WHY PUTTING YOURSELF OUT THERE FEELS A BIT LIKE DYING

Dramatic title? Yes.

A really true feeling for so many women? Absolutely.

What is it about putting our ideas, businesses, products or thoughts out there that is so incredibly terrifying?

I know I’m not alone in recognising this because I talk to women every. single. day. who are more afraid of telling people about their work or ideas than they are of most other things.

I have a few thoughts on why this is so that I think will help us understand what this is all about and why we need to find tools to move past it.

1) OUR BRAINS ARE WIRED FOR SAFETY.

This is just the science. The same part of our brain that becomes alert to any kind of physical risk is the same part of our brain that becomes alert when we decide to move towards something that might expose us to emotional risk. When we contemplate pursuing a new thing, offering a new service, creating something we have never done before or telling people about what we have to offer, that part of our brain perks up.

It tells us that we are approaching territory that is unknown and therefore surmises that it is unsafe for us. It creates adrenaline and releases it and other chemicals into our bodies that we recognise as feelings associated with fear. The challenge here is that we need this part of our brain to work for times when we are actually at risk; when we are not safe or when we see something happening that tells us to fight, flight or freeze.

We don’t, however, always need that safety mechanism in our brain to kick into full gear when it comes to putting ourselves out there. We need to develop tools to sooth our brain to recognise this vulnerability we are feeling as a passage to potential fulfilment. Our brains primarily just want to keep us safe. They aren’t interested in our fulfilment or satisfaction.

2) THE WIDER NARRATIVE IS OFTEN NEGATIVE.

Putting yourself out there with your work or ideas is brave, there is no doubt. But bravery, when it comes to women, is still not recognised in the same way as it is with men. All across our media, the messages we are picking up about women who put their head above the parapet are conflating and charged. We see women picked apart in every area of life: Doing great work? Must not be a distracted mother or partner. Speaking up about something important? Must be a pushy bitch or aggressive. Staying at home with her kids? Must be boring or not have ambition. And so it goes. This wider narrative can make us feel at great risk, catastrophising the outcomes of putting ourselves out there because of what we see and hear.

It’s hard not to internalise all of these narratives because they are all around us. No wonder we hide or hesitate when it comes to sharing about what we are good at or what we might have to bring to the table! We need to blow up the stereotypes for each other and take control of the narratives for ourselves - calling them out, encouraging other women who are holding themselves out there bravely.

3) LIKEABILITY HAS BEEN OUR CURRENCY.

For centuries, our main currency as women has been likeability. When we couldn’t get access to financial autonomy, or votes, or jobs, we had to rely on being likeable to get by. Stay small and quiet and compliant and likeable and you’ll be fine. You’ll survive.

We have outgrown those confines now, but this likeability hangover is real. When likability has been the main way that women have navigated the world for such a long time to stay safe, it’s really hard to imagine risking that by putting yourself out there for other people’s opinions to be formed of you. But in order to do good, true, honest work, we have to release that risk. I can promise you that not everyone is going to like what you do and I can also promise you that you will survive that.

Our desire to be likeable at all costs – even the cost of our own fulfilment will be a real, visceral feeling that we have to try and override if we want to put our work, our solutions, our thinking and ideas into the world.

Our job is to update some of these stories so they don’t continue to hold us back. Update them by finding the tools to soothe our brains when we feel the fear responses kicking in, to blow up the narratives that try to undermine or pigeon hole us and understand that not everyone is going to like us or what we do and that that is ultimately OK.

How do you feel about putting yourself out there with what you have to offer? Do you relate to any of this? I have a great FREE resource for helping you build that toolkit to move through fear - you can grab it here.

3 SIGNS YOU MIGHT NEED TO SET SOME BOUNDARIES

Last year I made a promise to myself that I would not show up on social media unless I had something valuable to offer and was willing to give my time to responding and engaging with people about whatever it was I was sharing. (Those that witnessed my incredibly valuable utensil hack from last week on Instagram stories can attest to that. I jest).

Truthfully, I had begun to sense a real urgency cropping up within myself to always be present, to make sure I replied to everyone, to make sure my work, ideas or offers were visible and it was making me weary and resentful. There was an uneasy ‘hustle’ mentality creeping in and slowing contending for my peace.

There are plenty of business gurus out there that will give you information about how to build your audience, grow your business and be seen and heard. The information that is often lacking from these programmes, tips and hacks is how to do that and protect ourselves from burn out or blurry boundaries and it feels a bit irresponsible not to address it.

