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

by Valerie Young

  New Competence Rules for the Expert

  There are many paths to expertise.

  There is no end to knowledge.

  Competence means respecting your limitations.

  You don’t need to know everything, you just need to be smart enough to find someone who does.

  Even when you don’t know something you can still project confidence.

  The Rugged Individualist’s View of Competence

  As a Rugged Individualist you’ve spent years quite literally laboring under the misguided notion that true competence equals solo, unaided achievement. Don’t confuse this with the Perfectionist, who prefers to do things herself as a means of quality control. The reason the Rugged Individualist likes to go it alone is because she believes she shouldn’t need help. The misguided thinking here is, If were really competent, I could do everything myself.

  In your mind, the only achievements that really count are those you reached all on your own. If you acted as part of a team or were engaged in any sort of collaborative effort, then it somehow diminishes the achievement. Similarly, if you were admitted to college as a so-called legacy student or if someone so much as put in a good word for you with a potential employer or client, it doesn’t count. You see ideas the same way. If you are a writer or a scholar or a budding entrepreneur, you expect your work or idea to be totally new and original. If someone else got there first, you’re crushed.

  The stereotype is that men don’t ask for directions because it’s a sign of weakness. The Rugged Individualist feels equally vulnerable. After all, what if you do ask and it’s perceived as a sign that you really don’t know what you’re doing? That was Diane’s big fear. Shortly after a promotion into a role and at a level that were both firsts for a woman in her company, Diane was assigned to head up a major project three hours away from the home office. Complicating the situation was the fact that she worked in a very male-dominated field. Diane knew that, at least in the minds of some, asking for assistance may have been viewed as “proof” that women weren’t fit for the job. So she didn’t.

  Seven days a week Diane left her house at four in the morning and often returned past midnight. This madness went on for months. Everyone could see that both Diane and the project were floundering, but still she refused to ask for help. The impossible hours and workload finally took a physical toll, to the point where Diane was forced to take a medical leave.

  In her absence the project was assigned to a man named John. John took one look at the job and said, “I’m not going to do that job. That job will kill somebody! I want an apartment near the new facility, four more staff members, and complete access to all of the division heads back in the home office.” And he got it. Was it because he was a man? Maybe. Especially when you consider the work environment. However, Diane’s belief that the only true achievements are those accomplished entirely on her own certainly played a role as well.

  On some level you really do know that all of the things you are being asked to do cannot be done—at least not as fast as is expected or as well as you’d like, and definitely not all by yourself. Even if you didn’t feel competence was contingent on doing it all yourself, women don’t want to be a bother or put anyone out. So you knock yourself out sacrificing your health or personal life in order to perform miracles. And when you do somehow manage to pull it off, you think, What a fraud I am. If they only knew I’m just holding on by a thread, they wouldn’t think I was so great after all.

  Competence Reframes for the Rugged Individualist

  Of course the major competence reframe for the Rugged Individualist is to reject the myth that in order for an accomplishment to “count,” you have to do it completely on your own. That’s why I wanted you to meet Diane. Her story contains a powerful lesson for counteracting the go-it-alone mentality. The truth is that Diane couldn’t handle the job. But under the same circumstances neither could John or anyone else. The critical difference is that he knew it, which is why he felt perfectly entitled to ask for what he needed in order to do it.

  Even taking double standards into account, the real story here is that John understood a cardinal rule of competence: Competence doesn’t mean knowing how to do everything yourself. Instead, competence means knowing how to identify the resources needed to get the job done. Whenever I tell that to my female audiences, every woman in the room reaches for her pen.

  Resources come in different forms. For example, you may need

  additional time to complete a project

  access to content experts or decision makers

  additional information before you can fully assess a situation, make a recommendation, or proceed to the next stage

  hands-on assistance to carry out certain tasks

  physical space—meeting rooms, a laboratory, technology—or equipment

  a bigger budget or other financial resources

  In addition to recognizing what to ask for, you need to know how to ask for what you want. Obviously, having a confident demeanor helps. But you also always want to frame your request in terms of the requirements of the project and not your needs as a person. In other words, “I’ll never meet the deadline without help” could be construed as a personal deficiency rather than an objective analysis of the situation. Instead take yourself out of the mix with, This is what’s required to meet the deadline, or In order for X to happen, the project requires Y.

  I use not only all the brains I have, but all I can borrow.

  —Woodrow Wilson

  Recognize too that only a true impostor would be afraid to ask for help. Years ago I heard Secretary of State Henry Kissinger nonchalantly tell a reporter about a potential nuclear crisis he didn’t know how to handle. What did he do? He picked up the phone and called the guy who’d held his job before him. Not only did Kissinger see no shame in seeking outside counsel, he seemed downright tickled with himself for thinking of it. “I make progress by having people around who are smarter than I am—and listening to them. And I assume that everyone is smarter about something than I am,” he said.

