The Secret Thoughts of Successful Women: Why Capable People Suffer from the Impostor Syndrome and How to Thrive in Spite of It (3 page)

You may find that these feelings fade over time as you get more knowledge and experience under your belt. Or like many, you may experience impostor feelings consistently over the entire course of your career. For some people, the feelings of faking it extend into other roles, such as parenting and relationships. For instance, mothers who work outside of the home who try to pass off store-bought pies as homemade so as not to feel judged by the stay-at-home moms at the school fund-raiser. Or feigning interest on a date when you feel anything but.

The fraudulent feelings we’re talking about here have to do with insecurities related to your knowledge or skills and as such occur primarily in academic and professional arenas. Not surprisingly, impostor feelings crop up most during times of transition or when faced with a new challenge, such as tackling an unfamiliar or high-profile assignment.

No one knows for sure how long the impostor syndrome has been in existence. For all we know, the first cave artist brushed off admiring grunts with “Oh, this old painting? Any Neanderthal could have done it.” What is known is that the phenomenon is remarkably common. How common? In a study of successful people conducted by psychologist Gail Matthews, a whopping 70 percent reported experiencing impostor feelings at some point in their life.
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For the record, the impostor syndrome has nothing to do with you literally pretending to be someone you’re not. Nor do you behave like real frauds, who actually do cheat their way to the top. In fact, people who identify with the impostor syndrome have proven to be less likely than non-impostors to engage in academic dishonesty such as plagiarism or cheating.
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It’s also easy to misconstrue the impostor syndrome as just a fancy name for low self-esteem. It’s not. Some studies have been able to link the
two. But the fact that others have failed to find a strong connection tells us it’s possible to feel insecure without feeling like a fraud. That’s not to say you don’t sometimes struggle with self-esteem (who doesn’t?). However, that you identify with this syndrome at all suggests that your self-esteem is at least solid enough for you to set and achieve your goals. And achieve you have.

There’s plenty of evidence to prove your success—good grades, promotions, raises, status, recognition, perhaps even awards and other accolades. But in your mind none of that matters. Like all impostors you are a master at coming up with ways to explain away your successes. See if you recognize yourself in any of these statements.

I got lucky
. A perennial favorite is to chalk accomplishments up to chance. You think, “I may have lucked out this time, but next time I may not be so fortunate.”

I was just in the right place at the right time
or
The stars were right
. A candidate selected for a plum executive post believes it’s because the selection committee drank a bit too much wine at dinner and the alcohol clouded their judgment.

It’s because they like me
. Being likable offers another handy hat on which to hang your success. You could be class valedictorian and still tell yourself, “It’s only because the teachers liked me.”

If I can do it, anyone can
. You’re convinced that your success has to do with the supposed simplicity of the task. A postdoctoral student in astrophysics from the California Institute of Technology told me, “I figure if I can get a Ph.D. in astrophysics from Cal Tech, anyone can.” (I had
to break it to her that most people, me included, can’t even balance their checkbooks.)

They must let anybody in
. You secretly believe that your success is a result of others’ low standards. When a college administrator got word that she’d been accepted to a graduate program at Smith College, she told me she had second thoughts about attending. “I thought, what kind of standards do they have there?” It’s the impostor version of the Groucho Marx joke: “I don’t care to belong to any club that will have me as a member.”

Someone must have made a terrible mistake
. Maria Rodriguez and Linda Brown went to different colleges in different decades. Despite having never met, they said exactly the same thing: “I have a pretty common name. Deep down, I think that the admissions office mixed up my application with someone else who had the same name and they let the wrong person in.”

I had a lot of help
. There is certainly nothing wrong with sharing credit. But to you, any form of support, collaboration, or cooperation automatically cancels out your own contribution.

I had connections
. Instead of seeing connections as giving you a leg up, you’re convinced that knowing someone is the only reason you got into school, landed the job, or got the contract.

They’re just being nice
. The belief that people who speak highly of your work are just being polite is so thoroughly ingrained that whenever I get to this place in my presentation, I need only utter the first few words:
They’re just being
—and the entire female audience finishes the sentence with
nice
.

They felt sorry for me
. Impostors who return to college in midlife have been known to wonder out loud if perhaps the professors aren’t just taking pity on them. Knowing they’re trying to juggle kids, a job, and school, they suspect that their professors are intentionally going easy on them.

On one hand, you have to admit that it takes an exceptional mind to think up so many creative excuses for success. So take a moment to pat yourself on the back right now. But don’t congratulate yourself too long because you also have a problem, don’t you? After all, if you are unable to claim your accomplishments on a gut, visceral level, then when you are confronted with actual evidence of your abilities, it’s unclear to you how you got there. Even though your achievements clearly emanate from you, you feel oddly disconnected from them. And without this connection between yourself and your accomplishments, the only possible explanation you’re left with is that you’ve fooled them.

