The Secret Thoughts of Successful Women: Why Capable People Suffer from the Impostor Syndrome and How to Thrive in Spite of It
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YOUR FEAR OF BEING INADEQUATE PALES COMPARED WITH YOUR FEAR OF BEING EXTRAORDINARY
Consciously you’re afraid that people will find out you’re inept. But deep down you know you’re “smart”—or at least smart enough. As Marianne Williamson famously observed, “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.”1
Buried under all the debris of fear and self-doubt is the certain knowledge that you are infinitely capable. You’ll probably even smile when I tell you that leadership expert Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries considers the impostor syndrome to be “the flip side of giftedness.” If you don’t believe me, then consider the findings by Wake Forest University psychologists that some people who say they feel like frauds are secretly more confident than they let on. The conclusion was that such people are in effect “phony phonies.” I respectfully disagree. I believe what these researchers really revealed is the other side of impostorism. The side of you that, however small and inconsistent, secretly knows you are accomplished and competent and that you really can do it.
I wanted to tell you all this from the very beginning. But I knew you wouldn’t have believed me. Back then your impostor feelings were far too heavy for you to hear the whole story. That weight has lifted and you’re ready now. So repeat after me: “I am powerful beyond measure.” As cliché as it may sound, you really can do anything you put your mind to. Think about it.
Why Sonia Sotomayor, Suze Orman, or Sue Grafton and not you?
Why Madeleine Albright, Maya Lin, or Martha Graham and not you?
Why Anita Roddick, Kathryn Bigelow, or Marian Wright Edelman and not you?
Why Sally Ride, Dian Fossey, or Grace Hopper and not you?
Why Margaret Mead, Michelle Wie, or Toni Morrison and not you?
Why Meg Whitman, Martha Stewart, or Mary Kay Ash and not you?
Why Louise Hay, Tina Fey, or Jane Goodall and not you?
Why Christiane Amanpour, Salma Hayek, or Amy Tan and not you?
For that matter, why Rick Steves, Stephen King, Gary Vaynerchuk, Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Richard Branson, Barack Obama, or any man who has achieved his goals and not you? I could go on, of course, but the point is, not one of these amazing women or men are necessarily smarter, better, luckier, or more amazing than you are. True, they’ve acquired certain knowledge, skills, and experience. But the operative word here is acquired. An improbable television phenomenon like Julia Child did not come out of the womb being “Julia Child, cooking legend.” She became Julia Child—and at forty-nine years old at that. Playwright Wendy Wasserstein’s turning point came in her early thirties when a friend told her that “the way to be taken seriously is to take yourself seriously.”2
Oprah Winfrey had none of the advantages of economic class or a stable family life. She spent the first six years of her life being raised by her grandmother in Mississippi before being shuttled north to live with her mother. At thirteen the scars of abuse and molestation drove her to run away from home and subsequently be sent to a juvenile detention facility, only to be denied admission because all the beds were filled. Nothing in Oprah’s background would have portended success, never mind megastardom. Yet Oprah was remarkably undaunted. Even after being fired from her television reporter’s job and told, “You’re not fit for TV,”3 she remained undaunted and was later said to remark, “I always knew I was destined for greatness.” And so are you.
You can be powerful beyond measure without becoming a household name. In fact, it takes just as much courage to walk away from what everyone else considers a “dream job” to follow your own road. It takes not one more ounce of courage or energy to dream big than it does to settle. And you’ve got a lot more to gain by shooting high than by shooting low.
Who Do You Think You Are to Not Go for It?
Unfortunately, when you dare to step into your genius, resistance is intent on keeping you small. Even if you are fearless, you may feel utterly undeserving (we’ll talk more about this in a moment). The closer you get to believing that you actually can do it, the more likely you are to receive an unwanted visit from that niggling inner voice. The one that demands to know, Who do you think you are?
In reality the question you should be asking yourself is Who do I think I am not to go for it? Whether you know it or not, your actions, and conversely your failure to act, have implications that extend far beyond you. It’s a lesson I learned while trying to complete the dissertation that set the stage for this book. Each of my subjects had been interviewed and all the recordings had been transcribed. I’d even settled on a title: “A Model of Internal Barriers to Women’s Occupational Achievement.”
Then the resistance kicked in. I was overwhelmed by the prospect of trying to make sense out of nearly a thousand pages of data. I started second-guessing my topic. I developed a severe case of writer’s block. In short, I felt like a fraud. Besides, who did this daughter from a long line of housekeepers and custodians think she was to be “Dr.” Valerie Young?