  As the nature of the work becomes more complex, sometimes all you need is someone to help you think things through. If confidentiality is an issue, hire a consultant or a coach to serve as a sounding board. You also need to be cognizant of where not to seek help. As the thirteenth-century poet Rumi warned, “When setting out on a journey, never consult someone who has never left home.” If your dream is to license an invention or you want to quit your job to attend cooking school in Paris, don’t seek advice from your well-intentioned but uninformed friends and family. Instead ask for counsel from people who have done it.

  Truly competent people not only ask for advice, but they delegate wherever and whenever they can. In some cases it really does take less time to just do it yourself than to train someone else. In the long run, though, delegating will save you time and stress, and if you are self-employed, delegating saves money as well. The rule of thumb is to assign a task to the lowest level in the organization at which it can be performed competently—not perfectly, competently. If you don’t have the option to delegate, see if you can tap some coworkers now and then.

  And what about all that stuff that’s been delegated to you? Now that you understand that your being competent does not hinge on being a combination of the Lone Ranger and a miracle worker, you may want to practice the art of “delegating up.” The next time another major project, client, or function is added to your already overflowing plate, put the ball back in your boss’s court by asking which deadlines need to be completed first so you’ll both know which will have to wait. Better your boss put some deadlines on the back burner than you knock yourself out.

  Finally, not only don’t you have to do everything yourself, but you don’t have to come up with everything yourself either. Students, aspiring entrepreneurs, and writers are particularly prone to thinking their work or idea has to be tota
lly groundbreaking and original to be of consequence. This belief that If I didn’t think it up first, then it’s too late is utter nonsense. Whether it’s coming up with a new cookbook or doing scholarly research, there is always more to say on any subject.

  Competent people (scholars included) are always building on the work of other competent people. Dale Carnegie wrote one of the bestselling books of all time. Where did he get all those great techniques he included in How to Win Friends & Influence People? “The ideas I stand for are not mine,” said Carnegie. “I borrowed them from Socrates. I swiped them from Chesterfield. I stole them from Jesus. And I put them in a book.” Even Einstein understood that “the secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.” (If you are a student, I hasten to add that he was not talking about plagiarism!)

  New Competence Rules for the Rugged Individualist

  To get the job done, you first need to identify the resources required.

  Competent people know how to ask for what they need.

  Smart people seek out people who know more than they do.

  When seeking advice, it’s important to ask the right people.

  Your work does not have to be groundbreaking to be good.

  Competent people know it’s okay to build on the work of other competent people.

  The Superwoman/Man/Student’s View of Competence

  It’s easy to confuse the Superwoman/Man/Student with the Perfectionist. The major distinction is that a Perfectionist really can be content to perform flawlessly chiefly in school or on the job. But for the Super Woman/Man/Student competence rests on the ability to juggle multiple roles masterfully. Although you likely have some perfectionist tendencies, for you competence has as much to do with how many things you can handle as it does how well you do them.

  Unlike the other competence types, the Superwoman in particular is largely a cultural creation. It came into being when the traditional roles of mother and homemaker were extended to accommodate the additional role of full-time paid worker. Suddenly “having it all” became “doing it all.” With help from Madison Avenue and the now famous seventies Enjoli perfume commercial that celebrated the modern woman’s ability to “bring home the bacon, fry it up in a pan,” and still have the energy and desire to “never let you forget you’re a man,” a collective bar had been raised for women everywhere.

  Think of the Superwoman as the Perfectionist, the Natural Genius, and the Rugged Individualist on steroids. Instead of seeing the pressure to have the looks of Halle Berry, the ambition of Anita Roddick, the financial savvy of Suze Orman, the munificence of Mother Teresa, and the domestic flair of Martha Stewart as societal in origin, you tell yourself, If I were really competent, I would be able to do it all.

  Increasingly I hear from students—male and female—who relate to trying to be the “Superstudent.” You may not be concerned with domestic prowess but you may feel pressure both internal and external to overextend in other ways. You play sports, serve on student government, spearhead any number of civic or charitable activities, maintain a perfect grade-point average—and make it all seem effortless to boot. You can do it for a while, but sooner or later you’re bound to drop a ball. And when you do, you’re extremely hard on yourself. Even if you can keep up, you never feel satisfied because you think you could do more.

  And when the Superstudent meets the Superwoman/Man—look out! After a presentation at Duke University I was approached by two doctoral students who were managing to meet rigorous academic demands while simultaneously holding down full-time jobs. That would be impressive enough, but they were also raising young children who had their own overly full roster of extracurricular activities. I was exhausted just hearing about their overextended lives. I assumed that they approached me for advice on how they could offload some responsibilities. Instead these women wanted to talk about how guilty they felt about not having time to do volunteer work in their community.

