Feminine Impostor Syndrome

The impostor syndrome: how to accept yourself and start living?

The impostor syndrome often affects a woman’s self-esteem. Therewith, we simply cannot accept our success, we consider our victories to be just luck or the result of someone's help, and we devalue our own achievements. In most life situations, the "impostor" considers herself to be a deceiver and thinks that she does not deserve anything.

We have begun to discuss this problem in this article. This material is the continuation, “thoughts aloud”, forced by examples. 

According to studies, more than 70% of all people suffer from it in one or another way. Most of them are women. At the same time, imposter complex affects even those women whose success has thundered all over the world. I suggest to consider their life examples and conversations about self-esteem below.

Natalie Portman, fragment from the speech for Harvard students:

Тoday, in 12 years after my graduation, I have to confess that still do not feel my own value. I have to remind myself: “You are here for a good reason”. Today I feel the same way as when I only started to study in Harvard in 1999. Then it seemed to me that it was a mistake, that I was not clever enough to be there. And every time when I opened my mouth, I had to prove that I was not just a stupid actress. Sometimes lack of confidence and experience could make you long to the standards and expectations constrained by other people. But you can use your lack of experience to continue your own way – the one which is not dictated by others, but determined by yourself.

Penelope Cruz, interview for CBS:

Every time when I start to work at a film set of a new project, I feel as if I were being shot for the first time. Each time the same fear appears in me – that I will be fired. And I’m not joking. During the first week of shooting in any new film I always think that I will be fired!

Kate Winslet, interview for The Mirror:

What other people think about me still remains a mystery for me. I love to perform, and I always try to do my best. But even now all these provocative scenes scare me. I immediately start to think: “Oh my God, I am totally talentless, and everybody will see it now. They have chosen a wrong person at a casting call”. But little by little I have understood that these rueful feelings are a part of me.

Emma Watson, interview for Rookie:

It seems to me that the better I do something, the sharper I feel my inferiority, because at any moment somebody may understand that I’m an ordinary “fraud” and I don’t deserve my own achievements. I can’t always satisfy others’ expectations about me. It is weird – sometimes success may be incredibly life-asserting, but sometimes it horribly annoys: you try to realize how you perceive yourself, and how all outside world perceives you. 

Jodie Foster, about Oscar:

It seemed to be a simple fortuity. I felt the same way when I entered the Yale campus for the first time. I thought that everything would immediately disclose, and they would take back my “Oscar”.

Cara Delevingne, about her career:

When you do all your best to bring joy and happiness to people by your actions, yet still there are unsatisfied people. And you think: “I tried so hard and did all I could. I’m so exhausted”. It seems that you always disappoint others, and then a question appears: “What actually am I trying to do? For whom all this is?” After some time I started understanding that the work and other people’s approval receiving are not the main things in life. Of course, career is important, but it is not everything. Yes, I am proud of my achievements, but I can’t say that I feel infinite happiness about them. 

How many of us, such impostors, are there? - A whole Legion. And everyone with her own bright, but shy personality and deep mental wounds. We live in a constant fear that someone important will once come, see us, stab a finger and scream: “Shame on you!”

Why are women often not able to accept their success?

Unfortunately, women are more prone to the impostor syndrome than men. Traditionally, girls were brought up in such a way that we focus more on someone else, from the outside, and not on our own feelings: “Has he pulled your pigtail? Does it hurt? - It’s fine, he just likes you! " (or a worse option: "It is your fault!"). So, a girl less focuses on her feelings, becomes more sensitive to other people's opinions.

Girls receive more support of the talents making them closer to the role of “an ideal wife and mother”. Other desires and ambitions are often devalued or even suppressed: 

• Do you want to build a career? — «It will last untill your first maternity leave!»
• Do you dream to become a pilot? — «Why do you meddle? It is not for women!»
• Enter a prestigious higher educational establishment? — «Ok, at least you could find a fiancé there»

However, the requirements for girls are higher than for boys. A boy may be a “C-grader”, but a life and soul of the party, and a girl is expected to have only “A’s or B’s”. Girls are earlier engaged to the housework, and they do a lot more of it. And if they do not cope, they hear: “Featherheaded! Lazy! Butter fingers! No one will marry you!”

