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purposeBe a Part of Valerie’s New Book
Do you secretly worry that others will find out you’re not as intelligent and competent as they seem to think you are? Do you often dismiss your accomplishments as a “fluke” or “no big deal?” Do you sometimes shy away from or obsess about taking on greater challenges because of nagging self-doubt? Are you crushed by even constructive criticism, taking it as evidence of your ineptness? Are you waiting to be exposed as an impostor, fake, or fraud?
If so, join the club!
It’s estimated that 70 percent of people have experienced these feelings of intellectual fraudulence which are especially common among first generation professionals, creative types (Mike Myers says he’s always waiting for the “no talent police” to show up at his door), students, and others. Fearing that we have somehow managed to fool others “impostors” live in fear that sooner or later we are going to be “found out.”
In March I signed a *big* book deal with Crown Publishing Group to write a self-help book on the so-called Impostor Syndrome. And I am committed to including as many voices and experiences as I can. Simply said, I need your help.
For the next few months I’ll be posing a different question designed to help me better understand how impostor feelings manifest in the lives of my readers. I hope you will take a moment to share your thoughts, stories, fears, and solutions with me so that I may in turn, help more people to feel as smart and competent as they truly are.
Question of the Week
What does “competence” mean to you? For instance, what goes through your mind as you think about starting your own business or promoting yourself as an “expert,” going after a new job or a big promotion, or taking on a new and unfamiliar project, or perhaps writing a book of your own? In these situations or others, what do you think it takes to be competent? How do you define competence? How will you know when you are “there”? Is there a story that reflects an experience where you or someone you know struggled to feel competent?
Please include as much information as you feel comfortable sharing – first name, current occupation, age, race, state/province/country. Share as much or as little as you like. No matter what you share, I think just reading other people stories will be enlightening to all.
Thank you in advance for your input and support. I couldn’t do this without you!
Valerie Young
Recovering Impostor
ImpostorSyndrome.com
Comment by Sam
Hi Valeri,
I bought your Imposter workback a few months ago and am still working through it (yeah, I should have finished by now, but I will). I’ll share more later when I do, but for now, I’ll answer your question.
I’m almost 52, white and live in Colorado Springs. My career has been as an accounting software consultant and programmer. I have a BS, an MS and am an inactive CPA. For me, I’ve defined competence as the ability to know and handle all aspects and requirements of my field. When the software industry was still young, that goal was somewhat feasible, but now it is impossible. Yet my definition hangs on. Don’t get me wrong; I’m self-employed, sucessful and very good at what I do, but I hesitate branching out because I won’t know everything I need to know before I start.
Comment by Steve Georgon
My definition of competence (And when you’re there): When you know that a)You’ve mastered the info to the point where you feel like you can go into any situation and feel comfortable with your skills. b) When you know where to look, the resources available when you have a problem, or there’s something you can’t figure out. Have I ever felt that way? Very rarely. A couple of systems I built in my old postion I felt pretty confident in that I could figure out any problems with.)
(Hey, Valerie, best wishes with the book!!!!!) — Steve
Comment by Steve Georgon
…one further comment. Although George and I are pretty much contemporaries, he’s a much smarter guy than myself…I’m still charging at that windmill where I can handle everything myself. No matter what you can learn, there’s always something else. I worked at one place for almost 20 years. At first it was exclusively COBOL. When I left it was COBOL, ColdFusion, SQL, DTS,….etc. My point being there was a lot more to know. In my former position, we were a wonderful unit because we collaborated so well – a collective competence, if you will.
Comment by Gail
I’m a suburban wife, mother of two grown children, former teacher, instructor/writer for IBM, Dale Carnegie trainer, have been president of seven organizations in our affluent town and have written eight books. By all standard measures, I am a success; however, I am always accompanied by that niggling little voice in my head which fears discovery. Its favorite refrain is “Now they will find out.”
Shortly after I was elected president of our local Board of Education, we had a very controversial situation arise, and I distinctly remember looking out at the sea of faces from my position at the front of the room, thinking “Don’t you know I haven’t a clue what I’m doing?” And the voice chimed in, “Now they’ll find out!”
I’ve escaped detection thus far–I think.
The positive of the impostor syndrome affliction is that I work harder than most, I am more conscientious than most, and I love taking on more and more challenges than most.
Having read “The Impostor Syndrome” years ago and knowing what great company I keep, e.g., Gloria Steinan (?), and other famous women, I feel the affliction is a blessing.
Good luck with your research. What fun!
Comment by Jennifer Manlowe
Q: Is there a story that reflects an experience where you or someone you know struggled to feel competent?
