For a lot of my childhood, the message was pretty clear.

Don't be too loud.

Don’t be too much.

Don't hurt yourself.

Fit in. Even though we looked and sounded different.

Keep the peace.

My parents weren’t people who talked openly about feelings or emotions either. Difficult

feelings weren’t necessarily explored or given language. They were more often pushed

down, moved past, got on with.

And so, somewhere along the way, I became very good at shrinking.

Not necessarily physically.

But emotionally. Energetically. In the amount of space I allowed myself to occupy.

For a long time, I thought this was simply part of my personality.

I now understand that much of it was learned.

The person I thought I needed to be

That conditioning followed me into my career.

In the early years, I curated myself quite heavily. Pencil skirt, blow-dried bob and heels was

my brand.

I knew how I wanted to be perceived. Professional. Capable. Together. Ambitious, but not

too ambitious. Confident, but not enough to make anyone uncomfortable.

I was working middle-management marketing, so perhaps there is some irony in this.

There were parts of me I softened. Parts I edited. Parts I kept out of the room because I

wasn't convinced they belonged there.

Underneath it was a pretty simple fear:

What happens if I let people see all of me and they decide I'm too much?

I just wanted to belong, but by holding myself back, I never truly did belong. Occasionally, I'd

find my people. The people I'd go for drinks with after work and have a vent about the

matrixed, corporate culture we were in that didn't fit our values system of wanting to speak

up and take action.

We become incredibly sophisticated at reading the room.

We learnt what gets rewarded and receives approval.

And without consciously deciding to, we began constructing an identity around fitting in, so

we'd get the pay rise, promotion or people in our team.

Then something shifts

One of the most interesting things about being in my mid-40s and doing this work is that I am

becoming much less interested in fitting into an existing version of myself.

I'm far more interested in the person I'm becoming. And I'm more comfortable in the person I

am. Less shy about all the parts of myself, including the shadow.

And there's something incredibly liberating about that. Does anyone else resonate?

Lately, I've been a little obsessed with Emma Grede.

Not because I want to be Emma Grede.

But because I find certain qualities in her fascinating.

She's polished and commercially sharp, but what really gets my attention is how

unapologetic she seems to be about her ambition and her capability.

She'll talk about making money.

She'll talk about losing money.

She'll talk about what she's brilliant at.

She talks about how she parents. And for some, her approach would be polarising.

She takes up space without appearing to apologise for occupying it.

And I find myself thinking:

I want more of that.

Not her businesses. Not her life. Not her exact personality.

That quality.

The willingness to own what you are good at.

The permission to be ambitious.

And I've realised there is something important in that.

We can choose who we are becoming

A large part of the work I now do with leaders using NLP is around getting incredibly clear

about the outcome we want. In fact, I do the same with my marketing and PR clients. I ask

people to get crystal clear about the outcome they want for themselves or their business.

Because once you have clarity about where you are going, you can start asking a different

set of questions.

Who do I need to become to create that outcome?

How does that version of me think, and act?

This isn't about pretending to be someone you're not. For me, it's almost the opposite.

It's about deliberately strengthening parts of yourself that may have been pushed down,

discouraged or never given much room to develop.

We do this naturally in other areas of our lives. For example;

We learn leadership by observing leaders.

We learn communication by watching great communicators.

We parent how our parents taught us, or we rebel and do quite the opposite

We learn about relationships by absorbing what we see around us.

So why wouldn't we consciously expose ourselves to people who represent some of the

qualities we want to embody?

Now for the harder part...

It's all fair and well to dress and try on the leader you respect. But changing your

programming, your mindset, thoughts and behaviours is another ballgame.

Listen carefully to the language running through your mind.

I look fat in this. I'm getting old. I'm* not ready. *You're just...

Maybe don't say that. Don't be too much.

If those sentences sound familiar, ask yourself something important:

Whose voice is that?

And is it still serving the person you're becoming?

Our internal language is powerful because when we repeat something often enough, it can

stop sounding like an opinion and start sounding like a fact. They are very often stories or

inherited beliefs.

And both can be rewritten.

The life lesson

Perhaps growing into ourselves isn't about doing or being more. It's about admiring the

person we have become and being less afraid to truly see yourself.

WORDS MATTER

This idea of consciously designing who you're becoming is one of the exercises we'll explore

in my upcoming Words Matter Masterclass.

We'll look at the language and stories running quietly in the background, the way they

influence how we show up, and how we can start creating a clearer internal picture of the

person we want to become.

Because before we can change the way we show up in the world, we need to become aware

of the conversation we're having with ourselves.

Register for Words Matter

A question to sit with

If you weren't worried about being judged, being “too much”, or getting it wrong —

what part of yourself would you allow people to see more of?