Stop Making Yourself Small to Fit In
Why The Kind and Empathetic Need Assertiveness
To all fellow doormats: it’s time to stop playing small.
It doesn’t help you. It doesn’t help others. And it certainly doesn’t help us to get to the truth of any matter.
The company I work for once asked the Executives to give one piece of advise to all the people. The one that stood out to me was also the shortest - it simply said:
'back yourself'.
That! I say now. I used to think differently.
Why we play small
I used to think that assertiveness is selfish, or worse: unkind. I was much more comfortable playing small, being taken advantage of, letting others run all over me.
It’s always been easier for me to sense the needs of others than my own. As a woman who feels others more than myself, empathetic and agreeable, I struggle to know where 'I' end and 'You' begin. I thought that any form of opposition, competition or negotiation was essentially mean.
It is not.
It is how we see eye-to-eye, as individuals. It is how we stand up for things. In the Executive suite, saying 'yes' to everything is a sure way to signal that you have no thoughts to contribute and aren’t gonna stand up for anything. Radical candor is an essential indicator of good leadership.
Never saying 'no' to anything, or challenging anything, or decisively suggesting anything isn’t kind - it’s weak.
And weakness is not a virtue. Being assertive with the option to choose kindness is a virtue. From observing myself, as well as a swath of 'nice guys' I’ve dated - weakness has the ugly tendency to turn into bitterness and resentment.
If you abandon yourself, nobody in this world can safe you - or even see you for who you are and what you need.
The types of people you want in your life, the ones that have something to give and are willing to invest, don’t want you to sell yourself short.
They don’t want your pity either.
They aren’t going to like you more for selling yourself under value.
Do you think people value things that come cheap?
In my experience, they don’t. If you don’t believe me, give something away for free on marketplace and see if people show up on time.
People who want to love, respect and admire you will explore your boundaries, secretly seeking the point at which you challenge them - to grow, to attempt something difficult, to excel.
I remember once in a bar, in my late teens, a guy friend grabbed my shoulders, pushed my back against a wall and with the most serious expression any bleary-eyed drunk could ever manage urged:
'please stop selling yourself under value'.
He meant all my awful part-time jobs and dating a guy who didn't make an honest effort at anything.
The delivery was questionable but this was nonetheless the best piece of advise anybody has given me in all my teens.
The fact that it came from a drunk teenage boy says a lot about the state of our education system but unfortunately, even this raw diamond of life coaching didn’t elaborate on the obvious next question:
How?
How to stop selling yourself under value and take up your space - if this feels like the least natural thing in the world?
If you carry the type of trauma that leads you to the believe that you are worthless, or if you feel guilty for who you are - chanting fluffy phrases like I’m one person's worth will do very little.
It is much better to change your actions. Once you act like you are worthy, for long enough, you start to believe it.
Not the other way around.
Here is what you could try:
Learn selling. Use a job to learn sales. Or sell little things on marketplaces. Then sell bigger things. Negotiate each time.
Explore your unique strengths and unfair advantages and lean into them. Detract as much focus as possible from areas of weakness and double down on your strengths, even if these aren’t mainstream.
Review your money beliefs. Many times, playing small stems from a zero sum mentality, the believe that you can only 'gain' something by taking things away from somebody else. In reality, good deals end in a positive sum (win/win) situation.
Try to put yourself into situations where you have contact with assertive people. Confident, proactive and intentional people that are not afraid to say ‘no’. This may mean paying for a mastermind or finding a mentor. You could also listen to business podcasts that interview senior leaders. Observe how these people think.
Forget about confidence. Move out of the comfort zone and forward, no matter how insecure you feel. Don't wait around for confidence, act without it and confidence will come. To understand this better, you can look up some public figures and watch interviews in which they talk about their own struggles with confidence.
Learn persuasive writing - writing that changes the way people think. Copy the best digital writers.
Learn to speak well. Capture and hold people's attention without PowerPoint. Copy the best public speakers.
Initiate and pursue little goals with authority figures in your life. Negotiate a referral with your doctor. Send your boss an agenda for your 1:1 meeting. Ask your in-laws to change the way you handle gift giving at Christmas.
Dress like you would dress if you thought highly of yourself. Same for your hairstyle.
Become aware of your body language and take up your space.
Write bold applications and go to job interviews when you don’t need a job. Observe how they are trying to win you over and sell the new job to you. Approach it with a relaxed mindset, have fun, and grab some free treats.