Boundaries are not sexy business talk. It is not the hot-topic-content that gets all the clicks and shares. Maybe that’s because all around us we are being sold quick fix solutions to what is actually really deep inner work. There is no cheat-sheet-freebie-offer for creating healthy boundaries, yet this is the foundation of a great, fulfilling, sustainable business and life.

When we are hopping around from thing to thing, saying yes to everyone, sharing all the details of our lives and being available for everyone, it is so easy to be distracted, drawn into things that don’t serve us and build a business or life on what we think we should be doing rather than what we know intuitively we really want to create and do.  

Since drawing that line for myself last year, I have noticed some significant changes: my follower count on Instagram is neither growing, nor is it important to me anymore. I am way less distracted by what other people are doing and way more sure of what I really want to say. I am attracting the kind of people to my work that I *really* love to work and collaborate with. I am much more at ease with the ebb and flow of my work. I am fixated on offering value and authenticity rather than what I think will get the most attention. And I know this is because I began to draw a line.

I know this isn’t something that just I struggle with (please know this is not something that is fixed for me; I need to check in with myself all of the time), because I work with women every day and I see and hear that this is common. Our boundaries are down the priority list and it shows in so many ways; in our mental health, in our bodies, in our relationships.

I want to offer three signs that might indicate your boundaries need to be updated to help you feel more at ease in your work and life; not to make you feel guilty or ashamed, but to offer you the opportunity to update these boundaries so that you can operate in a way that actually sustains the things that you really want to do in a way that feels true to you.

SIGN NUMBER 1: OVERSHARING

In this access-all-areas society, where we can glimpse into each others lives and peek behind the scenes at any given time, there is a real temptation to overshare.

What I mean by this is that sometimes our desire for connection can cause us to slip into sharing what is raw, rather than what is real. This culture of baring all because we know it will bring a reaction or a response is often rooted in a dependency of reaction and response from others. This is false intimacy, guised as vulnerability and confuses the importance of boundaries.

Sometimes, sharing what is raw can further compound what is going on for us; loneliness, jealousy, anger, resentment – and there’s never any certainty that we are going to get the response that we desire from what we share. Our rawness with people that don’t know us and the different nuances in our life can further our pain when their response (or lack of) doesn’t live up to our expectations.

Sharing what is real is different; it is sharing from a place of healing or a desire to connect because we know our own truth is likely to be helpful for others. We know we can share what is real when we have come to a place where other peoples responses to what we share aren’t critical to how we feel about it. We don’t owe anyone our vulnerability or an inside scoop. That is an honour that should be earned in relationships.

If we are oversharing or are revealing things about ourselves because of a dependency on praise or to rally the reactions of others, an update to boundaries might be needed.

SIGN NUMBER 2: ALWAYS BEING AVAILABLE

I don’t think there has ever been a point in history where humans have been more accessible to each other. At any given moment, there are no less than 10 ways that people can contact or invite interaction with us (comments, whatsapps, DM’s, email, phone, text, slack etc). Of course, this is an incredible gift! We can Facetime our friends in any country and we can attract and do business with people all over the world.

What is tricky about this is that our ability to be available is overwhelming us - quickly. If people are able to contact you any time of the day or night for your help, advice or service, they will. If we have not set clear parameters for when we are available and when we are not, we cannot expect other people to respect us. If we have not made it clear when we are off-duty or unavailable, this is not on other people to navigate, it’s on us. A sure sign of needing to update our boundaries is being overwhelmed with DM’s, facebook messages, emails, What’sApp groups and voicemails. Nobody can keep up with the speed of the communication train at this rate and it is burning us right out.

Being able to draw lines around when you will and will not be able to connect or engage is something only you can do and doing so is an invitation for respecting and preserving yourself and the attention you want to give to the most important things in your life.

SIGN NUMBER 3: SCARCITY + SAYING YES

I relate to this one really hard. I am a doer. I find it hard to not want to throw myself into all the things that look good, sound good and are shiny and new. I like people to like me and to be involved in #allthethings.  And I know I’m not the only one.

One of the things that has always been a big indicator to me that my boundaries have slipped into people pleasing is when I have said yes to doing something and then that thing comes around and everything within me wants to back out. And then I tell myself that I’m flaky for wanting to back out. Relate?

What’s behind this behaviour pattern is a sense of scarcity; both relational (if I don’t take them up on this, they may see me as cold/unlikeable) and maybe financial or positional scarcity (if I don’t say yes to this, I might miss out on the money, the exposure (!) or the opportunity may not come around again). Scarcity mentality is simply not trusting ourselves.

When we say yes to things that are outside of our lane, our own path and put other peoples’ requests of us ahead of the plans we have made for ourselves, we are saying that these things might be better than our own ideas and plans for ourselves. Saying yes when we mean no indicates that we don’t trust that what we really want to do is best.