This was in the early eighties, a time when women were inching their way into middle management. My friend Rita Hardiman was leading diversity seminars for managers and executives at some of the largest corporations in the country. Every day she observed amazingly competent women struggling to feel as confident as their oversized shoulder pads implied. Rita had completed her own dissertation only months earlier, so she knew what I was up against. Fearing I might never finish, she sat down and wrote me a letter. There was a lot to it, of course, but the part that stopped me in my tracks was when she said, “Valerie, you have to finish this dissertation. The things you’ve learned through your research can benefit a lot of women. And if you don’t finish, we all lose.”
Rita’s words forever changed how I viewed the consequences of playing small. My gut response was, “Oh my goodness, how selfish am I? People are waiting for me! I have to hurry!” It was as if someone had flipped a switch inside me. This recognition that my procrastination had consequences for people other than myself became a powerful motivating force.
I’ve since learned that advocating on someone else’s behalf or otherwise serving others is a highly effective way to get women to take action. In an earlier chapter you learned that women who negotiate for more money are perceived to be less nice and more demanding than women who don’t ask. I waited until now to tell you the good news. What this study also revealed is that when male and female executives negotiated compensation for themselves, they achieved similar results. But when they bargained on behalf of someone else, the women outperformed the men.
The researchers speculate that when acting as an advocate for someone else, women felt more freedom to negotiate assertively, with less fear of being judged unfeminine. Plus, just as men tend to shine in competitive environments, women become energized by cooperative ones, and how better to cooperate than to represent another person’s interests?4
You already know that you tend to be other-oriented; we talked about it at length in chapter 8. So what if instead of worrying about being unfeminine, you rode the horse in the direction the horse is going? In this case that means that if you want to improve your own outcome, see if you can find a way to link your results to those of others—whether an individual, a group, a community, a country, or humanity as a whole.
This strategy can also improve your chances of achieving a long-held dream. Over the years, I’ve had countless opportunities to use Rita’s advice to help women who find it difficult to let their light shine. One of these was a gifted but unpublished writer named Kim. She had spent years lovingly caring for an ailing parent. After her father passed she began to craft a play about her experience. Kim got only so far before she was stopped by the fear that her play might actually become a hit. Then, she said, “I’d have to play big.”
I invited her to imagine a sold-out theater full of people … t
o feel the excitement in the crowd, to know that among them were many women who had been through similar experiences with their own parents, women who were especially eager for their own joy and pain to be honored by the words she’d scripted … to watch as the lights dimmed and the curtain rose to reveal an empty stage … and then to hear herself, the almost-playwright, step out from the wings and announce to her almost-admirers, I’m sorry, there will be no play tonight. I was too afraid of being great to write it.
Can playing big be scary? You bet. It’s even harder if you’ve spent your life putting others’ needs before your own. Even when you do manage to convince yourself that you are worthy, to suddenly move your own dream to the front burner can feel selfish. All the more reason you need to see that everyone loses when you play small. As Audre Lorde said, “When I care to be powerful—to use my strengths in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.”
Instead of the proverbial question “What would you do if money were no object?” try asking, “What sort of difference could I make if fear were not a factor?” There are people out there right this very minute who want and deserve to benefit from your full range of knowledge, abilities, and skills. Widen the lens even further and you’ll see that in a world where poverty and illiteracy disproportionately affect women and children, the world needs all hands on deck. Yours included.
You don’t need to run out and end world hunger, secure world peace, or save an endangered species. But you can help raise or mentor the next generation of strong girls and sensitive boys. You can raise your hand in a meeting. You can raise your hand for a project, a promotion, a raise. You can throw your hat into the ring or throw caution to the wind. And if someone is making you feel less capable than you really are, you can raise heck—and plenty of it.
Whatever you do, you owe it to yourself—and to all of us—to start acting as powerful as you really are. If you’re ready to use all of the newfound confidence you’ve acquired here, if you’re ready to liberate yourself from the fear of your own greatness, then let’s get on with it.
Right the Rules
One thing that keeps people stuck in the impostor syndrome is the belief that they are not entitled to feel, think, or act in certain ways. Below is a list of twenty rights that we’re all perfectly entitled to but sometimes act as if we are not. Check off any and all rights that, up until now, you’ve had trouble always granting yourself. As you read through the list, try to avoid intellectualizing. Instead focus on how you typically respond when your impostor feelings get triggered.
