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Imposter syndrome and self-doubt leave many successful women feeling unworthy

A woman types on a laptop. (Oscar Wong/Getty Images)
A woman types on a laptop. (Oscar Wong/Getty Images)

How do you define success? For many women, the answer is complicated.

Regardless of their accomplishments, many feel a sense of inadequacy, perhaps uncomfortable about the time they took off work to have children, the sense that they should be advancing more quickly, or that their careers haven’t taken a traditional trajectory.

Writer Milena Nigam is among those who’s spent several decades trying to overcome what some have called the ‘confidence gap.’ She writes honestly about her insecurities and hopes that she can redefine success in ways that recognize her own strengths and allow her to shed her fear of failure.

She joins host Scott Tong to talk about her essay “Regrets of Things Past,” which appears in a recent edition of the online magazine NextAvenue.

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This article was originally published on WBUR.org.

Copyright 2024 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

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