Meet James Chartrand
Allow me to introduce you to James Chartrand. James is a very successful writer who founded Men with Pens in 2006, a full-service website company. But in the early stages of James’ career, the story was quite different. Success seemed to elude James. James was on the verge of having to apply for social welfare and wanted to find a way to secure a fair wage to support the family. James registered for internet writing work and found the compensation was barely livable. However, once James found there were better-paying jobs available, James targeted them. James applied but was not receiving offers for these better-paying jobs. So after carefully assessing the market and checking to see if the pay rate was hitting a plateau – turns out it was not – James decided to try something entirely different. Everything changed. Jobs that eluded James were easier to claim, and eventually, James found success. What changed? We’ll get back to James’ story in a minute. But first, let’s take a look at men’s view of themselves in the marketplace as compared to women.
Men often consider themselves intelligent and capable and usually express this self-confidence quite naturally, resulting in them winning higher-paying jobs and positions. Women, on the other hand, are often their own worst critics. An example of this is when a man gets a promotion and feels that it was well-deserved and he is the best person to do the job. When a woman with similar experience, qualifications, and education gets a promotion she might feel that she is undeserving or just lucky. What about you?
Ask Yourself These Questions, and Write Down Your Answers
Are you a successful career woman? What do you attribute to your success? Do you believe you were just in the right place at the right time? Do you think people thought you had more knowledge than you thought you had? Were you concerned that the truth would prevail when everyone discovered you were not as capable as they thought?
James’ Secret
As I mentioned earlier, James made one change that changed everything. What was it? She changed her pen name to James Chartrand. You see, James is a woman and, she isn’t the first woman to find success this way. Once she made that change, the jobs that had eluded her were easier to claim. Eventually, James grew her writing into the successful business she has today. Nothing changed except her name. Her abilities and the jobs she sought all remained the same. You can read more details about her story in her blog, Why James Chartrand Wears Women’s Underpants. This fascinating story serves to illustrate that society itself has different sets of standards to assess an individuals’ qualifications based on a variety of traits, including gender.
These types of scenarios haunt many women who have achieved success, sometimes reinforcing a phenomenon that has women doubting their intelligence, skills, and abilities. These doubts have a name and are symptoms of a syndrome identified as the imposter phenomenon. Imposter phenomenon is a term coined by Dr. Pauline R. Clance and Dr. Suzanne A. Imes in their 1978 article entitled, The Impostor Phenomenon in High Achieving Women: Dynamics and Therapeutic Intervention. Today, it is more commonly known as imposter syndrome. Imposter syndrome experienced by many more women than men creates self-doubt, anxiety, and even depression.
Imposter syndrome is – “the persistent inability to believe that one’s success is deserved or has been legitimately achieved as a result of one’s efforts or skills.”
This syndrome predominantly affects women who publicly portray an image of success but privately question why they have been successful. The questions posed earlier are some of the second-guessing that women do when they feel they do not deserve their success because they are in over their head, and someone will find out soon.
Why It Happens
In years past, we identified the roles – such as teaching or nursing – that we considered acceptable and appropriate for women. These fields have been and are still dominated today by women. Women who hold these positions are not immune from criticism or imposter syndrome but, success in these fields is more accepted. Yet when we see a successful businesswoman in any industry, we will question her ability and how she got there. What is she wearing? How is she speaking? She cannot be overly harsh nor too mild. All of these approaches contribute to women frequently distrusting their ability and lacking self-confidence. As we have seen in this article and unfortunately, as a society, we reinforce these beliefs.
Now What? Here’s how to deal with imposter syndrome!
So if, like so many capable and intelligent women you have imposter syndrome, what can you do to alleviate the self-doubt? I would like to share a few options with you:
Try changing your behavior and act confident when speaking about or sharing your skills and abilities. They truly are yours. They exist, so take the time to acknowledge them and feel good about them.
- Write a letter of recommendation for yourself that highlights all your accomplishments and list your achievements. While you are doing this, assess what you have accomplished. Give yourself credit for your accomplishments.
- Ask someone you trust for objective feedback on your abilities.
- Seek out projects or tasks you know you can handle and build up your confidence as you complete them. When you have become comfortable with your ability to complete these tasks, your confidence will increase. As a result, you can then undertake a project with more risk.
Give your best and, when you succeed, you will be bolstering that confidence. If you make a mistake, keep in mind that everyone makes mistakes, not just you. If we learn from our mistakes, then they are just as valuable as our successes. Women must learn to trust themselves and their abilities. It is critical to truly believe in your abilities, your considerable strengths and, to confidently chart our professional journey.
