Are you hiding your light under a bushel? Do you feel like a catherine wheel that’s never been taken out of its plastic wrapping and is sitting in a box somewhere in someone’s attic?
I write this in the UK on the day leading up to Guy Fawkes Night, when the sky comes alive with explosive beauty and colour, and normally quiet residential streets resound with a fizzing cacophony of bangs and booms. It reminded me of how someone on our Careershifters Launch Pad course reported a couple of weeks ago how she was, at that point in the process, particularly resonating with the lyrics of the Katy Perry song Firework:
Cause baby you're a firework
Come on show 'em what your worth
Make 'em go "Oh, oh, oh!"
As you shoot across the sky-y-y
I’m not a Perry fan but I like the sentiment – coaxing us out of the shadows, out of our safe little boxes, and letting our colours burst into the night sky with the true, fabulous expression of our best possible selves.
And yet, we don’t often give ourselves the chance to feel like one of those big bangers. Too often, we remain small, safely packed away, avoiding opportunities to really be lit up and let loose upon the world.
We push away our desire for creative expression, leave an application for our dream job unfinished, pass up the opportunity to ask out the person we fancy – all because we are afraid of being seen, and with that, possibly being laughed at or rejected.
Why we avoid putting ourselves out there
In many ways, this is completely natural and an ancient survival tactic that we’ve inherited from our hunter gatherer ancestors, for whom attracting potentially negative attention would have meant the difference between life and death. Fearing possible ostracism from the social group, it made evolutionary sense to stay unnoticed. This self-protective instinct may be why public speaking is the most commonly cited in surveys of people’s greatest fears – cropping up more frequently even than a fear of death!
If we don’t put ourselves out there, we avoid any potential negative reaction. The trouble is, we also deny ourselves the possible positive consequences of being seen. We remain unseen and under-utilised, living a ‘half-life’ where we are protected at the expense of being truly fulfilled.
A rocket in a box.
Why we need to come out of the box
This isn’t about necessarily signing up to give a TED talk or publishing a video blog on Youtube (although if that’s your secret dream then go for it! Start today!).
What it IS about is owning who you really are: showing up to life in the fullest expression of you and your values without editing yourself to be more palatable to others, standing up for what you believe in, starting the projects and going for the opportunities that excite you without worrying about the possible reaction from others.
When you allow yourself to burst out of that box, when you send that email / post the blog article / approach the person who makes you nervous, you allow for new experiences and unexpected possibilities.
When you do this, you allow yourself the chance to be joyfully surprised by what ensues – for serendipitous encounters and new inspiration and ideas. You can feel like you’re fully living your life, rather than hiding away in your comfort zone.
Moreover, when you allow yourself to ‘be seen’, you also give others the permission to do the same. Think of the #MeToo movement, and how a few women’s brave openness and authenticity opened the doors for so many others to speak out.
How to be seen
Feel the fear and do it anyway – it’s a bit of a cliché, but this really is about sensing into those awkward feelings and taking action regardless. The icky, wrenching feeling in your stomach may (to our evolutionary brains) feel like a sign to turn back and run a mile, but actually it’s often the very opposite. Feeling uncomfortable means we’re no longer in our comfort zones – and that’s where the magic happens!
Take baby steps - Having said that, this isn’t about torturing yourself. The key is to move to the fringes of your comfort zone – what some call the “stretch zone”. So if you’re afraid of reaching out to people for help with your career change (see my earlier post on the benefits of this), you could start with the people you know and trust if that feels easier, before moving on to strangers. If you DO want to start a video blog, why not have a go at one post, keep it private and show it to a friend for feedback before you publish it.
Allow yourself to be vulnerable – Brene Brown has done groundbreaking research on the power of vulnerability and about how taking risks and allowing ourselves to be truly seen by others has huge benefits for our lives. It isn’t easy when we’re wracked by self-critical thoughts and fears, but when we can be real and let go of perfectionism, this is where true courage lies and also the potential for more authentic connection with others.
Recognise that it’s not about being arrogant or a ‘show off’ – We’re especially guilty of this in the UK I think, where being “full of yourself” is a major social faux-par. And yet our constant need to be self-effacing and humble can mean we go too far and are unwilling to raise our heads above the parapet. We fear being judged as conceited, when actually we are probably erring too far the other way. Susan Cain, Author of Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking, has a helpful distinction for those who feel like this, advising seeing posting on social media, for example, as “Self-expression not self-promotion”.
So what are you waiting for? It’s time to spark up that firework of yours and let your true, beautiful self light up the sky like a rocket. Send the email, publish the blog, contact the person you’ve been too scared to approach, or just go into work tomorrow feeling a little bit more YOU, wearing what you want to and unafraid to talk about what matters or to ask for what you want.
I’ll leave you with a quote by Brene Brown:
“Vulnerability is terrifying and it’s dangerous and scary, and the only guarantee I can give you is it’s not as terrifying or as dangerous or scary as getting to the end of our lives and having to ask ourselves, what if I would have shown up?”
I’m soon going to be facing my own fears of ‘putting myself out there’ and starting a regular bulletin collating all of the ideas and insight I’m collecting around work happiness and career change. I’ll only send one newsletter per month (max!) so it won’t clog up your inbox, but means you’ll keep up to date with the latest articles.
If you’d like to be added to the list, just pop your email address in here, and I’ll look forward to connecting with you.
Photo by Roven Images on Unsplash