List of Rights5
1. The right to say no without feeling guilty
2. The right to feel and express healthy competitiveness and achievement drive
3. The right to make mistakes or to be wrong
4. The right to express pride at my accomplishments
5. The right to occasionally have an off day or not perform up to par
6. The right to fail and to learn from the experience
7. The right to be treated fairly without discrimination due to my sex, race, age, class, sexual orientation, religion, culture, or disability
8. The right to achieve at a level I am comfortable with
9. The right to say, “I don’t understand”
10. The right to have things explained to me—even when the person is busy
11. The right to be treated as a competent adult
12. The right to work in nontraditional realms without penalty
13. The right not to be the spokesperson for my entire gender, race, cultural group, et cetera
14. The right to work and raise children at the same time
15. The right to achieve above—or below—family expectations
16. The right to not know all of the answers
17. The right to be treated with dignity and not be patronized
18. The right to have my input considered as valuable as the next person’s
19. The right to ask for additional compensation for additional work
20. The right to be in the midst of a learning curve
Next, identify the situation that is most likely to trigger impostor feelings in you. For example, is it whenever you are in a situation where you …
have to defend your work or your ideas?
are being tested, evaluated, or judged in some way?
take on a new and unfamiliar assignment?
are in a classroom or meeting?
have to present in front of a group?
show your work to others?
interact with a person or group of people who are more successful or better educated than you?
are presented with an opportunity to “play big”?
other …
Now put a star next to the right that is at the core of the impostor scenario you just identified above. In other words, which right are you most denying yourself in that situation? As important, what would you do differently if you really believed you were entitled to this right? If you’re not sure, don’t worry because you’re about to find out.
Creating Your “After” Picture: Who Do You Want to Be?
In chapter 4 you gained insight into unconscious ways you’ve attempted to evade detection as an impostor. This is also where you identified the negative internal lie you’ve been telling yourself about yourself known as your “crusher.” That was essentially your “before” picture.
Now that you know so much more about the perfectly good reasons you might feel like a fraud, about how society contributes to women seeing themselves as less competent than they really are, about risk taking and the importance of not waiting until you feel confident to demonstrate a bit of chutzpah, you have everything you need to decide who you want to be from this day on.
The “after” picture you create here will be in direct contrast to the “before” snapshot you took in chapter 4. You learned then that the old way of being has become second nature. That’s why you need to conjure up a new, self-affirming picture, one that you can have cued up and ready to run the moment your old impostor feelings kick in.
As you prepare to create this new you, remember that acting confident when you feel quite the opposite requires a bit of, well, acting. After all, you’re asking yourself to think thoughts you’ve never thought, feel unfamiliar feelings, and behave in ways that feel quite foreign. Up until now you’ve typecast yourself as someone who is less competent and capable than you really are. When actors attempt to escape typecasting, they choose roles that are opposite ones they’re known for. For you to break out of behavior that is so habitual will require you to dig deep and act against type too.
First you want to get clear about how you would typically respond in this situation. To do this we’ll draw again on the work of Gerald Weinstein in Education of the Self. To better understand your impostor pattern, complete the following sentences:
Whenever I’m in a situation where______________
I usually experience feelings of______________
The negative voices in my head start saying______________
And what I typically do is______________
Now I want you to think how you would like this new, confident non-impostor to behave in the same situation by answering these questions:
What self-affirming things would I rather feel?
What would I like the new positive voices in my head to say?
What would I rather do in this situation?
How about feeling powerful, clearheaded, confident, excited, secure, proud, optimistic, eager, curious, capable, or entitled? What about telling yourself things like: “I know I can do this.” “I know this stuff.” “I love a good challenge.” “I’ll get better as I get more experience.” “It’s good enough.” “Win or lose, I’ll still learn something.”
Before this new way of being can become as automatic and natural as your old self, you need to set a positive foundation that packs enough emotional power to override the negative belief that lies at the heart of your old pattern. This new foundation comes in the form of a one-line declaration that is in direct opposition to your crusher. Unlike that old negative belief, this new “directional statement,” as it’s called, sets the course for the new positive direction in which you are moving. What about:
“I measure up to myself and no one else. I deserve the success I have achieved and feel proud of my accomplishments.”
“I am a creative, intelligent woman with a lot to offer.”
“All of my ideas—good, bad, and indifferent—deserve to be heard.”
“I have a right to be wrong or have an off day and still be a valuable member of my organization.”
“I have the capacity to grow and learn.”
“I’m a bright and competent person.”
“I am enough.”
As you create your own directional statement, there are a few things to keep in mind. First, ideally it will be brief and punchy. That way you’ll remember it more easily. Also—and this is important—make sure you phrase it as a positive. So instead of writing, I’m not as dumb as I think I am, write, I am intelligent and capable. Also, eliminate any hidden qualifiers like I’m competent—as long as people don’t look too closely or I measure up to myself—but so what?
Finally, it’s important not to set yourself up to fail with a demand for perfection or grandiose visions. So no unattainable statements like I am capable of doing everything brilliantly and with ease or I am the greatest attorney who ever lived. Not only are such expectations unrealistic and unnecessary for success, but in the long run imposing these kind of demands on yourself will only rekindle dormant impostor feelings.