Ambition is not a Dirty Word

How and Why to Form Your Own Informal Board of Advisors—Now

2011-08-29T11:10:23-07:00

We all experience it: finding ourselves at a professional fork in the road.

So it’s not surprising that one of the most common questions I get from clients and readers is: “What do I do when I hit the wall professionally?”

The single most powerful tool for pulling out of a career stall is forming your own informal advisory board.

I first discovered this secret as a rookie entrepreneur.

I’d finished my thesis and Ph.D. in record time; I was both inspired to move forward with my career goals and scared about survival issues. I had a fire lit inside as well as under my butt; my progress in these early career years was often slowed because of the compromises I had to make for the practical concerns of supporting myself and my son. I plugged away with my ambition target always on the horizon.

When I was 32 years old, my professional life finally took on some semblance of stability. I had a coveted academic-track research position in San Francisco. Devin was about to enter grade school, which meant fewer childcare woes. I’d finally gotten my license and was a bona fide psychologist. Even though I was struggling financially, there was light at the end of the tunnel.

Except that I found myself yearning to sunbathe in a different kind of light.

Inspired by a business article profiling what struck me as an intriguing up-and-coming field, I decided I wanted to start my own career consulting firm. On the face of it, this made no sense. I was trained as a licensed clinical psychologist with a background in neuropsychological testing and forensic evaluations. I hadn’t gone to business school and I had no real training in launching this venture. And unlike today, at that time career and executive coaching were barely on the radar; this was a brand new, emerging specialty.

My psychologist colleagues said, “You’re crazy to do this. It’s career suicide.”

But this was an ambition I yearned to fulfill. I knew that I loved researching and thinking about what was going on in the business world. I knew that I was smart, creative and tenacious. I craved the independence, opportunity, and challenge of running my own professional organization. Pursuing my professional destiny felt as vital and organic as mothering Devin, maintaining my friendships, and other equally precious pursuits. I knew that I had something meaningful to contribute.

AND SO I JUMPED RIGHT IN.

I’d been in business for a little over a year when I discovered a mentoring program for women in San Francisco. Once a month, for a year, I would travel into the city with my business plan, strategies, and a raftload of problems in hand, and be mentored by a board of advisors on everything from setting up my accounting and books, sales, marketing and public relations to the emotional highs and lows of being self-employed.

In these two-hour meetings I, along with three other protégées, discussed our business plans and all the related obstacles and challenges with a group of fifteen to twenty seasoned, powerful professional women. We received frank, direct, nuts-and-bolts business tactics and real-time feedback and advice from CEOs, attorneys, C.P.A.s, marketing gurus, bankers, and senior executives in sales, public relations and finance.

Having my career aspirations ratified in the face of personal upheaval was profoundly transformative.

Listening to the experiences and varied perspectives of so many successful businesswomen left me feeling confident and unabashed about pursuing my own big ambitions. It also taught me how to take hits, toughen up, and get back up. My board also showed me firsthand: how to avoid naive mistakes; how to recognize talent; how to work collaboratively; and how to ask for and make great use of expert advice.

We all need periodic feedback. No one can expect to reach their goals in isolation.

Here’s How To Form YOUR Own Informal Board of Advisors—NOW

Your hand-picked board of advisors will mentor and help you identify fresh opportunities, reduce your anxiety, and avoid rookie mistakes.

Here’s how to make it happen:

1. Assemble first-round draft picks. Make a wish list of movers and shakers—people you know personally, or have heard about. Target people who are at the top of their game and whose accomplishments and reputation you admire. Make sure their values and ideals are in alignment with your own; you want mentors who will lift you up, inspire you, and challenge you to be your own rival.

2. Keep in mind that your advisors needn’t be in your same field. Your goal is to create a group offering diverse, complimentary areas of expertise, gold-standard career advice, and ambition brainstorming in as many areas as possible.

3. Don't be intimidated at the prospect of approaching the best and brightest. If someone turns you down, don't take it personally.

4. Start e-mailing and phoning by sundown today. Ask if they’d be willing to be an informal adviser, explaining what it entails.

