On comparing yourself and what to do instead

admim — Sat, 30 May 2026 13:36:53 GMT

I used to walk into every room already apologising for taking up space. Then one day — a completely ordinary Tuesday — I decided to just... stop. What happened next surprised me more than anything.

For years I told myself that playing small was a form of humility. That staying quiet in meetings, deflecting compliments, and shrinking my ambitions to fit other people's comfort zones was somehow gracious. It wasn't. It was fear wearing a polite face.

The turning point wasn't dramatic. No single moment of lightning-bolt clarity. It was just a morning where I read back through my own journal and barely recognised the person writing it — someone constantly minimising herself, constantly making herself smaller, constantly asking for permission to exist fully.

What actually changed

The first thing I did was stop over-explaining myself. Not cold or dismissive — just clean. "I disagree" instead of "I might be wrong but..." "I can't do that" instead of a paragraph of apology. Small language shifts that started feeling enormous within weeks.

You are not responsible for making other people comfortable with how much space you take up.

I also started noticing who in my life made me feel like I needed to earn the right to exist fully. That was a harder audit. Some of those relationships got restructured. Some ended. And the grief of that was real — but so was the relief.

The version of me that walks into rooms differently now. Shot by [photographer].

What it meant for my business

Here's what nobody tells you: playing small is expensive. Not metaphorically — actually expensive. I had been undercharging for years. I had been deferring to clients who respected me less because I'd trained them to. I had been saying yes to projects that drained me because I didn't trust that better ones would come.

Within six months of changing my posture — literally and figuratively — my average project value went up. The right clients started finding me because I was no longer making myself invisible to them.

Want the full breakdown of how I restructured my client process? I wrote about it exclusively in the newsletter.

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The personal stuff, honestly

This part is harder to write. The personal toll of years of self-minimising isn't something that reverses in a Tuesday morning decision. It's slow. Some days I still catch myself defaulting to the smaller version. But I notice it now. And noticing is everything.

If you're reading this and recognising yourself in any of it — I see you. And I want you to know that the discomfort of taking up more space is temporary. The alternative is permanent.

Three things that helped me most

Journalling specifically about where I'd shrunk myself that day — not to punish, just to see patterns
Finding one person in my life who'd never seen me small and spending more time with them
Reading back through old client emails and spotting the over-apologising language I'd normalised

None of this is revolutionary. But it was revolutionary for me.

My morning routine that actually stuck

admim — Sat, 23 May 2026 20:47:51 GMT

After years of failed attempts, I finally built a morning that feels like mine.

The year I stopped playing small — and what happened next

admim — Sat, 23 May 2026 20:45:01 GMT

I used to shrink myself in every room I entered. Then one day I decided to just... not.