I have a question I’ve been thinking about since Jessica and I recorded this week’s Chasing Brighter episode:
How do you know when you’re actually preparing—and when you’re just trying to feel qualified enough to begin?
Because those two things can look exactly the same.
Take the class. Read the book. Get the certification. Gain another year of experience. Research a little more. Make sure you really know what you’re talking about before you raise your hand, apply, launch, speak up, change directions, or call yourself whatever it is you’re becoming.
None of those things are inherently bad. I love learning. Preparation matters. Expertise matters.
But I’m starting to realize that sometimes we ask education and experience to do something they can’t actually do.
We ask them to give us permission.
The Credential Trap Is So Convincing Because It Looks Like Ambition
Last week, we started Season 6 by talking about the lie of “I’m not ready yet”—and how easy it is to confuse fear with genuine unreadiness.
This week, we’re looking at one particular version of that waiting: the credential trap.
It happens when the requirement for beginning keeps changing.
First I need to learn this.
Then I’ll be ready.
Except once I know that, I realize how much I don’t know. So maybe I need another course. More experience. Another credential.
Then I’ll be ready.
You can probably see where this goes.
What makes this pattern especially difficult to recognize is that there may be nothing obviously dysfunctional about it. From the outside, it can look like diligence, curiosity, ambition, even excellence.
And sometimes that’s exactly what it is.
The more useful question might be: What is all this preparation doing for me?
Preparation Moves You Closer. Permission-Seeking Keeps Moving the Starting Line.
This was the distinction from my conversation with Jessica that stayed with me.
Real preparation changes something.
It gives you knowledge you need. Builds a skill. Meets an actual requirement. Helps you do the work more responsibly or effectively.
Permission-seeking is different.
The next accomplishment isn’t really about what you’ll learn from it. It’s about what you hope you’ll finally be able to say afterward:
Now I’m legitimate.
Now nobody can question me.
Now I belong here.
Now I’m allowed.
Except there is a problem with trying to earn that kind of certainty.
There may always be one more thing you could know.
And if the real question underneath all that preparation is Do I have the right to be here?, I’m not sure another certificate can answer it.
Why This May Feel Especially Familiar to Women
I wanted to dig deeper into this after recording because I didn’t want to make a broad assumption that women simply lack confidence.
The research is more complicated than that.
A KPMG study of 750 high-performing executive women found that 75% reported experiencing impostor feelings at some point in their careers. Interestingly, these weren’t women waiting on the sidelines. They were already successful women approaching the C-suite.
That matters.
Because if achievement automatically made us feel like we belonged, wouldn’t success eventually settle the question?
Apparently, not necessarily.
Research on the impostor phenomenon itself is nuanced. A large systematic review of workplace research found mixed results around gender—some studies find higher impostor feelings among women, some don’t. So “women have impostor syndrome” is far too simple an explanation.
And maybe we need to be careful with the explanation itself.
Sometimes the Room Really Does Make You Question Whether You Belong
One of the most important pieces of our podcast conversation this week is that we can’t talk about feeling unqualified without talking about the environments people are trying to succeed in.
A widely discussed Harvard Business Review article challenged the tendency to tell women—particularly women of color—that they need to “fix” their impostor syndrome while ignoring bias, exclusion, unequal access, and workplace cultures that repeatedly give them reasons to question whether they belong.
I think that’s an important correction.
Because there is a big difference between an internal standard that keeps moving and an external system that genuinely demands more proof from some people than others.
Recent workplace research continues to point in this direction, examining impostor feelings not simply as an individual confidence problem but as something influenced by performance pressure, marginalization, organizational culture, and belonging.
Which means the answer can’t always be: Stop doubting yourself and go for it.
Sometimes extra preparation is strategic.
Sometimes credentials are required.
Sometimes being exceptionally prepared is a reasonable response to knowing you’ll be scrutinized differently.
And sometimes we’re carrying a bar nobody is actually holding anymore.
The hard part is figuring out which one we’re dealing with.