5. Emphasize that you’ll always be respectful of their time. For example, you’ll contact them periodically with a brief e-mail or phone question, or drop by their office occasionally for a quick, mission-critical question. Or you'll have quarterly 20-minute Skype check ins with your team. Or you’ll meet with your board for coffee or cocktails every four months and you'll pick up the check.

6. Draft your one-page career or business objectives plan. Include specific ambitions, ideas, questions, goals, and obstacles. Write down detailed advice you need. E-mail to board members in advance of group or one-on-one meetings; give advisors time to brainstorm before speaking with you.

7. Focus on listening. Ask only clarifying questions. Resist saying, "Yeah, but here’s why that idea won’t work for me..." I call this the Yeah, But-Rebuttal, and it's a sure-fire way to turn off your team. Keep an open mind. Give yourself time to absorb new ideas.

8. Become a techie. Record phone conferences (with advisors’ permission) or set up Skype sessions; don’t be afraid to pull out an audio or video recorder at live meetings.

9. Follow your advisors on social media. Here, they may offer tidbits of information and advice. Don’t be afraid to comment or respond via this venue.

10. Share your wins and say thank you. Let your advisors know when you achieve a big goal or accomplishment. Old-fashioned, handwritten notes offer an elegant touch.

Star achievers and people who love their work use this secret weapon. Follow their lead and soon you’ll be back on track with clear ambition objectives and on the right road to making the contribution you were born to make.

Sincerely and ambitiously,
Debra

When To Take A Mental Health Day

2011-07-25T11:44:17-07:00

When I was younger, my mom would sometimes allow me a mental health day. She understood that sometimes you just need a little breather, and that need doesn’t always coincide with a built-in holiday like spring recess or President’s Day.

You might do the same for your kids, and if you do, you know it’s fairly easy to get them to take you up on your offer. It’s a lot harder to refocus the same strategy on yourself. Why? You probably love your work. You’re entwined in it. Taking a day off—particularly an unplanned for, unexpected day—can feel like taking a step backwards.

But it’s not, says Dr. Debra Condren, a business psychologist, coach and author of Ambition is Not a Dirty Word. “For small business owners who love their work, studies show that they are less likely to take vacations, and you can lump mental health days into that same category. For them, work feels more like play sometimes, and it’s hard because entrepreneurs often have a lot of balls in the air. But there comes a point when you are multi-tasking so much that it decreases your productivity and increases your stress.”

That’s a point you don’t want to hit—and if you have in the past, you know that it feels like a wall. Your creativity is shot, your productivity is nowhere to be found. In other words, you’re treading water. Well-planned mental health days can help you avoid these bumps. Need more convincing? Read on.

It’s a marathon, not a sprint. You’ve no doubt heard that saying before, applied to all sorts of situations. Well it works here too: When you’re sprinting, you’re not coming up for air. You can’t maintain that pace indefinitely—you may not be able to maintain it for even a few months. If you don’t want your drive and dedication to fizzle out, you have to treat your business as a marathon, which means pacing yourself, slowing down when appropriate, and resting when necessary. “This conservation of energy concept is really vital for small business owners to understand. You need to value pacing yourself, and you have to learn how to set really good boundaries, with yourself and with other people,” explains Condren.
Set a schedule. You really need to commit to this, and that means putting it on your calendar. Condren recommends one day a month; you have to decide on your own needs, but I wouldn’t go more than two months without a day of mental relaxation. Once your day is scheduled, treat it like you would an important meeting or business trip—in other words, don’t blow it off.
Recognize the signs. You likely already recognize them, actually. The bigger problem is pushing them to the back of your mind. But you’re not doing yourself any favors by working through mental exhaustion. If you’re not sleeping well, you’re overwhelmed during the day and can’t get anything done, your creative juices have run dry, you feel burned out or even physically sick, you need a mental health day. “If you have to kick yourself out of bed, as opposed to when you’re doing meaningful, challenging work that you love, and you don’t seem to be checking things off your list, you’ve lost the ability to do higher level brainstorming, that’s when your state of mind is signaling to you and your body that you have to take a day,” points out Condren. Some of you are probably nodding your heads—maybe you feel this way right now. This is your wake up call: Take tomorrow off.
Spend your time wisely. Tearing yourself away from the office is tough business, I know. So make the most of your day off. To do that, you have to chuck the PDA, turn off the computer, put a moratorium on your voicemail (set up a few out-of-office response messages, letting people know an alternate contact, in case of an emergency—it will give you peace of mind and hopefully take a few things off your plate that can be handled in your absence). Then spend some time doing something that relaxes you—take a solo sabbatical day, in the words of Condren. Go to the movies. Exercise. Read a fun book by the pool. Play a game of golf. Get a massage. Anything that will allow you to recharge your batteries and take your mind out of the office.
Get rid of the guilt. Listen, I know how this goes. I have the same problem. And particularly now, when the economy is shaky, it can be very easy to feel guilty if you don’t have your nose to the grindstone day in and day out. But remember that this is for the greater good: “Think of this as a way to protect your small business, and to protect your passion for what you do. If you allow yourself these mental breaks, you’ll be more productive afterwards,” says Condren. She’s right: The day after a mental health day, I’m always raring to go.