We can break this pattern by cultivating more trust in our own ideas, our own plans; believing that they will hold up and bring us to the right things when the time is right.

If you are connecting with any of these signs, you are not defective - you are in good company! I’ve had dozens of conversations recently with brilliant women who know they need to update their boundaries for the sake of their sanity and you can too.

WHY JEALOUSY, COMPARISON + DISCOMFORT IS A GIFT

This happens to all of us. None of us are immune to these three things. Jealousy, Comparison and Discomfort. 

• You see someone doing something really well, stepping out, showing up or taking steps towards something exciting and it stings. You question their motives, pick holes in their methods, inwardly (or maybe outwardly) have a pop at their action. Jealousy.

• You watch as someone launches a new thing that is really similar to your idea. You agonise over what they are doing because they are doing it in ways you hadn’t thought of or with seemingly more ease or traction. You follow closely, weigh up how your version of that thing isn’t as good or executed as well, sinking into feelings of being an imposter or worthlessness. Comparison.

• You brew an idea for something, let it simmer and realise all the work that is ahead of you to make it happen. You maybe mention it to a few people, don’t get the responses you wanted and that sense of failure hangs close. You shut things down before you even begin. Discomfort.

But what if these three feelings don’t have to be enveloped in pain? What if they are guiding markers, leading us towards understanding something really true about ourselves?

I want to flip the idea that jealousy, comparison and discomfort are feelings that we should go into battle with and show how, if we frame them just a little differently, they can give us some solid information and motivation that will propel us into action instead of hiding and shutting ourselves away.

Here are three reasons why we should capture these feelings and lean into them a little more:

1)    THEY POINTS OUT TO US THE THINGS THAT ARE REALLY PRECIOUS TO US.

What if instead of being frustrated or annoyed by jealousy or comparison we took information from it? What if we could loosen the power of these feelings over us by activating our curiosity.

When those feelings arise, instead of fanning them into full flame, what we can do is tune our mind to slow down and be curious about what our reaction or response is telling us.

“I’m having a strong reaction to this situation or person – I wonder what it is about it that is bringing up these feelings for me”.

Our brains are wired to get answers quickly and often we repeat patterns that we have learned over the years that are unhelpful to us in a bid to rationalise our way out of discomfort.

If we activate curiosity instead, we can actually learn some incredible truths about ourselves in the situation. What we can do is harness the feeling of comparison or jealousy to unlock some deeper stuff that is probably going on for us and use it as fuel to move ahead instead of throwing the towel in or getting competitive and frantic.

Feelings of comparison are actually really useful and can reveal for us some of our deepest desires.

INSTEAD OF THIS:

“Oh – every time I hear about that person speaking at events it makes me feel really behind. She is everywhere.”

ACTIVATE CURIOUS THINKING:

“When I hear of people getting opportunities to speak at events it sparks something in me that might lead me to think that I would quite like to do that. I wonder how I can connect with people to see if that could be an opportunity for me”.

 Do you hear the difference in the tone? Curiosity opens us up to possibilities instead of allowing old patterns of how we manage comparison and jealousy to steal our joy.

2)    THEY CAN SHOW US THE POTENTIAL AVAILABLE TO US.

When we view jealousy, comparison and discomfort as a gift, rather than something to banish, we can allow ourselves to see the potential for movement.

There are so many temptations around us in patriarchal culture that try to usher us into the mindset of scarcity and not-enoughness. There are not enough customers, not enough ears that will listen, not enough time to do something different, not enough space for me to bring the thing I really want to to life.

This BS messaging keeps us small.

What if we saw women who are putting themselves out there as allies instead of competition? What if you saw someone doing something that you would love to do and instead of feeling like you’ve missed the boat you could think “that is inspiring and if she can do it, why not me too?”.

Staying in discomfort, jealousy and comparison reinforces a culture of scarcity and pits women against each other instead of seeing it as a window from which we can view what is possible for us as well.

The next time you have those feelings come up, practice this updated way of thinking and do one small thing that will move you towards the idea you have – it will serve you so much better than rolling around in the pain of scarcity and inaction.

3)    THEY ARE ALERTING US THAT SOMETHING SIGNIFICANT IS ABOUT TO HAPPEN.

When jealousy, comparison and discomfort hit, you can be sure that you are on the precipice of moving towards something significant for you.

Our brains are wired to alert us when we are inching towards unknown territory or putting ourselves out there in a way that might make us vulnerable. It will use jealousy, comparison and discomfort to try and tug you back into that place of safety and comfort. You don’t have to let it.

