My Journey With Imposter Syndrome And The Realization That Set Me Free

It only took me 10 years

“A quote website?” I remember hearing from a friend who was well versed in website development. “Why would you create a quote website?”

This was back in 2010 when I was toying with the idea of MoveMe Quotes.

To paraphrase what he said after that: “Do you have any idea how many quotes and quote websites are out there? And how many of those websites already have thousands of quotes indexed with an established ranking on Google? It’s going to be incredibly hard to outperform them.”

And then the line that usually cripples already nervous, self-doubting creators: “Are you sure this is a good idea?”

He wasn’t wrong.

The prospect of collecting, indexing, and organizing a never-ending (and ever growing) list of quotes was a daunting and, in many ways, impossible task. What was the point?

Not to mention, this was something I was going to do in my down time. How was I going to compete with the already established sites who had devoted professionals working full-time on theirs?

Why go through all of the work if the work was just going to go unnoticed?

That’s when, the seed for imposter syndrome was probably planted in my head: “Who am I to even be doing this? Why would anybody want to come to a quote website by me? What could I possibly give that others haven’t already (or won’t)?”

Thankfully, I decided to start anyway — but, it was far from a trailblazing event.

I kept quiet about the work and merely collected quotes that… moved me. I resolved to look at it as a personal collection more than a competing, professional collection. And I began.

“Ralph Waldo Emerson?” I remember my dad asking me. “Why Ralph Waldo Emerson?“

This was back in 2011 when I was creating my first quote list.

At this point, I had collected several hundred quotes and was trying to figure out ways I could organize and share them better. So, I decided to make lists with some of the most quoted people on the site.