Imposter No More: Overcome Self-Doubt and Imposterism to Cultivate a Successful Career

A personal and professional guide to the latest research on imposterism and psychological flexibility, IMPOSTER NO MORE is the professional’s handbook to combating ＂impostor syndrome＂ and overcoming self-doubt to achieve career success.

Dr. Jill Stoddard is a recovered imposter. For years, she was convinced that the only reason she was accepted into a competitive grad school program was because her father knew the program director. Dr. Stoddard isn’t alone in this: deep down, the majority of successful people question their professional legitimacy a good amount of the time.

Why do we do this, and how can we stop? Although she’s in recovery, Dr. Stoddard still struggles with feelings of imposterism. She works through them with psychological flexibility, the ability to be present with all thoughts, emotions, physical sensations, and urges, fully and without defense, while making conscious, deliberate choices based on what deeply matters to a person. Essentially, we’re not attempting to change the substance of the thoughts and feelings that naturally occur to us; instead, we change the way we relate to those thoughts and feelings, so we aren’t caught up in constant battle to control them.

Throughout Imposter No More, Dr. Stoddard lays the groundwork for understanding the imposter phenomenon; she outlines the traps professionals often fall into regarding their imposter feelings, and provides actionable steps for cultivating psychological flexibility to be able to choose bold career moves despite self-doubt and imposterism.

Dr. Jill Stoddard, PhD, has been a practicing mental health provider for over 20 years and currently owns and operates an outpatient clinic that provides evidence-based treatment [i.e., Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)] for adults and children with anxiety and related problems. She is a mutli-award-winning teacher, peer-reviewed ACT trainer, and TEDx speaker. Dr. Stoddard is the author of two books, The Big Book of ACT Metaphors: A Practitioner’s Guide to Experiential Exercises and Metaphors in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and Be Mighty: A Woman’s Guide to Liberation from Anxiety, Worry, and Stress Using Mindfulness and Acceptance. Her writing has also appeared in Psychology Today, Mindful Return, The Good Men Project, Scary Mommy, and Thrive Global, and she has been quoted as an expert source in the Washington Post, Greater Good Magazine, Behavioral Scientist, Fatherly, Psych Central, and more. Dr. Stoddard is the co-host of a popular psychology podcast (with over 1.5 million downloads), Psychologists Off The Clock and has been interviewed about imposter syndrome, anxiety, and more on many large podcasts, including The Art of Charm, Not Another Anxiety Show, What Fresh Hell, and Mental Illness Happy Hour. Dr. Stoddard earned her PhD from Boston University where she trained at the highly regarded Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders under the mentorship of world-renowned psychologists, Dr. David Barlow and Dr. Stefan Hofmann. She lives with her husband, two kids, and French Bulldog in Carlsbad, CA.