Who Gave Me This Bar?
That might be the question underneath the whole conversation for me.
Not:
Am I qualified enough?
But:
Where did my definition of “qualified enough” come from?
Reshma Saujani has spent years talking about the different messages girls receive around risk and imperfection. Her argument is that girls are often socialized toward getting things right while boys receive more encouragement to take risks, try, fail, and keep going.
Obviously, none of us grows up with exactly the same messages.
But I think there’s something worth examining there.
What happens when being competent becomes part of how we learn to feel safe?
What happens when we get really good at being prepared, responsible, knowledgeable, useful, and correct?
Those qualities can take us very far.
But they can also make being a beginner feel strangely threatening.
Because being a beginner means there are things you don’t know yet.
And there is no credential that lets you skip that part.
This Connects to Something We’ve Been Talking About All Year
Earlier this year, I wrote about the way worthiness can quietly become attached to achievement.
I’ve been thinking about that again this week.
If achievement is where I look for proof that I’m worthy, then another accomplishment isn’t simply an accomplishment. It starts carrying a much heavier job.
It’s supposed to make me feel secure.
Qualified.
Credible.
Enough.
But if the feeling fades, I need another achievement to restore it.
That can become an exhausting cycle.
Maybe the credential trap isn’t really about having too many qualifications.
Maybe it’s about expecting qualifications to answer questions they were never designed to answer.
A degree can tell me I completed a course of study.
A certification can demonstrate that I’ve met a professional standard.
Experience can make me better at what I do.
None of those things can permanently answer:
Do I belong?
A Different Way to Think About the Next Thing
I don’t think the answer is to stop learning or preparing. That doesn’t feel true to me at all.
I’m more interested in understanding the function of the next thing.
So before adding another requirement to the list, maybe it’s worth asking:
What will this actually change?
Will I gain knowledge I need?
Will I become better equipped to do the work?
Is this an actual requirement?
Does this help me move toward the thing I want?
Or am I hoping that when I finish it, I’ll finally feel impossible to question?
That last standard is a tough one.
Because I don’t think any of us can become so qualified that nobody will ever question us.
And maybe that’s not the goal.
A question to sit with
Is the next thing on your “before I can begin” list genuinely preparing you—or are you hoping it will finally give you permission?
You don’t have to immediately drop the class, submit the application, launch the thing, or make some dramatic declaration.
Just notice the answer.
Where I’m Landing—for Now
I still believe in preparation.
I believe in learning from people who know more than I do. I believe expertise should mean something. I believe there are plenty of situations where we absolutely should not confuse enthusiasm with qualification.
But I’m also becoming more suspicious of a starting line that moves every time we reach it.
There will probably always be someone with more experience.
Someone with another degree.
Someone who has been doing it longer.
Someone who appears completely certain she belongs there.
Maybe becoming isn’t about finally collecting enough evidence to feel unquestionable.
Maybe it’s learning to tell the difference between what we genuinely need to know and what we’re collecting because we’re afraid to be seen still learning.
This week’s Chasing Brighter episode gets into the more personal side of that conversation—what the credential trap can look like, the voices behind the standards we carry, and what happens when we do something without feeling completely qualified first.
Next week, we’re pulling on another thread that runs right through this one: high standards.
Because sometimes high standards make the work better.
And sometimes they’re the reason the work never leaves our hands.
External Article Links
KPMG — Advancing the Future of Women in Business: Women’s Leadership Summit Report
KPMG’s survey of 750 high-performing executive women found that 75% reported experiencing impostor feelings at some point in their careers.
End Imposter Syndrome in Your Workplace
A useful counterpoint to treating impostor feelings solely as an individual problem, examining how workplace environments and systems can contribute to them.
Journal of Organizational Behavior — The Impostor Phenomenon at Work: A Systematic Evidence-Based Review
A review of 188 scholarly works on impostor phenomenon in the workplace. Especially useful for understanding why the relationship between gender and impostor feelings is more complicated than popular discussions sometimes suggest.