

People talk about imposter syndrome like it's a dramatic villain. But in my experience it's pretty mundane. It sounds like: who do you think you are? It sounds like: you haven't earned this yet. It sounds like scrolling through someone else's follower count at midnight and deciding their numbers mean something about your value.

It's sneaky because it disguises itself as humility. As being realistic. As not being one of those people who oversells themselves. But there's a difference between staying grounded and actively refusing to take up space you've already earned through years of showing up.

I had to learn that distinction the hard way. I spent so long performing modesty that I started to believe the performance.

The Actual Turning Point (It Was Awkward)

Here's the unsexy truth about when things shifted for me: I was at a dinner party in Brooklyn, talking to someone I'd just met, and they asked what I did. And I was tired. Genuinely just tired of the reroute. So I said, "I'm an artist — I make music and I write."

And they said, "Cool, what kind of music?"

That was it. No interrogation. No request for my credentials. No follow-up question about my streaming numbers or whether I'd been signed. They just... accepted the information and moved on.

I stood there for a second feeling weirdly deflated, like I'd braced for a fight that never came. And then I felt something else: lighter. Like I'd been carrying a disclaimer around my neck for years and just set it down on the table.

I'm not saying the self-doubt vanished. It didn't. It still shows up, usually right before I share something new. But that night I understood, maybe for the first time, that the gatekeeping I'd been so afraid of was mostly happening inside my own head.

Practical Things That Actually Helped

If you're in the thick of waiting for permission that's never going to come in the form you expect, here are the things that genuinely moved the needle for me — not overnight, but over time.

Say the word out loud, in low-stakes situations first. Practice calling yourself an artist to a barista, a neighbor, a friend from a different part of your life. Get used to how it feels in your mouth before you say it somewhere that feels important.

Build a playlist for the hard days. Not a hype playlist, necessarily — though those help too. A playlist that reflects the full emotional range of being a person who makes things. Songs that are honest about struggle and still choose to keep going.

Track your output, not your reception. I started keeping a simple note on my phone: date, what I made, how long I worked on it. Just a log. Looking back at it after a few months, I realized I was making things constantly — even when I felt creatively stuck. The work was happening. I just wasn't giving myself credit.

Stop waiting for the follower count to validate the identity. A hundred thousand followers doesn't make you an artist. Neither does a record deal. Neither does a blue checkmark. You are an artist because you make art. That's actually the whole definition.

The Songs Are Still Playing

My playlist has about thirty songs on it now. It changes. I add things when I find music that makes me feel like the work is worth doing, and sometimes I pull things off when they stop landing the way they used to. It's a living document of the ongoing conversation I'm having with my own creative confidence.

Some days I don't need it. Some days I need to play it twice before I can open a blank page.

Either way, I've stopped waiting for someone to hand me the title. I took it. It was always available — I just had to stop asking for permission to pick it up.

If you're somewhere in that waiting room right now, I want you to know: the door isn't locked. It was never locked. You can just walk out.