Jean Chatzky is financial editor of NBC's "Today" show, a contributing editor at More magazine and author of "Money 911: Your Most Pressing Money Questions Answered, Your Money Emergencies Solved." She recently launched the Jean Chatzky Score Builder in partnership with smartcredit.com.

The Cumulative Effect of Insignificant Decisions Cost Us Big Time

2011-05-14T09:25:32-07:00

In a New York Times opinion piece, "Mothers in the Work Force," Jennifer Glass offers up an all-too-common way that women self-sabotage by failing to map out if-then scenarios before making decisions that seem relatively insignificant in insolation:

"Focus[ing] on enabling mothers to choose between homemaking and paid work without acknowledging the long-term economic costs of women withdrawing from the labor force for themselves and their families.

"Despite the seeming advantages of having a full-time parent at home in the short run, the risks of divorce or future spousal unemployment are strong enough that any woman who chooses to be a stay-at-home mother risks her family’s future well-being.

"Not to mention her own loss of Social Security and pension income, career growth in income and responsibility if she had remained employed, and the diverse social networks that help both children and parents with practical and emotional assistance."

In Ambition Is Not A Dirty Word, I talk about the cumulative effect of incorrectly weighing decisions and how it costs women is ways we never counted on:

In cognitive therapy, there's the well-known concept in cognitive therapy of seemingly insignificant decisions: you make one decision after another and they add up to a huge decision.

So, for example, if you decide,

“Oh, I’m not going to negotiate that salary they offered because it seems fine—and besides, I don’t like to negotiate.”

Or, “Sure, I’ll cut my rate for that client; it’s better than risking losing the project.”

Or, “I have no idea what my value proposition commands in the marketplace in terms of salary, but I don’t have the time or luxury right now of finding out; I’ll get around to it later.”

Or, "I'm going to off-ramp and be a stay-at-home mom for a while. It's best for my children, we can afford it, and then I won't have to worry about work-life balance so much. I'll pick up where I left off later."

All these decisions may seem relatively unimportant in isolation. But where making more money is concerned, the pattern pretty much adds up to this:

I’m not going to bother earning what I’m worth or caring about making more money, at least not for now. But “now” adds up; you end up selling yourself short in a huge way—today, and over the course of your lifetime.

Every choice has consequences—pros and cons.

But, as ambitious women, just how do we go about weighing our choices in a mindful, conscious way—particularly in light of the fact that we are given very little support for doing so?

How do we choose correctly when we aren’t encouraged to think today about our futures?

How do we avoid setting ourselves up for pain and suffering when we aren’t taught to try and calculate very specific if/then scenarios:

If I make this choice now, and things go as planned, how will my life be affected?

If this or that unexpected thing happens, then where would that leave me?

What would my options be then?

And if I thoroughly consider and analyze real, potential future outcomes, do I still feel comfortable right now making this choice?

How do you approach these decisions in your own life?

Become Your Dream

2011-03-31T14:28:44-07:00

While walking with my friend Liz in Central Park on Sunday, we stumbled upon this quote written in colored chalk on a sidewalk: “Become Your Dream.”

