I first learnt about the impostor syndrome at the Grace Hopper Celebration for Women in Computing in 2011.  A Stanford student asked a question during "Q&A time about the Conference" on what the Conference was doing to encourage more women into the field, and so I approached her afterwards to have a chat to tell her about Robogals.

She told me about the impostor syndrome, which is commonly felt by women and especially those in senior positions in academia who don't feel like they deserve their achievements.

As soon as I learnt about it, I knew I had it.

From that day on, I could acknowledge those feelings as the impostor syndrome and rather than let them linger and let them waste my time feeling bad about myself, I could just say to myself, "that's just the impostor syndrome" and discount those feelings.  I now never suffer from the impostor syndrome because I've trained myself not to.

That lesson taught me that we need to talk about these issues and give them light so that women know what they're feeling is ok and that they're not alone.

Knowing about these issues means you can identify when they're coming up and stop them in their place.