My friends, this is not where you are made to stay. Comfort zones are rarely comfortable. They are there for when we need healing and deeper restoration, but not for when we want to take steps towards the things that feel really true and freeing for us.

I urge you today to look at how you’ve been handling feelings of jealousy, comparison and discomfort and see if you can give yourself permission to learn from them and lean into the powerful information you can gain from framing those experiences differently.

NEWSFLASH: THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS CONFIDENCE

No, this isn’t clickbait, I promise.

I have genuinely come to this conclusion:

There is no such thing as confidence.

For such a long time I bought into the idea that confidence is something that you can build or grow or develop. Now I’m not so sure.

There’s something that rattles me about the idea of “being confident” that I wasn’t able to pinpoint for ages. It felt like, particularly for women, that word was everywhere - orbiting around us on magazine stands and by-lines; pointing out what was missing: 

“12 Steps to More Confidence”

“Why Confidence is Your Biggest Career Asset”

“The Confidence Gap & How to Close It”

“The Key to Building Your Brand: Confidence”

It all sounds compelling.

“Of course! That’s what I need: more confidence.”

“When I get more of that, then I’ll be able to do the things that feel stretchy; then I’ll be able to put myself forward or share my ideas or step out of my comfort zone.”

Pursuit of confidence has become this holy grail achievement for women of the world who are interested in offering more.

But what if it’s not the holy grail?

What if confidence is simply not ‘a thing’?

What if it’s a myth that has us circling around and around and never actually taking any action because the markers for confidence are really murky? How will I know if I’m confident? What does it feel like to be confident? At what level of confidence will I be ready for X Y or Z? Who knows? It’s all a bit illusive.

I’ve done a great deal of research and observing on this and I want to offer a few more reasons that build on this idea:

 1)    EVERYONE YOU ADMIRE IS DOING THEIR WORK A LITTLE BIT AFRAID AND WITHOUT ANY CERTAINTY.

I have worked with many incredible women doing brilliant things in the world. I have built charity projects and a business of my own from scratch. What I can attest to is this: in every circumstance where there is a high risk of vulnerability, criticism or rejection - fear and self-doubt is rife. When I think of the women that I admire, I have been relieved to hear them speak to their own self-doubt and how they still struggle with feelings of being an imposter in their work. There isn’t a thought leader or innovator that you look up to who is immune to this and there isn’t a thought leader or innovator out there that isn’t putting themselves and their work out there with any concrete assurance that what they do next is going to connect or have traction.

We have to do things scared.

What is significant is that it’s only through the process of trying, sometimes failing and processing the learning that we develop resilience and wisdom to build our capabilities and way forward.

The way I see it is that instead of pursuing this illusive confidence in our ideas or abilities -  what is more human, more natural, more self-supportive is to understand how to manage and create a healthy relationship with our fears and self-doubt, because they are not going away.

2)    THE ONLY WAY THROUGH IS THROUGH. AND THEN THROUGH AGAIN.

If only we could escape our self-doubt or feelings of inadequacy, right? If only there was a magic formula that we could ignite when we needed to display confidence in our abilities or activate self-belief.

The reality is that the only way through this stuff is through. And then through again.

Because how we build capacity as humans, how we learn, how we grow and develop is not by bypassing feelings of self doubt, but by moving through them. Once we realise that self-doubt is universal and that fear is our brains way of trying to keep us safe from emotional risks, we can show up for ourselves with more empathy and resolve to give things a go.

This isn’t a linear process. We don’t learn about our self-doubt once and have it mastered. Understanding and managing self-doubt (which will show up in a bunch of different ways throughout our lifetime) is a life-long journey and a muscle that we have to chose to build by deciding that it’s worth moving towards things that feel most true to us, even if certainty of an outcome is not available.

3)    THE PURSUIT OF CONFIDENCE ACTUALLY KEEPS WOMEN SMALLER, FOR LONGER.

Like any message we absorb in our culture, there are some particular patriarchal benefits to this idea of pushing women towards this confidence myth.

If women are taken up in the pursuit of mythical confidence and don’t learn the unsexy but important work of managing self-doubt and uncertainty then they will remain distracted, deflated, left-out and will likely give up on the things that they truly want to do.

It serves the capitalistic society that dominates all that we do if we as women chase the unattainable under the false pretence of confidence mastery. It keeps us busy, burnt out, concerned with other peoples’ opinions rather than working through our fears and finding ways to embrace how self-doubt shows up. There is real power and autonomy available for women who are able to dismantle their limiting beliefs and do the brave work of updating them.