This is how the roots of fears and feeling of their uselessness, mediocrity, inferiority arise in women. And even when we grow above ourselves and develop, achieving obvious results in something, it can be difficult for us to accept our success internally. Of course, men are also susceptible to similar complexes, but the statistics are relentless: women have long overtaken them and dug in at the top of self-criticism.

Why is the impostor syndrome dangerous?

• First of all, this syndrome hits the psyche, the emotional sphere. Think about this: if you assess your professionalism inadequately, take all the failures personally, and devalue your achievements - how will this end up for your stress and anxiety levels? Panic in dealing with management, falling out of the general workflow and in the end ... depressions.
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• If you are unable to accept your results and achievements, you can hardly talk about getting any pleasure from work. The same can be said about your intrinsic motivation. According to researches, if an employee is supported only by external stimuli, his effectiveness is low. This is why the intrinsic motivation is as important as being involved into the work process! It makes it easier to focus on work and complete even the most complex project faster.
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• Goal setting interruption. A common trouble of all impostors is their disability to evaluate objectively their own abilities. The impostor complex prevents from determination of a spectrum and volume of tasks which you can cope with . This leads to the refusals from the projects which could bring you good money. Or vice versa – you take on too much and suffocate under this burden. As a result, the projects are missed and failed. Welcome, stress!
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• Underperformance and fear of feedback. Partially they flow out of the previous point. The impostor syndrome is eternal doubts in yourself and in the rightness of your work, your professional growth slowdown. Wherein, the impostors are afraid to ask their colleagues for a feedback or an assessment. Of course! Cause now they will surely be booed and laughed at, and loose their job as well :-)
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• Harm for team. There are so many stories about situations when somebody’s fear to speak out at a meeting, especially when it is necessary, excluded all opportunities for her colleagues and directors to see the value of the employee. Constant doubts do not only limit the career growth, but also aggravate complexes.
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• Doubts in a chosen profession and a place of work. The impostor complex makes you think that you are a bad specialist. That you will be booed or fired for any mistake. It even comes to the point that people start to search for other vacancies without any real reasons. But they forget that their impostor syndrome won’t go away in another place of work...

How to overcome the impostor syndrom

1. Firstly, treat yourself well! Let your own well-being be your priority. Your personality is much more important than any activity: at work, while studying, or in any other place.

2. Learn to reveal and suppress your suspicious inner monologue groaning about failures and imaginary shame. Let it learn another mantra: “Do – don’t blabber!”

3. Unhealthy competition against yourself is always a bad idea. It causes loss among the civilians or (at least) a great stress. Selfsame, do not encourage unhealthy competition in your own team.

4. If you laugh at yourself, do it with empathy and sympathy.

5. It is sometimes good to boast of your success! If somebody teases you it is not serious and not out of malice. Be more condescending in such things to yourself and to others!

6. Create your own support group out of your family or friends, take their positive feedback seriously. Find positive teachers and mentors for yourself, and do not devalue at least their contribution into your development.

7. Revise why you have chosen this very job at this very place.

8. Set for yourself real, tangible goals, divide massive tasks into smaller and simpler ones, try to formulate precisely and hear other opinions to assess if your plans are realistic and achievable.

9. Don’t forget that your knowledge and skills are not constant. You should renovate and actualize them. We live in such tшmes when everything changes thick and fast and sometimes all at once, and knowledge spheres develop really quickly.

10. Don’t be afraid to be a rookie and ask for help, especially if you have taken on something new. Give a treat to other specialists to share their knowledge and give you a necessary advice. Other people also want to be needed and appreciated. They, as well as you, may suffer from the impostor syndrome. Remember this.

11. Figure out what you are afraid of more: to seem an impostor or, vice versa, stiff-necked. Take a responsibility for the objective assessment of your own capabilities, phobias, values, prejudices.

12. In 9 cases out of 10 you are not a “no man is an island”, but a part of some system, society. There is no urgent need to control everything by yourself, do everything using your own resources, take responsibility for each aspect, and so on. Learn to interact, and if the environment appears too toxic – be brave to abandon, change, model it.

Trust in yourself!