Success Fraud Complex

Why Do So Many Successful Women Feel Like Phonies?

The sirens wail, there’s a screech of brakes, and then a loud knock at the door. It’s the Imposter Police, and they’ve come to take you away for faking your way through life. A ridiculous notion for sure, but millions of women, particularly high-achievers, really do believe they are bluffing it, and that at any minute they will be detected. These women have fallen victim to success fraud complex, also known as the imposter phenomenon. No matter how high they climb or how large their triumphs, they have convinced themselves that they do not deserve their newfound success or stature, even when all the evidence shows the opposite is true.

If you have ever said to yourself, “I am not as clever as everyone says I am,” or you think that some of your success is due to luck, or you believe that your achievements have nothing to do with your abilities, then you may be experiencing success fraud complex. You attribute any success to luck and outside influences, and you attribute any failure to yourself and your perceived inadequacies.

A destructive force

Success fraud complex is a destructive and pernicious force that can hold entrepreneurs and professional women back. Due to a fear of being found out, women will shy away from opportunities and abandon their goals, often taking posts that are beneath their qualifications, skills, and abilities. The gulf that exists between their outward projection of confidence and their inner feelings of inadequacy is exacerbated every time they take on new challenges and responsibilities.

The condition seems at odds with the super-sized confidence levels needed to be an entrepreneur, and the fact that few positions are as exposed as those at the top of an organization. Nonetheless, business owners with success fraud complex will decline public engagements and speaker opportunities, they will hire around their supposed deficiencies, and work 80 hours a week, convinced that everything will fall apart if they don’t put in the extra time.

Casual observers may not be able to spot an “imposter” because she is able to construct a convincing mask of self-confidence, but behind the façade lurks an unhappy and insecure person.

Fear haunts success

The imposter phenomenon was first coined by clinical psychologist Pauline Clance and her colleague Suzanne Imes in a 1978 paper that appeared in the journal Psychotherapy: Theory, Research and Practice. It describes the experiences of a group of high-achieving women who were attending Clance’s group therapy classes. They had all reached significant milestones in their careers and held advanced degrees, but they could not admit that they deserved their successes. “They consider themselves to be ‘impostors’,” wrote Clance and Imes. “Numerous achievements, which one might expect to provide ample objective evidence of superior intellectual functioning, do not appear to affect the impostor belief.”

In Susan Pinker’s The Sexual Paradox: Troubled Boys, Gifted Girls and the Real Difference Between the Sexes, published in 2008, the author devotes a whole chapter to the phenomenon. She quotes many highly accomplished women, including Dr. Margaret Chan, who is the Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO) and the world’s most powerful health official. She was widely praised for her handling of the bird flu epidemic, but in the book Pinker notes, “Her ability, conviction, and good judgment saved countless lives. But Dr. Chan discounted her native smarts—and the opportunity to promote herself—attributing it all to luck.”

So why do women like Dr. Chan feel this way? Why do they continue to doubt their competence and ability when their actions and achievements point to the contrary? What is the fear that seems to haunt success?

Don’t fall into self-sabotage

Success fraud complex can affect women in any profession, and factors that may contribute to this form of self-sabotage are believed to be present from an early age. They include having aspirations and goals that are different from what the family expects, being in a family which imposes unrealistic expectations and standards on their children, as well as growing up in an environment where parents are highly critical. Some researchers identify two other family-related causes that may contribute to an individual feeling like a fraud. Family labeling occurs when children are given different labels by their parents. So there may be an “intelligent” child, a “sporty” child, and a “sensitive” child. These labels tend to stick no matter what the child does. So even if the “sporty” child achieves more academically she may not be recognized for her improved performance. This may lead her to doubt her ability, believing instead that the family’s view of her is the correct one.

Another aspect of the family dynamic that can cause women to feel they are “winging it” is when parents have given their daughter so much support that she starts to feel superior, almost perfect. But when she is presented with normal challenges and difficulties in later life, and tackles them with varying degrees of success, she starts to doubt the parental perception with which she’s grown up. She may even hide troubles so as not to alter the family image of her, and will eventually believe that she is below average.

Retrain your brain

If you have “imposter” feelings, you do not have to be stuck with them for the rest of your life. It is possible to train your brain to overcome these hurdles.

Develop awareness—The first step in dealing with imposter feelings is to be aware of them as they are happening. Jot down how you feel and review your notes at a later date. It will help you to realistically assess your abilities.

Learn from the past—Bring out the highlights of your career and note your successes. You may feel that a future challenge is particularly daunting, but assess how you coped with similar tests in the past and tap into those feelings once more. Always make a record of your successes.

Set realistic benchmarks for success—If your standards for success are too high, you’ll be in danger of ignoring achievements which you may deem as small, but which are actually significant.

Create reasonable goals—Do not aim for perfection, it does not exist. Instead, make excellence your number one priority.

Create positive thought patterns—If you keep thinking that someone is going to tap you on the shoulder and find you out, or that you don’t deserve success, remind yourself that it is not possible to know everything, and strive to learn what you need to know as time progresses.

Reframe any failure—If you do fail at something, it in no way means that you are a failure. Always use failure as a learning opportunity.

Accept success—Always accept praise with a “thank you.” Never say, “Oh, it was really nothing” when someone has given you their honest opinion of your performance.

Banish the imposter

You will know you have succeeded and banished the imposter within when you stop selling yourself short and no longer believe that you are a phony. Remember that feeling incompetent and actually being incompetent are two entirely different things. You are as smart as people think you are, but you must believe it. Learn to accept that self-acknowledgement is not a form of conceit, then throw away your imposter’s mask and rejoice in your successes. –P.A.