For the millions of professional women (and men) who experience the confidence-zapping “Impostor Syndrome,” Valerie Young offers an empowering plan to overcome the needless self-doubt that keeps them from feeling as intelligent and competent as everyone else knows they are.
In her decades of in-the-trenches research on women’s self-limiting feelings and beliefs about themselves and their success, Valerie Young has uncovered the often surprising reasons why so many accomplished women feel as though they are “faking it” – impostors in their own lives and careers.
While the impostor syndrome is not unique to women, they are more likely to agonize over tiny mistakes and blame themselves for failure, see even constructive criticism as evidence of their shortcomings; and chalk up their accomplishments to luck rather than skill. When they do succeed, they think “Phew, I fooled ‘em again.” Perpetually waiting to be “unmasked” doesn’t just drain a woman’s energy and confidence. It can make her more risk-averse and less self-promoting than her male peers, which can hurt her future success.
In The Secret Thoughts of Successful Women, these women finally have a solution: Important insight into why fraud fears are more common in women combined with practical ways to banish the thought patterns that undermine their ability to feel — and act — as bright and capable as they truly are.