Many impostors feel like they’ve pulled one over on the world—they let me, a total dummy, in here!—but often, the real person they are fooling is themselves. They have convinced themselves, despite all the evidence, that they’re not really qualified. In her book, The Impostor Phenomenon,292 the psychologist Pauline Rose Clance recommends that people who overwork to manage their impostor syndrome try pulling back once or twice, just to see what happens. Pick a task that is not crucial to your job, she writes, and deliberately spend less time on it than you would otherwise. If you’re still successful, you can later try it with another project. If you aren’t able to bring yourself to work less, though, it’s worth asking yourself why not. Is all that work really what’s required to get the job done? Or are you covering up for something?

Indeed, after those first few scary TV appearances, I dispensed with the flash cards and tried to relax in the green room instead. It turns out I didn’t need to drill myself on the material I had reported just a few days earlier, after all.

Not fitting in can ignite a drive to stand out in a positive way. Norm-breakers are often overachievers: the last ones to leave the office and the first ones to volunteer for every challenging assignment. Through their efforts, they might land at the top of their class or profession.

Sometimes, like in the case of Michele, the breakneck pace stems from a desire to outperform those who doubt us. But we should also recognize when we are working too hard because we’re actually doubting ourselves. When you’re told that you’re never going to make it, a version of that message can play in your head on loop, nagging you to put in just a few more hours at your desk. There are times when you’re actually trying to beat your competition—and times when your impostor syndrome simply won’t let you quit. Recognizing the difference can be as difficult as it is important.

The key to getting over insecurities such as impostor syndrome, meanwhile, might be to try to look at your situation from another person’s perspective.

Chapter 10

The Big Picture

Daniel, Part II

Being investigated by Toronto’s children’s services was the worst period in Daniel’s entire career. The weekend after it all began, he had a panic attack in a drugstore. He grew dizzy, struggled to breathe, and had to sit down. I’m gonna have to leave the field, and this is all I’ve ever done, he thought. My name will probably be attached to “molested children.”