The Secret Thoughts of Successful Women, Valerie Young

The subtitle of this work is actually a better summary of the contents: "Why Capable People Suffer from the Impostor Syndrome, and How to Thrive in Spite of It."

The book is geared towards women mainly, but the author acknowledges up front that men do have difficulties with this sometimes as well.  There's also acknowledgement of the overlap between Impostor Syndrome and "Highly Sensitive" people (which I still think is an unfortunate name choice).

Valerie goes over what Impostor Syndrome is: that nagging, constant feeling that you're just faking it, and someone eventually will figure out that you're not actually a grownup or very good at this, and call your bluff and send you home in disgrace.

Then she talks about what may cause it:  Sensitivity to other people and to your environment, social conditioning to think that luck or "nice people" caused all of your successes, worry that past achievements are no predictor of future success.

Next up is a summary of all the ways that you are hurting  yourself professionally and emotionally by believing that: you may procrastinate or never finish projects to avoid "failing" on the finished project, you may avoid offers of promotion or of positions that you may actually want because you're afraid someone will find you out, you may help out your competitors to the point that they succeed and you don't because you don't want the stress of competition, you may just live your whole life as a miserable ball of stress. 

All that established, she throws in some CBT (cognitive behavior therapy) style assignments and questions.  Do you really think that you "lucked" your way into your high scores and previous achievements?  Do you really think that your past experiences and successes have nothing to do with how well you'll handle future challenges?  Do you really want to be a miserable ball of stress?

While there's only so much a book can do for me ( I read too quickly for "workbook" style assignments to really work, and would do much better in actually changing habits if this were a class or term-long workshop or seminar) I appreciate the insights, and especially the knowledge that I'm not the only one who feels like they're faking this whole "mature competent grownup" thing.