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

You don’t have to have graduated first in your class or made it to the top of any ladder. But you do have to have achieved something to feel fraudulent about. Usually it’s something you didn’t expect of yourself, or have not yet mastered, at least not to your ridiculously high standards.

“The Impostor Phenomenon in High Achieving Women.” Among the 162 high-achieving women they sampled, Clance and Imes uncovered a pervasive pattern of dismissing accomplishments and believing that their success would disappear once others discovered the awful secret that they were, in fact, “impostors.”

The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts. —Bertrand Russell

Not only do you no longer need to feel the shame that comes from the mistaken assumption that you’re the only one who feels this way, but as you are about to discover, feeling like an impostor is not only normal, but in certain situations it’s to be expected. This alone can go a long way toward lowering your anxiety and raising your confidence.

But you also know that when you leave important things until the last minute, there’s greater chance that quality will suffer. On an unconscious level, Clance says, procrastination is a way to give yourself an out.

Men “always seem to go for the biggest brownie on the plate,” says Myers, adding, “What’s more, they expect the other guys (and sometimes the gals) to do the same.”

It’s also easy to misconstrue the impostor syndrome as just a fancy name for low self-esteem. It’s not.

They are convinced that other people’s praise and recognition of their accomplishments is undeserved, chalking up their achievements to chance, charm, connections, and other external factors. Unable to internalize or feel deserving of their success, they continually doubt their ability to repeat past successes. When they do succeed they feel relief

If you work in a job or field where it’s impossible to remain safely under the radar, you have to find another way to take care of yourself. So you unconsciously adopt an ever-changing profile. As an impostor you feel like you have a big target on your back. What better way to dodge those you believe have overestimated your abilities than to make y