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

If you’re struggling to do the work, stop being embarrassed or judging yourself as inadequate and seek assistance instead.

The threat of failure scares you into these long hours. Yet success only intensifies the fear of discovery.”2 The other thing about hard work is that it can be quantified. We already know that you don’t credit yourself for less tangible measures of competence, such as talent or intelligence. But you can count how many hours you’re logging. And so c

you don’t feel heard, pay attention to how you may contribute to this dynamic: Do you use the more traditionally female mode of communication, which is to defer and wait your turn? That’s fine to do when the stakes are low. But there are situations where in order to be heard you have to forgo the usual rules, starting with the belief that you alway

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.

were more likely to attribute their failure at a computer task to their own inability, whereas men blamed their failure on faulty technical equipment22

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.

So repeat after me in your most confident voice: I’m a STUDENT. I’m here to LEARN. I’m SUPPOSED to feel stupid!

Stereotypes matter because they are so easily internalized as the truth, which, as repeated studies have shown, can in turn affect behavior.

you already know that your pattern is there to keep you from being unmasked. But that’s not all it does. To get at the broader function of any pattern of behavior, you need to ask yourself three questions: What does this behavior help me avoid? What does it protect me from? What does it help me get?