A: My name and details are in your system but if you need them here, there: 45-year-old white female, former professor of philosophy/psychology/religion (taught in all those departments). I have 4 degrees, 6 books and 22 publications. I have passed 5 languages at a graduate level. I’ve always put myself in challenging, mostly-male professional settings where mastery in debate seems to be important (at least in conferences). It was a win-lose gig to be a professor at mostly Ivy-League schools. Always, on my way to work, I would feel sick to my stomach with a sense of fraudulence. I feared the hammer would drop eventually, just a matter of time. I felt like all my publications leaned heavily on experts that weren’t me even though a lot of my research was based on interviewing women with rigorous documentation and qualitative methodology, also documented with rigor. As you can see here and through reading some of my publications, I don’t have too much trouble being clear or using the right words to convey my points. But somehow I always felt like a hack, a phony, a cheater, a plagiarizer. There were things I actually did to sabotage my success. I would come late to meetings with a military chair. I would be unprepared for classes, in my mind mostly. I regularly resisted wearing graduation garb at graduation and ordered mine through Ebay for $8.00. I often came late to graduation for my students because I seriously couldn’t find the venue (unconscious saboteur). One day, after 5 years of being a professor who was just about to go up for tenure, I receive a pink slip saying my contract was up. I was in my office on a Friday and everyone was gone–because summer semester had just ended. I had a panic attack. I called administrators, the chair, everybody I could think of calling that may be related to this “surprising” decision. I couldn’t leave my office until I heard back from people. What I got from 4 people was, “No cause.” They said this 4 times even when I asked what it meant. I later learned that Georgia was a no cause state and that meant anyone could be “let go” at anytime for no reason at all, even if they were promised they were on a tenure track. Needless to say, I practically passed out. I thought “I’ll never get another job; I’m a hack and a phony and they finally caught me!” The next 3 months were really bad. I devolved into sleepless nights and more panic no matter what medicine my doctors gave me. Eventually I was hospitalized at a sleep clinic and was injected with drugs that would help me sleep. I slept 12-hours a night for 2 solid months. It was that time that I read Valerie’s Impostor Syndrome booklet. I could see myself in every page. I eventually got it together and started taking her creative career certification course and that is what I’m happily doing with my life. Most importantly, I’m happy and feeling more congruently gifted every day. I’m making myself an authentic visible expert and feeling I fit the title. Thank you Valerie and Barbara Winter, too!
Some back story: My dad was very critical and often called me an idiot growing up. We often debated back and forth about everything. I never gave in and so he picked on me the most of the 4 kids (me being the most-stubborn and youngest). My mom thought women were as powerful as the men they married and the way they looked. She would deny this but it’s what I witnessed growing up. Lots of attention to dieting and being attractive to men. After her divorce, she married another man 6 months later–as if her security and worth depended on it. As we both know, that was a common impulse for women raised in the 1950s but not all women succumbed to the cultural pressure. All this is to say, I’m grateful that I was born in the 1960s and that lots more women were modeling an alternative.
Thanks Valerie. I hope this helps. I’d appreciate you not using my last name. But the details are fine and my first name is fine as well.
Comment by Wendy
Hi Valerie,
Competence to me used to mean having all the knowledge and expertise possible in a given field, knowing without a shadow of a doubt that your experience and credentials identified you as competent. However, it seems to me that as I move forward along a different career path with less formal “experience” in my field that competence is really all about how you present yourself and the attitude that you have and present to the world. We’ve all seen those people who really have no experience or competence in a given area but hold themselves in such high regard that we dismiss the facts and accept them as competent simply because they believe they are. The saying, “Act as if”, seems to ring true. Of course, practicing that takes guts! For me, as I move forward in my new business, it’s a constant battle of the mind. The self-doubt begins to creep in and inevitably I retreat and have to build myself up again.
Comment by Pam S.
Competence is when I bring skills and proven ability to (a job, project, group, book, article). But I’ve always required that I give more than is required (personality, connections,my own twist to things to bring a kind of excellence to things.
I know that I am competent in many areas, but many times “competence” doesn’t feel like it’s enough.
When I was little, my sister, my cousin and I all took piano lessons from the same music teacher. I was a competent student. I learned to read music, had a good touch and was technically correct after practicing many hours on a piece of music. My sister could compentently play piano, too. But my cousin was more than competent! When she played there was feeling there! She brought a “certain something” from within and it was translated through her fingers to the music she played! I later was able to bring that feeling to my oboe music. I could feel and/or interpret what the composer had felt. It only came with practice, and I’m so glad I kept with it until I felt what my piano teacher was trying to pull from me! It didn’t happen with piano, but it did with the oboe.
I grew to understand that to do a “good job” it took honing of skills, learning from those who were teaching what I was doing, ability to do it and then adding the “spirit” from within.
Intrinsic value, however, wasn’t enough. I needed (still need) evaluation and criticism, and I have a real love/hate relationship with them.
I think the “imposter” syndrome kicks in when there’s a negative review. Instead of saying, “Oh well, one person hates what I’ve written, so what!” I think, “THAT person must know MORE than I do and therefore I am a loser, fake, imposter.” When I’m NOT. When I KNOW I’m NOT!
Then my cheerleaders and moral-supportive friends boost me up and put me back into perspective,and I’m fine again.