Rationally you would think success would alleviate feelings of fraudulence. The more successful you are, the more evident it is that you really do know what you’re doing. But for you just the opposite happens. Instead of reducing the pressure, success only makes it worse because now you have a reputation to defend. Instead of being cause for celebration, things like
praise, financial rewards, and status can feel oppressive. You think,
Now they’ll expect me to be that good every time—and I have no idea how I pulled it off the first time
.

Rather than spurring you on, success may lead you to drop out altogether. This is especially true if you are perceived to be an “overnight” success. A rapid ascent to the top of the hill suddenly lands you in unfamiliar territory. You wonder,
How did this happen? Did I pay enough dues? Do I deserve to be here?
Whether success came early or late in your career, the prevailing sense among impostors is,
They’ll expect me to be competent down the road, and I’m not at all sure I will be
. That’s because in your mind, one success is unrelated to the next. Rather than being cumulative, each accomplishment is its own sum game. This makes success a very tenuous thing. You think,
Sure, I’ve done well up until now …

You know your good fortune can’t last forever. So instead of basking in your achievement, you live in fear that your ineptness will finally be discovered and that you will be humiliated—or worse. Because you’re convinced that each new endeavor will be your undoing, your run-up to each test, presentation, or challenge brings tremendous anxiety and self-doubt. You think,
One false move and I’m out
. This apprehension is typically followed by success, and finally by skeptical relief. It is a pattern that endlessly repeats itself.

Of course, in your mind “next time” is when you’ll finally be unmasked. Like Deb, a law-firm partner, who despite a solid track record approached each new case with a growing dread. To her own surprise, one day she found herself absentmindedly perusing the want ads for waitressing jobs. As she struggled to understand her own behavior, she realized that back
when she was a waitress during college at least she knew what she was doing.

There may be days when the notion of being unmasked actually brings a tinge of relief. As humiliating as being exposed as an impostor would be, you can’t help but imagine how much easier your life could be if you could just drop this charade of trying to act like a respected, capable professional. Besides, you know you could always learn how to say,
Would you like fries with that, sir?
or do something else you believe to be
“more on my level.”

Even if you don’t harbor such fantasies, you’re well aware of what it’s like to be perpetually waiting for the other shoe to drop. For Jodie Foster it first happened when she put her acting career on hold to pursue an undergraduate degree and then again after she won the best actress Oscar for
The Accused
. “I thought it was a fluke,” Foster explained in a
60 Minutes
interview. “The same way when I walked on the campus at Yale. I thought everybody would find out, and then they’d take the Oscar back. They’d come to my house, knocking on the door, ‘Excuse me, we meant to give that to someone else. That was going to Meryl Streep.’ ”
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For some people the fear and anxiety caused by the impostor syndrome can be debilitating. One first-time manager was so consumed with the idea that she’d bluffed her way into the job that she experienced chest pains. Fearing the worst, her assistant called an ambulance. Fortunately it turned out to be an anxiety attack. Your fear of exposure is unlikely to land you in the hospital, but the stress does have consequences.

Sadly, every day exceptional students drop out of school. People take jobs far below their abilities or aspirations or otherwise fail to rise to more mentally challenging and financially rewarding opportunities. Still others abandon long-cherished dreams of writing a book, becoming a photographer, or starting their own business, all in an attempt to avoid detection.

These are, of course, the extreme cases. Fortunately, the vast majority
of people with impostor syndrome don’t give up. Instead, like you, they press on in spite of the nagging self-doubt. They get the degree, advance in their field, take on the challenge, and succeed—sometimes spectacularly so. Still, the anxiety remains. Fortunately, though, you won’t have to suffer much longer.

As you embark on this journey to feel as bright and capable as you truly are, there are a few things you need to know. First and foremost is that you are neither broken nor sick. True, something is not quite right about your impostor
feelings
, but there is nothing wrong with
you
. I’m not going to try to talk you out of those feelings, at least not yet. I know you well enough to know that you wouldn’t believe me anyway. More important, you’re going to do that yourself soon enough. All the tools, insight, and information you need to overcome the impostor syndrome await you here.

Up until now your shame, along with the mistaken belief that you’re the only one who feels like a fraud, has kept you from speaking up. However, in picking up this book you’ve acknowledged something you may have kept hidden for years, and by breaking the silence you have taken what is an essential step in beating the impostor syndrome.

Throughout this book I’ll be encouraging you to both get support from and give support to fellow members of the Impostor Club. I mention this now because you may have learned the hard way that sharing with people who don’t get what you’re going through is often not helpful. Your family, friends, or close colleagues either pooh-pooh your self-doubt, insisting that you’re “worrying over nothing,” or have grown impatient when their reassurances of your brilliance are constantly brushed aside. It’s not that they don’t want to be supportive—they do. But if you perpetually agonize
over striking out only to consistently hit the ball out of the park, after a while even your most ardent supporters will find it hard to sympathize

The good news is that you’re not alone anymore. Even better news: It really
is
possible to unlearn the self-limiting thinking that feeds your impostor feelings. How can I be so certain? Simple. The reason I know you so well is that
I am you
. Allow me to also officially introduce myself by letting you in on my not-so-secret secret. Namely, I am a recovering impostor. See, I told you you were in good company!