Then a few blocks later, we saw it again.

And then a third time. Someone was out spreading random acts of inspiration.

Today is my son, Devin’s, 23rd birthday.

My son, Devin, and my niece/daughter, Randi

Today, as I watch him striving to define and become his dream, I am proud of and inspired by him.

Devin is graduating with a degree in business, marketing, and entrepreneurship from Lehigh University. He’s passionate about marketing, psychology, and consumer behavior, and, like a lot of people his age, he wants to start his own consulting practice. For now, though, Devin’s next big goal is to study for the GMAT and to go for a Master’s of Science degree in marketing.

Over the years, I’ve done my best to encourage each of my children – now young adults – to pursue whatever inspires them. Here are three pieces of advice I've given them over the years – the same advice I give to coaching clients who are trying to figure out what they want to do with their lives:

1. Stick to your passions; don’t worry about what naysayers think about your choices because ultimately this is your life and you need to live it according to your own sensibilities.

2. Surround yourself with trusted, inspiring mentors and advisors that lift you up; from time to time, we all need feedback and advice. We need a sounding board.

3. You don’t have to decide today. Many choices have far-reaching consequences and costs, so don’t make them precipitously. Make sure you set limits with people who want to push you into a quick decision. Also, fully scope out your options—don’t just assume you know what they are. What’s the worst that can happen if you head in a new direction? What’s the best that can happen? Check in with your gut. Take your time.

The life I encourage my clients to lead – advice that my children, too, have internalized and run with – is a life filled with hope, dreams, aspirations—and the expectation of having them fulfilled.

But women – and working mothers in particular – are often so hard on themselves when it comes to giving equal opportunity to our career and personal life goals. Too often women beat themselves up when they buy into the cultural belief that we can’t be ambitious without cheating our children. We fear that if we go after our big dreams we’ll scare off a mate, we’ll be viewed as arrogant by colleagues, or that somehow, someday, we’ll be knocked to our knees for aiming too high.

Here’s what I know to be true from working with thousands of women over almost two decades.

First, women need support to be ambitious. We need to encourage women to go for it all —they can have a happy life at home and at work. When women value their ambition every bit as much as their other inviolable priorities, they are not only more fulfilled and productive in their work, but also happier individuals, more present parents, better partners, more compassionate friends and engaged community members Women who regard their ambition as a virtue are, in fact, more alive and grounded in every corner of their lives. That’s why we need to support women to put their career dreams at the top of their list of priorities, not at the bottom of the pile.

I’ve seen what can happen by doing this—a light bulb goes on and she never looks back.

She takes charge of her professional destiny. She learns firmly to insist on getting paid what she’s worth. She feels powerful in a new way—and owning it feels comfortable to her.

Ambition, however, is complicated. Sometimes you’ll be a gritty role model – because life gets unbalanced. But remember, in those moments of imbalance, that doesn’t mean that you’re getting it wrong. Your kids are watching you, and might just appreciate it later. That’s what happened to me.

It never occurred to me that my children paid a whole lot of attention to my career decisions when they were growing up, but one day when Devin was 15 he said, “I don’t want to be one of those people who gets up every day and goes to a boring job they hate just to get a paycheck. I think that’s sad. I want to be like you, Mom. You have an interesting life. You work for yourself, you travel, you decide what you want to do and how you want to work.” That was a deeply validating moment to realize that however much I might have sometimes “messed up” as a parent, I’d imparted the virtue of prizing ambition and passion.

What are you going to teach your children about ambition?

Women’s Business Alliance “Open Forum Roundtable” Meetings in the Works: Vote For Your Time Preference

2011-03-31T14:12:03-07:00

I am working with some ambitious women colleagues, planning a brand new, live Women’s Business Alliance “Open Forum Roundtable.” We would love to hear your preference on meeting times:

Would you prefer an 80-minute working lunch?
Or an after work event (although, here in New York, there often is no “after work,” but we should change that sometimes!).

Please comment below!

