How To Stop Hiding From Your Greatness In Business & Life
Just like doctors, need doctors and therapists need someone they can also talk to, so do coaches. I write this blog from a place of transparency to show that we are all on this journey together, not that I have totally attained perfection in the areas that I speak about but to let you in on the process of getting there. To start off this blog about why we don’t step up to take center stage as women in our careers and lives I will bring you behind the curtain on a conversation that I had with a coach maybe it was far back as fifteen years ago. I was driven and ambitious early in my career and I told her all the things I wanted to accomplish but when we got into the meat of the coaching session a few months in she confronted me, and showed me a mirror to myself. She said, you say you want to get ahead but I have noticed that you want the positions and power but you don’t want the responsibility that comes with taking center stage. This is one of the primary reasons we shrink back from our greatness. We may subconsciously not really want the responsibility that comes with taking center stage.
1 We Shrink Because We Don’t Want the Responsibility of Taking Center Stage
This is the first of four points I will make about why brilliant people keep hiding, and playing small instead of taking center stage to own their power and brilliance. We play under the radar because we don’t really want the responsibility that comes with being a big leader. The big folks in social media will say the common things like, you want to be famous but you don’t want to work until 2am and operate on 5 hours sleep for 15 years until you get it. You don’t actually want to pay the price and make you feel bad about practicing healthy self-care. This is not that, I won’t go there, a lot of other more famous people have gone there and it’s all over the internet. I am going to talk about the interpersonal side of taking center stage, this is humility, accountability, and responsibility. To be a servant leader is to be careful of the words that are coming out of our mouths - we can’t just speak out of emotions to the people we lead, and consistenly show frustration, irritation and desperation. We have to come up higher than them - yes we have to be transparent but we have to find the motivation within so that we can inspire when they are feeling down. We have to be willing to be the bigger person and say I am sorry when we inevitably make mistakes. Our impact casts a long shadow figuratively speaking. It means our actions have a long lasting influence over time particularly the bad ones. This is why the mistake of a non manager (aka individual contributor) will typically impact a small group of people, and is mostly unknown versus the mistake of a CEO if a Fortune 500 company will almost certainly have wide impact inside and outside the company and even perhaps globally. Playing Big sounds great, but with it comes a great responsibility that many are either not ready or unwilling to embrace.
2. WE SHRINK BACK BECAUSE OF (FEAR OF FAILURE, REJECTION OR CRITICISM)
When we finally step up to pursue our dreams and go for the goal there will be opposition, and the worse opposition we will ever experience is the ones we have internally. Everyone has insecurities regardless of gender and background, the challenge for women is that because of how we are socialized it is more common for us to have fears around leadership, business and finance because it isn’t something that most of us were raised to prioritize and focus on, and then when we look at those in power around us - not too many of the biggest leaders look like us even now in 2020. We don’t naturally have an abundance of places from which to pull inspiration BUT inspiration IS there nevertheless, however, I digressed :) Due to these internal insecurities that we have we will shrink back from stepping up because we are afraid of the shame that comes from failing publicly, being rejected if we put our names in the hat or being criticized and dragged as it seems to be the favorite pastime of people who are up to nothing in their lives but find pleasure in pulling others down as they sit in the sidelines watching. I have talked at length over and over about fear in my previous blogs and youtube videos so I won’t go into depth on this topic again here. My primary intention is just to remind you of the big role that fear can play in limiting your advancement, if you let it. Check out some of the previous blogs on this topic: Overcome Fear (How To Overcome Self Doubt In Business Part 3) or How To Overcome Your Fear of Criticism (Why We Shrink Part 1).
3. We shrink because we don't think we are strong enough to handle the challenges
I haven’t read a lot about this reason why we shrink, but I know from personal experience and from working with hundreds of women that this is a big one. We shrink because we don’t think we are strong enough to handle the challenges ahead. There is disappointment, and pain and stress that we know will come when we pursue our heart’s desires for more. We have lived long enough to know that with every opportunity will come opposition, so we talk ourselves out of reaching for the stars figuratively speaking because we don’t think we have what it takes to deal with the adversity and difficulties. You are stronger than you think, stronger than you give yourself credit for. There are so so so many obstacles you have handled that have gotten you this far but you don’t realize it because you haven’t taken the time to recognize it and give yourself credit for it. Sometimes we don’t know how strong we are until we are in a situation and we never get in the situation to prove our strength because we keep shrinking back. The other thing we need to stop doing is recognizing that strength doesn’t mean we are perfect or will do things perfectly, we can imperfectly move forward. We can move forward imperfectly and win even while having moments of weakness. It is all a part of the journey of daring to break through our limits.
4. We shrink because we are afraid of ruffling the feathers
Some leaders know the right thing that they should be doing to represent their direct reports. They know that they need to challenge and speak up against the status quo, but they are afraid to rock the boat. They want to get along so they go along with inappropriate procedures or unbalanced decisions. The problem is that the peaceful relationships that they are fighting to maintain are not truly peaceful because there are underlying, unaddressed problems going on and not only do they know it but the other party knows it as well. This is fake peace. There is an underlying unaddressed conflict that is latent, the symptoms of which not yet manifest but one day it will manifest itself. It can be addressed proactively in a healthy way or it can just lay there under the surface until a triggering event comes and everything blows up. True leaders will decide to proactively and healthily ruffle the feathers by speaking about and attempting the resolve the underlying problem(s) or they will become subject to the blow up when an unexpected triggering event happens to bring it inconveniently to the surface. Many of these leaders are so grateful that they have a seat at the table that they are too afraid to challenge the table and in effect, waste their important opportunity because what they don't realize if they don't advocate, who will?
So what does this ruffling the feathers have to do with us? Maybe we see the problem and can clearly see a solution to it, but again instead of stepping up and putting our name in the hat to take on the challenge (through applying for a role/project lead), we just put our heads down and make excuses like I’m not ready for that kind of role, I’m not an extrovert or I don’t like conflict - when we know deep down that there is a unique opportunity sitting in front of us that we are specially equipped to take on.
Not sure if you are shrinking/hiding from your greatness? Here are some clues.
Symptoms of shrinking
1. You are making excuses
You know your heart is pulling you towards doing something but you keep making excuses on why you can't start (no experience, no money, no time, don't have the support). What if you were just lying to yourself and really these were excuses motivated by fear?
2. You are procrastinating
Keep saying you will do it tomorrow and tomorrow never becomes today. Could this just be a sabotage mechanism motivated by fear?
I know of ONLY two ways that people finally DECIDE to step up!
THEY ARE:
1 When their desire for the OUTCOME/RESULT is greater than their desire for comfort OR safety (build a burning desire!).
OR
2. Until the pain of staying in the same position (DOING NOTHING) is greater than your perceived pain of stepping out - then you won't move.
It's like I knew that for over 3 years, I needed to work on my health, I knew I needed to manage my stress and I knew I needed to lose some weight. I just kept saying to myself, yes I will do this tomorrow until I had a health scare that literally frightened me into action. I loved the ice cream, and chips and cake too much I couldn't think of quitting until the pain. That event helped me to move my tomorrow to today! Have you ever had a similar experience when you procrastinated or made excuses until something jolted you into action? Maybe you reach a milestone age (30, 40, 50+), or became a parent that made you decide, the time is now!! :)
Which one of these will be your motivation to come out of hiding?
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