Who Do You Think You Are?

Photo by Rick Hustead

When I sat down to write my blog this afternoon, I honestly had no idea what I wanted to say today. And then I came across an article on-line and realized that I had plenty to say, after all.

The article I discovered is titled “Do Women Everywhere Suck at Their Jobs?”¹ In it, Katy Waldman explores the various reasons why women are more likely than men to doubt or even disparage their qualifications to do jobs for which they are very qualified and very skilled. The author explains how decades of social conditioning and expectations that women’s role is in the home/tending the hearth contributes to their impression that they are never good enough at or even deserve to have their job. To compensate for these perceived higher expectations, women have a greater tendency toward perfectionism and blame themselves/take personal responsibility for errors as a way to perceive greater control over their work. Their logic seems to be: “If I take the blame and say I’m a failure at ‘x’ first, someone else won’t.” Waldman astutely points out that the risk of this behavior is that these women not only start to expect to fail; they also don’t recognize or acknowledge their accomplishments when they succeed. And from there, a vicious cycle of negative self-talk, low expectations and low self-esteem/self-confidence is born.

It is not uncommon for a person to experience occasional self-doubt about his or her experience or qualifications to do a task. However, the “Imposter Effect” is about so much more; it involves the internalization of generations’ expectations about a person’s role in the work-force and even in the home. It is “Systems Approach” in the work-place: every employee has a specific role and expected behavior, and if those roles are untraditional, if a female employee is assertive rather than passive, chaos is likely to ensue. Conflict is uncomfortable in any relationship, but when it happens at work, implications of those challenges may be catastrophic (e.g. loss of employment). If we take a more complacent stance—it is better, it is usually more comfortable and in certain instances advisable to do what is “expected” and not rock the boat—we start believing the hype. We internalize the negative messages—“You’re so lucky to have that job!”—and infers the unspoken content, “Are you good/experienced/qualified enough to do it?” 

When a client comes to me in this kind of situation (Imposter Syndrome), I start the individual on the Mental Bank Concept to build self-esteem and self-confidence. It is important for her to experience how much she is worth in both monetary and realistic/symbolic value. When she records value events (activities and beliefs) in her Mental Bank Ledger each night, she sees the symbolic value of each task through the value (dollar amount) that it is assigned. However, the action of writing out each task (value event) also reminds her or her true value and contributions at work, in her subconscious mind. Finally, writing nightly affirmations in the Mental Bank Ledger and the opportunity to practice “experiencing” her greater self-confidence and higher self-esteem in guided-imagery exercises enables this client to take these attributes back to work with her.

₁ Slate, Katy. “Do Women Everywhere Suck at Their Jobs?” Slate.com. November 5, 2013

Sara R. Fogan, C.Ht. is a certified hypnotherapist based in Southern California. She graduated with honors from the Hypnosis Motivation Institute in 2005. For more information about Calminsense Hypnotherapy® and to set up an appointment, please visit http://www.calminsensehypnotherapy.com/.

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