THE WORLD DESERVES TO HEAR FROM US

2010-12-07T09:04:00-08:00

“Why do women have such a hard time acknowledging the importance of loving our work?” –Gail Evans, Play Like a Man, Win Like a Woman

Ambitious women owe it to ourselves and to the world to make the contribution we were born to make. The world deserves to hear from us.

In Ambition Is Not A Dirty Word, a book I wrote to encourage women to reclaim our ambition as a virtue, not a dirty word – and on my various blogs as well as when speaking with the press about this subject – I've repeated this observation:

"She’s a staple of movies, novels, and TV: the hard-charging female entrepreneur in her Armani power suit and Manolo heels. She’s smart, aggressive, successful – and most people can’t wait to see her get her well-deserved comeuppance. When her fall from grace over her latest business failure or scandal lands her above the fold of the newspaper, it seems only right that she gets knocked to her knees.”

“Let's face it, there's just one word that our culture bestows on that supremely ambitious woman who unapologetically values a career, and that word starts with a “B.” It’s our prevailing cultural paradigm: ambitious men are go-getters, but ambitious women are bitches (or arrogant, or bad moms, or women who repel mates, or selfish, or ______ fill in the blank).”

We're finally seeing a cultural uprising against this socially-sanctioned double standard that judges high-achieving women according to a different set of rules than their brothers. And, as ambitious women, we're now feeling the force of a collective course correction. It's time to link arms and lift ourselves and each other up.

Here we are at the end of 2010. As we move into the holidays and New Year, let's reclaim our ambition as a virtue.

Forget going crazy with shopping and over-spending and out-of-control present buying. Forget buying into the junk culture’s mandate that we live up to certain holiday season roles that women should play (that actually make us stressed, burned out, and feeling guilty and inadequate when it’s all said and done).

Instead, let’s be thankful for our talents, our big dreams, and for our ambition to make the contribution we were born to make.

Consider the following virtuous definitions of the word ambitious (from Webster’s:

1. having ambition; eagerly desirous of achieving or obtaining success, power, wealth, or a specific goal.

2. requiring exceptional effort, ability, etc.

3. aspiring, enterprising; wishing to rise (mentally or spiritually) to a higher level or plane, or to attain some end above ordinary expectations.

Wouldn’t it be great to view our ambitious goals through that positive and inspiring lens? Imagine how that would change our perspective.

Embracing a virtuous definition of winning as an ambitious, talented woman who believes that the world deserves to hear from her means following three golden rules:

1. Love your work without apology, and with integrity.
Be willing to aggressively pursue the professional work you were meant to do and to strive for any career opportunities that inspire you. Remind yourself daily, “My ambition is a virtue. The real course for becoming the happiest woman, the best friend, lover, spouse, mother and community member I can possibly be is to always honor my ambitious dreams.”

2. Regard your deepest career aspirations as unconditionally sacrosanct.
Don’t buy into the false choice that you must choose between a great career or a great personal life. The real way to have a great, happy life is to see your career ambition as a part of your value system to which you must give equal attention, along with other non-negotiable priorities in your life, including your partner, your kids, your friends, your community.

3. Feel entitled to earn your worth.
You must be able to charge your full marketplace value without self-reproach. Don’t leave money on the table. Be committed to abundance, to this life fulfillment mantra, “I deserve to be paid well for doing meaningful, challenging work that makes a difference. I refuse to sell myself short. I will take control of my own economic empowerment.”

Take a stand. Do so internally. Believe in your own talents. Believe in your big dreams. Have an unshakeable resolve that you deserve to love your work with a grand passion. Stand up and speak out. Do so courageously, from your heart. You will not only inspire yourself; you will also be a role model for other girls and women. You will help validate your sisters’ belief in their right to dream big, to achieve, and to be recognized for making the contribution we women are born, entitled, and obligated to make.

As the ambitious woman you know you are – and are entitled to be – I encourage you to answer for yourself, every day, a question posed in Mary Oliver’s poem “The Summer Day”:

Tell me,
What is it you plan to do with your one
Wild and precious life?

Say it; believe it: “The world deserves to hear from us.” And spread the word!

How do YOU feel about YOUR big, ambition goals? Post your comments below.

