Okay babes. Story time. ✨
This morning, at my desk at work, my phone lit up with the least glamorous plot twist of my life: a government webpage.
“Complete. 100%.”
No confetti. No drumroll. Just a blue progress bar, a confirmation number, and a sentence telling me my identity had been verified and my Fictitious Business Name statement was filed. She’s The Vibe Co — filed, stamped, sealed, delivered. She’s not just official. She’s official-official.
I screenshotted it like it was a concert ticket. I sent it around like a birth announcement. I did a little desk-chair shimmy like the professional woman I am. Because right there on the page, next to my signature, sat a title I had to get used to reading:
CEO.
And not gonna lie, babes — it looks good on me.
For about four full minutes, I was HER. Untouchable. Floating.
And then, right on schedule, the voice showed up.
Who do you think you are?
Okay but — be so for real. You know the voice. Maybe yours sounds different, but I know you have one. Mine doesn’t shout — it never had to. It just asks questions in a tone that already knows the answer. You? A business owner? You, with your messy life and your three kids and your credit score held together with hope and a dispute letter? Girl, sit down.
Here’s what took me thirty years to learn: that voice is not mine. It’s an echo.
I learned to dim young. Not because anybody sat me down and taught me a lesson with flashcards — because children are scientists, and I ran the experiment every day: if I got smaller, quieter, less bright, less much, the house got calmer. So I folded myself down small enough to fit inside somebody else’s comfort. I got so good at it I could do it without thinking. Most of us who learned that trick are still doing it at thirty, forty, fifty — shrinking at the exact moment we should be expanding, apologizing to an empty room.
The voice isn’t wisdom. It’s muscle memory from a house I don’t live in anymore.
So this morning, I did something I’ve been practicing. I didn’t argue with the voice. I didn’t wait to feel legitimate before I let myself have the moment. I just laid the receipts next to the feeling and let them sit there together:
A company I formed. A signature the county accepted. Products I made with my own hands and words. Certifications I earned at kitchen tables after bedtime. A GPA I am protecting like it’s a houseplant I refuse to let die. Three kids who get to watch their mama build something out of a canyon house and a stubborn streak.
Paper doesn’t care about my feelings. Paper just tells the truth. And the truth is: imposters don’t file paperwork. Imposters don’t do the work at all — they stand outside the arena talking about everybody inside it. The second you actually do the thing — scared, shaky, screenshotting a progress bar like it’s a trophy — you are disqualified from being an imposter. The feeling lies. The receipts don’t. 💛
Here’s the other thing nobody tells you: imposter syndrome doesn’t visit people who are standing still. It shows up at thresholds. It waits until the moment gets real — until there’s a stamp, a signature, a door actually opening — and then it tries to negotiate you back down to your old size. Which means if it’s loud right now, you might not be failing, babes. You might be arriving.
So if you’re reading this with your own version of a shaky chest — the promotion you haven’t told anyone about yet, the business idea still sitting pretty in your notes app, the degree, the application, the first step you’re minimizing before anyone else can minimize it for you — here’s your homework, from one recovering shrinker to another:
Don’t shrink the moment. Screenshot it. Say it out loud in its full name. I did that. Put it in the group chat. Let the echo talk — it can talk all it wants. It doesn’t get a vote, and it definitely doesn’t get the pen.
I’m official on paper. Some days my chest will catch up, some days it won’t. Either way, the signature is already dry.
— Christina 💛
