You know all the advice about ignoring your inner critic, avoiding comparisons, and giving yourself credit for your achievements. But you can't shake the sense that the real you is something shameful, something you need to keep hidden at all costs, and that those people who say nice things about you would be horrified if they knew what you were really like.

Friend, you've got Real You all wrong. The fact that there are parts of you that you'd hate to share with others doesn't make you wrong, or an impostor, or shameful. According to the sociologist Erving Goffman, you're completely normal. Your Imperfectionist Godmother is here to help you make friends with your secret self - and to see that everyone else has one too.

Reference:

Goffman, Erving. 1956: The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (University of Edinburgh Social Sciences Research Centre).

#111: Erving Goffman, Instagram, and the Real You