Sincerely and ambitiously,
Dr. Debra Condren

Ten Steps to Thrive in 2011

2010-11-29T15:36:27-08:00

Economists say the Great Recession -- the longest and deepest since World War II -- ended 18 months ago and that the U.S. economy is, in fact, growing again. But growth is relative. Even the rosiest economic forecasts for 2011 come in well under 3 percent growth. Unemployment is still high, and consumer spending is still sluggish.

That doesn't mean sit and wait for things to improve. Rather, retool for the economy that exists today, and will be lingering for many tomorrows. Here are 10 places to start.

1. Overhaul your business plan. Rethinking your business plan can help you spot new opportunities and point your company in the right direction. For step-by-step advice, check out the U.S. Small Business Administration's guide.

2. Double down on what works. Whatever paid off in 2010 is worth investing more time, money and resources next year. Ask yourself: What was your top-selling product or service, and how can you get your customers to buy more? What money-saving strategies went straight to the bottom line? What incentives or promotions got your customers' attention?

3. Experiment. The best time to try something new? When the old isn't working. It may feel safer to stay in your comfort zone, but sticking with the same old product, service or marketing strategy might actually be riskier.

4. Fire your D-grade customers. Make a list of your customers and give each of them a grade. Then dump everyone below a C--or a B, if you can afford it. Once you've separated the winners from the losers, put a plan in place to turn those laggards into A-listers. Going forward, use those criteria to size up new business.

5. Become an 'A' customer. When prices are low, as they are now, it's generally a good time to lock in long-term contracts with your regular vendors, contractors and suppliers. Indeed, you might be able to negotiate a lower price in return for the promise of your business.

6. Expand your network. Facebook and LinkedIn have their uses, but they'll never replace face-to-face meetings, especially to win new business and get referrals.

7. Leverage your brand. "What do you bring to the table that no one else is serving up to clients and potential clients?"asks Debra Condren, a New York business psychologist. "You must first understand what sets you apart and then become completely fluent in communicating to your target audience what separates you from the herd."

8. Get some credit. The mortgage market is starting to thaw, and that's good news for small-business owners who can tap their home equity for working capital. If you have good credit and some equity in your house, now may be the time to refinance before interest rates rise.

9. Fire up your employees. Think about creating a bonus plan to motivate employees to hit your 2011 goals.

10. Team up. Working with "channel partners" -- companies that target the same market but with products or services different from yours--can be an ultra-efficient marketing strategy.

This posting was originally written by Rosalind Resnick as featured in The Street.

Field, Anne. "Entrepreneur Thinks outside the Cubicle." Crain's New York Business. 22 Sept. 2010. Web.

2010-09-23T12:29:17-07:00

Field, Anne. "Entrepreneur Thinks outside the Cubicle." Crain's New York Business. 22 Sept. 2010.

Allowing Gen Y-ers the opportunity to make their own hours can boost productivity. Companies that encourage their young adult employees to make their own hours get more out of them. It shows them that they're trusted and appreciated.

Stand Up For Yourself! Do Not Be A Doormat

2010-08-19T15:04:10-07:00

"How to Stop Beating Yourself Up, Putting Yourself Down, and Selling Yourself Short."
Great article -- and you can listen to the audio below -- in Goodhousekeeping's August issue by Betsy Rapoport.
Judy Rubino reads you this article, "Stand Up For Yourself! 10 Simple Steps,"
chosen from her weekly selections. Click here to listen to her 12 minute audio of the article that offers up step-by-step advice for recognizing--and overcoming--the most common acts of socially sanctioned self-sabotage we women do to ourselves. Let's stop selling ourselves short!

Stop the Fraud Police -- You Deserve To Be Here

2010-06-27T16:10:56-07:00

Many an ambitious woman periodically experiences a sneaking suspicion that she hasn't really earned her professional position and that the bottom is going to fall out one day.

One Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist told me she could get a hundred and ninety-nine letters that were full of praise and positive feedback and one letter that was negative. She remembers the bad letter for days; it haunts her; it's the one she believes it true. She secretly fears this letter writer might be onto something. Even though she possesses certified credentials and knowledge in her field, has shown her ability and intelligence, and has ample education and dazzling prior success, she still tenders the thought, "If they only knew..."