It all has to do with self-worth. I know that. Instead of comparing me with me with my best work, I look out there for my validation of excellence. (i.e.my mother never read anything I’ve written, as an adult with published work. I’d leave it at her house for weeks, and when I’d ask how she liked it, or what she thought, she’d say that she hadn’t had time to read it. So I stopped leaving stuff there, at the suggestion of a counselor.)
I love the term “recovering imposter!” As I am a recovering everything else, imposter fits the mix too!
Pam S.
64, Female, Friend of Bill W’s, retired, recovering Catholic, born-again Gaian, rural NYS; teacher & pupil.
Comment by Judi Greif
I was recently terminated from a job I was in for 4 years, in a the food manufacturing industry…something new for me but I loved the job and my internal clients. I felt competent, knowing not only what I knew but, more importantly, what I didn’t know, ie, when to ask questions. This industry is constantly evolving and therefore provides constant learning. However, in my 4th year, suddenly my evaluations starting slipping and, to my supervisor, nothing I did was right. I realized that I was becoming the “I”nconsistent person in the department in a a mandatory evaluation system that required a certain percentage of “I”s. And that meant termination. I was determined to do better, but again realized it didn’t matter. My confidence was truly shaken. I knew I was competent and my clients agreed. However, when I was told that I smiled too much…yes, smiled too much!!…I knew the end was near. Competence to me is maintaing confidence in yourself, knowing what you know and when to ask for help, knowing where to go for those answers, and always, making sure your clients are well taken care of. My clients appreciated my honesty in saying I had to “find out” and believed I was more competent to say that than to fudge an answer. I have now been unemployed for 2 months and have regained my confidence and know that no matter what I do next I will do it with competence because I will always do a job with honesty, respect and passion.
Thanks so much
Comment by Cheryl
I view competence as having the ability to achieve something and to be dependable, trustworthy and motivated enough that you will follow through in accomplishing the goal. When I think of committing to a goal, such as the ones listed, I definitely feel overwhelmed and not very competent. My main shortfall is the motivation part and sustaining the desire to keep working as long and as hard as needed to achieve a goal. In the past I have gone after goals that required long-term commitment with years of effort—studying to be a schoolteacher, going through a trades apprenticeship, etc. In achieving or nearly achieving them, I discovered that the goal was not right for me. I was trying to fit a round self into a square hole. As a result, I’m gunshy. I find it hard to trust myself with setting goals that will be right for me.
When I went through the trades apprenticeship, I definitely felt incompetent and feared being exposed as such. I went into the program with no prior knowledge of the field I was entering. The apprenticeships had just been opened to women and I was keen on achieving better pay and a good career. The whole four years it took to go through the program I felt like an imposter. In fact, we women faced some hostility for “taking a man’s place.” Although I enjoyed certain aspects of the work and achieved a level of competence, I was never comfortable in the work. Thus, right after I received my journeyman’s certificate, I quit and went back to college to look for a new direction.
I’m a 60-year-old woman with a B.A., numerous achievements and still searching.
Comment by Roger
I like Wendy’s comment above: “competence is really all about how you present yourself and the attitude that you have and present to the world”. I understand competence to embrace a degree of formal qualification and expertise, but have found in my living, working and relational experiences, that competence is far less the ‘paper trail’ of qualifications or expertise (so often glamourised in resumes or CVs), and far more the practical ability and capacity,and the intelligence (not only intellectual, but also emotional, moral and spiritual), as well as (yes!) the right attitude to handle daily challenges and tasks in life, wherever and however they show up in their variegated forms and contexts. When I think of what a ‘competent’ human being is, then to me it means the ability to bridge the gap (often a wide chasm) between my deeply felt and held principles and core values on the one hand and my behaviour on the other. When the gap remains wide, then I have strong doubts about my actual competence and feel like the Impostor.
Comment by melissa mellott
Hello,
Three years ago I became self-employed; I not only took the leap of being on my own, but also “reinvented” myself AND discovered/invented a sort of “new” career, but I could see the industry moving toward this industry. I became a spa writer and reviewer. So because this was a new and upcoming field, I really considered what competence was. To me, competence in this field is someone who has credentials in education, experience and travel. I constantly asked myself, as I battled the imposter syndrome every day, “What else can I do to make myself more credible as a spa expert?” I had already earned my Master’s degree, but then I decided to go to esthetician school so I would have the technical knowledge. Still, that wasn’t enough for me and the voices in my head, so I traveled to Italy for 3 months visiting and reviewing spas. And even then, after all of my education and more than 10 published articles in spa health, my own website with spa reviews and education, I still struggled with the imposter syndrome. Now, I am faculty, teaching other estheticians and still reviewing spas. The logical side of me says “Nobody has the combination of skills and passion and experience like I do”, but…the voices are still there, especially when I am invited to another complimentary spa weekend. I get pampered and get the ultimate tour and treatment at the best spas and I keep whispering to myself “I can’t believe how great this is; it can’t be real.” But … it is real; I have worked very hard to create this amazing lifestyle and now I am enjoying it.