Wanderlust: Expat Life & Style in Thailand June / July 2017: The Business Issue | Page 33

There are still times
when I feel like a fraud,
balancing on the brink
of being found out.
yourself on new ground and back to
feeling like a fraud. We have figures
such as Watson, Sandberg and Hanks,
who have achieved amazing success-
es despite self-doubt, as inspiration
for our own lives. But it’s not neces-
sarily that simple for the rest of us.
It helps to remember, though, that
there is always room to push past
initial feelings of self-doubt. Actress,
writer and director Lena Dunham’s
early career days included feelings
of impostorism, but the HBO star
acknowledged her insecurities and
decided to overcome them. In an
interview with Glamour Magazine,
Dunham says,” There will be nothing if
you don’t look out for you. And I can’t
wait, on my next project, to go into
it with the strength that comes from
valuing your own body and your
own mental health.” We can add one
more thing to Dunham’s list: There is
strength from valuing your accom-
plishments, too.
And perhaps the best news for
those feeling self-doubt is that so-
called impostors are generally very
competent. In fact, you should prob-
ably be more worried if you have
never experienced some kind of in-
security in your inabilities: According
to the cognitive bias known as the
Dunning-Kruger effect, low-ability in-
dividuals mistakenly believe they are
far superior than they actually are.
Flip that logic on its head, then,
and we are left with a reassuring fi-
nal thought for Fraud Police fearers:
Those who are self-aware enough to
worry they are career impostors are
probably more talented and capable
than they give themselves credit for,
regardless of gender.
addition to discrimination based on
sex alone.
The only way we can find out if
this may be true is to conduct further
studies.
THE BRIGHT SIDE
Male or female, it seems that the
more knowledge you acquire and the
higher you climb up the career lad-
der, the more likely you are to find
WWW.WANDERLUSTMAG.COM
WANDERLUST 33