As is the case with so many women I work with as well as those I interviewed for my book, Ambition Is Not A Dirty Word, many -- if not most -- accomplished women periodically fear that the fraud police are going to come banging on our door.

By any objective standard we deserve our position and recognition and the paycheck that goes with it, but somehow we feel we are undeserving. Our professional veneer seems like a false persona. We are like a person who has just made footprints in the sand but does not recognize them as our own when we look behind us.

We feel like fakes. Like we're going to be found out.

Journalist and author Valerie Mutton wrote a great article about this phenomenon.

Using herself and a friend with equally impressive work and life credentials as research subjects of sorts, Mutton shares their experiences of sometimes feeling like imposters -- and tactics they deploy to stop self-sabotage in its tracks.

Do you suffer from imposter syndrome?

By Valerie Mutton

This article originally appeared in the Summer 2010 issue of More
Ever feel like you’re fooling everyone with your success? How to stop being your own worst enemy and beat imposter syndrome.

It happened again when I was polishing my bio for a speech I would soon be giving. I looked at the accomplishments listed on the page and thought they must belong to someone else. The apparent high achiever I'd just finished describing seemed to bear no resemblance to the chronic underachiever I feel like most of the time. I dared to mention this to my friend Lynn*. "I keep waiting for everyone to discover I'm not nearly as clever as I look on paper," I admitted.

I expected to be met with a quizzical stare. Lynn, 46, is the very definition of superwoman. She is a well-respected freelance writer in Toronto, a third-degree black belt in karate and a first-degree black belt in jiu-jitsu.

Oh, and she has seven children - four of whom are adopted. This totally together woman would not understand what I was feeling.

An imposter syndrome epidemic

"Oh, I know exactly what you mean," she said. "Just recently at a karate tournament, the head instructor was introducing all the high-ranking black belts. Of the 200 or so people in the room, there were only five people experienced enough to be called high-ranking and to be acknowledged for that. It turned out I was one of them. It took me a second to realize I was supposed to step forward and bow - it really shocked me." She went on to admit that she worries all the time her karate club will find out she's no good at karate, that her editors will discover she doesn't know how to write, and that her kids will realize she's a lousy parent.

Clearly, we needed an intervention.

I contacted two experts, Debra Condren, a business psychologist with offices in New York and San Francisco, and author of the book Ambition Is Not a Dirty Word, and Valerie Young, a Massachusetts-based speaker and author who gives workshops on "How to Feel As Bright and Capable As Everyone Seems to Think You Are."

According to Condren and Young, Lynn and I are not alone in sharing imposter syndrome. While few people are immune to it, women - particularly boomers - are especially vulnerable. Young says the syndrome often strikes women who are either the first or among the few in the family to enter a profession or go to university, and those are are in traditionally "masculine" careers.

Could you go three days without self-sabotaging?

One of the hallmarks is an inability to internalize success. In other words, you attribute your achievements to luck, being in the right place at the right time, or good connections - but never to your own hard work and talent. Condren tells me that one of her interviewees for her book was a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, who said she could get 199 letters praising her work and one letter with negative comments. She'd remember the negative one for days, convinced it was the only one that spoke the truth. With imposter syndrome, only the negative matters - everyone else is smarter, making more money and doing a better job.

"Wolf in sheep's clothing"

Psychologists from Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind., found women identifying with imposter syndrome competed harder to keep up with their peers (even though they were probably already way out front). I ask Condren whether imposter syndrome, if it's kept in check, could ever be good for you.

"Women's willingness to be introspective and to sincerely devote themselves to lifelong learning is a positive attribute," she says. I start to agree, saying it's never wise to start believing your own press and think that imposter syndrome can save you from getting a swelled head. But, she warns, this humility is actually a wolf in sheep's clothing that can keep us from taking our rightful place at the top. It's a self-induced glass ceiling.

I decide Lynn and I need a challenge: Could we go three days without self-sabotage? Seventy-two hours where we don't blush when someone praises us, don't stay out of sight to avoid being spotted as frauds, don't seek validation from external sources, and instead believe in our innate abilities.

