The Secret Thoughts of Successful Women: Why Capable People Suffer from the Impostor Syndrome and How to Thrive in Spite of It by Valerie Young

gone higher. If you maintain a low profile, you protect yourself from scrutiny.
        3.
What does my behavior help me get?
This question is often the hardest to answer because it’s difficult to imagine how sabotaging your ownsuccess, for example, could get you anything but stress and misery. Go deeper, though, and you’ll no doubt see that you’re getting more out of your behavior than you think.
    For example, when you put in eighty-hour workweeks, there’s a good chance you’ll be recognized by higher-ups. When you constantly call your friends to anguish over what you are convinced will be an impending failure, you’re probably going to get a lot of sympathy and stroking. When you keep a low profile, you automatically get a degree of security and safety. And in a very practical sense, when you procrastinate, you get more time to do things that are more fun—or at least easier than whatever it is you’re putting off doing.
    Similarly, if you are prone to overpreparing, you probably spend a fair amount of time mentally replaying worst-case scenarios—a phenomenon psychologist Albert Ellis calls “awfulizing.”
Not only will I fail the qualifying exam, but I’ll become a laughingstock. No one will want to work with me again. I’ll be tossed out of my profession. I’ll end up living in a cardboard box down by the river
.
    As distressing as this mental disaster movie may be, Wellesley College psychology professor Julie Norem argues that this behavior is actually highly adaptive. Overpreparing helps ensure your success in part because of what she calls “defensive pessimism.” This is when you have unrealistically low expectations, then devote considerable energy to anticipating everything that could go wrong and planning for all possible scenarios. Mentally running through every conceivable negative outcome, says Norem, helps impostors reduce anxiety by taking concrete steps to minimize potential problems. 5
    Now it’s your turn
. To uncover additional ways your impostor pattern serves you, ask: What does this behavior help me avoid? What does it help protect me from? What does it help me get?
Uncovering Your “Crusher” and Exposing the Lie
    You think you developed your protecting strategy solely to keep people from finding out you are an impostor. However, a
core
function of all self-limiting patterns is to protect us from what Weinstein calls the crusher. The crusher is a core negative belief we hold about ourselves. At its heart, your crusher has to do with a basic feeling of inadequacy and unworthiness. You developed your pattern in part so that you wouldn’t have to face this hidden negative belief.
    You may assume that everyone who identifies with the impostor syndrome would share a common crusher, namely:
I’m a fraud
. Go below the surface, however, and you’ll realize that your own crusher reflects a deeper, more painful belief that is unique to you and your pattern. Let’s say, for instance, that the way you attempt to protect yourself from the shame of being found out is to not speak up in meetings or in class. You tell yourself it’s because you don’t want other people to think you’re stupid. But the real reason you hold back is to escape having to face the crushing “truth” of your own core belief, which is, “I really
am
stupid.”
    It’s important to recognize that you didn’t develop your crusher overnight—or by yourself. This irrational negative belief has been reinforced through interactions with family, teachers, coworkers, and, as you learned in the last chapter, by the culture at large.
    One way to identify your crusher is to imagine the statement you would most dread hearing said aloud about you in your impostor scenario:
You’ll never measure up. You have no special gifts. You’re not as intelligent as other people. You have no talent. You’re not an original thinker
. Or simply,
You’re unworthy
. If your crusher is not immediately obvious, then imagine that