  Competence Reframes for the Superwoman and Superstudent

  Perfection is impossible to sustain in even one area. To shoot for it in all aspects of your life is a recipe for failure—and disappointment. By striving to be the best student, worker, spouse or partner, mother, friend, homemaker, hostess, and more, you’ve succeeded at only one thing—setting yourself up to fall short in multiple roles.

  The major reframe for the Superwoman/Man/Student is that competence is not a function of how many things you can do. In fact, rather than make you feel better about yourself and your level of competence, your constant striving to be everything to everybody can make you feel even more inadequate. Plus there’s a good chance that sooner or later you’ll hit a wall in the form of illness or exhaustion, and possibly resentment.

  On the bulletin board at my post office hung a quote from the Women’s Theology Center in Boston. It read: “We must go slowly, there’s not much time.” Instead of attempting to operate at warp speed packing ever more into your already jammed schedule, experiment with what it feels like to ease up now and then. Years from now no one will remember all the extra projects you took on or your meticulously organized garage. What they—and you—will recall is the time you said no to a work assignment to take your kids to the science museum or when you ignored household chores to enjoy the sunset.

  The major behavioral change for the Superwoman/Student can be summed up in two words: Do less. One reason why it’s easier for men to say no is because their interpretation of competence keeps them from taking on more than they need to in the first place. Just like the Rugged Individualist, you need to ditch the guilt and recognize that truly competent people delegate whatever and whenever they can.

  If you live with anyone over the age of five, chances are you can delegate more on the home front. In addition to saving you time, you also instill in your children a strong work ethic and give them the opportunity to learn how to function as part of a team—both of which will serve them for the rest of their lives. Not a parent? You can still offload more tasks at home. Delegate the holiday planning to a sibling, set up online bill paying, or, if you can afford it, hire someone to clean the house, paint the living room, or mow the lawn, and use the extra time for yourself.

  I know you pride yourself on your ability to multitask, but just because you can do something doesn’t mean you need to. There are some things on your to-do list that you can eliminate altogether. If you like the idea of gardening more than the backbreaking reality, grass over your garden and support your local farmer instead. Instead of baking holiday cookies yourself, buy them from the PTA fund-raiser. Use the saved time for more important things like catching up with an old friend, reading, or any activity that renews you.

  Once you’ve shed some nonessential roles and responsibilities, recalibrate your success measurements by establishing attainable goals and realistic due dates. Things always take longer than you expect. If you think the project will take a week, give yourself three. Having a realistic picture of how long things really take will help you say no when new requests come along.

  I understand that it may be hard for you to lay down your cape for your own sake. If that’s the case, I invite you to consider the message you’re conveying to the next generation, a message that can only contribute to ensuring a never-ending stream of capable females growing up to feel like they’re never good enough. Not that they need your help, mind you. A study titled “The Supergirl Dilemma” reports that 60 percent of girls grades three through twelve say they often feel stressed. As one ninth-grader puts it, “Girls are very pressured today to get good grades, look good, have a lot of friends, do a majority of the chores, and still have time for family.”6 Sound familiar?

  New Competence Rules for the Superwoman/Man/Student

  It’s okay to say no.

  Delegating frees you and gives others the chance to participate.

  When you slow down and cut out unnecessary tasks, you get to focus on activiti
es that really matter.

  Being a Superwoman sends an unhealthy message to your daughters and sons.

  Banishing Competence Extremism

  In their own way, all five competence types hold an extreme view of competence. Whether you are a Perfectionist, a Natural Genius, an Expert, a Rugged Individualist, or the Superwoman/Man/Student, for you there is no such thing as a competence middle ground. Instead, from moment to moment you judge yourself based on where you think you are on a continuum represented by dazzling brilliance on one end and a dimly lit bulb on the other.

  If you’re not operating at the top of your game 24/7, then you’re incompetent. Since your view allows for no in-between, you are left with the belief that If I don’t know everything, then I know nothing. If it’s not absolutely perfect, it’s woefully deficient.

  It’s understandable that you constantly teeter on these extremes. After all, you really do know what it’s like to feel brilliant. Like everyone, you’ve experienced those exhilarating times when your brain is firing on all cylinders, when everything just seems to click, when you think, Damn, I’m good! Of course, being human, you also know what it’s like to not be able to think to save your life. To feel like you are wearing a big sign that says, SORRY, BRAIN CLOSED FOR THE DAY.

  And herein lies the problem: Because you know you’re capable of brilliance, if you’re not there all the time, you automatically thrust yourself to the other end of the continuum. And once there, you’re very unforgiving of yourself.

  To be clear, it’s not that extremes don’t exist; they do. In fact, when it comes to achievement, extremes go with the territory. Whether you’re conducting a scientific experiment, creating art, managing a project, starting a business, or doing anything of significance, it’s always an exercise in extremes. Clarity and confusion, deficiency and mastery, knowing and not knowing, all are part of the creative actualization process. However, once you recognize these extremes for what they are, you’ll be able to accept your own low points without self-incrimination.