Day 1

I am asked to chair a meeting today. I hate chairing meetings. For one thing, being asked to "chair" gives me that twitch I get whenever someone turns a noun into a verb. For another, I don't like having the responsibility for the whole meeting on my head. But people keep asking me and for once, I accept. Young says I should learn how to reframe things - to think about how much I'm going to learn, rather than what I don't know how to do. "It may never go away," she says of the nagging self-doubt. "But it's all about finding ways to talk yourself down from the ledge faster." And you know, she's right. Colleagues tell me I ran an effective meeting. I take the compliment and don't blush.

I ask Lynn how she did. Condren had suggested a self-validation exercise I'd passed along. I told her to stand in front of a mirror and tell herself how capable she is. "I couldn't take myself seriously standing in my Winnie-the-Pooh pyjamas," she admits. "And the kids were snickering behind the door when they heard me talking to myself."

Day 2 of the Challenge

Day 2 "Staying out of sight to avoid being spotted as a fraud," according to Condren, prevents you from seizing opportunities that will actually show off your skills and lead to more chances to excel. So I give that speech I've been worrying about, in spite of my doubts about my expertise. It goes well.

I think I'm starting to get the hang of this, and I begin to wonder if this new boldness will be useful in other areas. I try it after dinner. My son is doing math and he has a question. This strikes fear into my heart. We have a pretty clear division in our house - I help with languages and history homework; my husband helps with math and science. But my husband isn't home. Over the years I have almost convinced myself I can't do math, despite respectable grades in high school. I could wimp out and tell my son to leave the question until my husband comes home, or I can try to help him myself. It takes awhile, but we solve the question together. And we get it right.

I decide to check in with Lynn. Young tells me there is a lot of evidence that women internalize criticism whereas men externalize it. "We often have the arrow pointed at ourselves," she says. Lynn tries an exercise today to help overcome that issue. She takes a pen and paper and resolves to write down any compliments she receives over the course of the day, to try to focus on accepting praise, rather than deflecting it, and to concentrate less on criticism.

"How'd you do?" I ask.

She looks at her blank page and says, "I'm a self-employed writer with a home office. There's no one around to compliment my work."

Day 3

Today is a banner day: I snag two opportunities to beat imposter syndrome into the ground.

I've written a book and I'm trying to get an agent. Today, I get a nice rejection letter. "This sounds like a great project," the agent writes, "but the market for this type of book is really competitive right now, and I just don't have the time to give it the attention it needs." My first thought is, Yeah, I'll bet she says that to everyone, but I stop myself. The letter is actually addressed to me, and she refers to my book by its title. It isn't a form letter. I decide to believe she meant it. Self-esteem: one; imposter syndrome: zero.

I've been told that I should have a platform if I'm going to try to sell a book. That means I need, at the very least, to start a blog. I don't want to blog - I know nothing about it. Plus, blogging is an anathema to someone with imposter syndrome. What if I write something stupid? What if I can't keep up with it? I think about taking a blogging course, and then I remember my new affirmation: I am capable of self-learning. I take a book out of the library and save $250 on the course.

A Little Praise Will Do You Good

Lynn's final challenge is today. Condren says it's important to take time to celebrate each of our achievements before moving on to the next one. This helps us internalize our accomplishments, and makes it seem less like we're listing the achievements of a stranger when writing up a resumé.

I ask Lynn, "What did you do after your last black belt test?" She admits she just went home and made dinner. I set her the task of finally taking the time to celebrate it properly and then follow up with her.
"Well, I went a little overboard, I think. I realized I hadn't celebrated a lot of things - going all the way back to graduating from university. So I celebrated it all last night."
"All of it? What did you do?"
"Well, I rented Lethal Weapon, poured a glass of wine and ate pralines and cream ice cream out of the tub, while telling myself that I've done a good job with my life and I should pat myself on the back once in a while."
"Good for you! I'm proud of you."
"There's more," she says.
"What else?"
She hesitates. "I poured myself a second glass of wine."
Real progress, at last.
This article originally appeared in the Summer 2010 issue of More