Do we minimise our own ambition?

The sentence that's been keeping us small

Hi from me on a Tuesday, very unusual, I know. Life has been very busy lately. The kids’ holiday is around the corner, the preparations for our travels are in full swing, and the invisible force of expectation to deliver consistently across all parts of my life. I feel like lately I have been dropping a lot of balls, but I guess the key is in the art of knowing which ones are bouncy.

Last Friday, a friend and I joined a class designed to activate the parasympathetic nervous system. It was an absolute dream.

So this week, I just want to share my thoughts from the past week, and I hope it sparks something within you too.

Have you ever used minimized language while talking about your ambition?

Because I have definitely said stuff like, “Oh, it’s just a little project.” “I’m just playing around with it”. “It is nothing serious yet”. I now realize that they contribute to a language that contributes to the behaviour that has kept me small. I think it isn’t to fuel the need to convince others that our dreams are worth something, instead, the realization is that while we are interacting with others, we are also stashing our words about ourselves inside of us.

I think that observing the language that we use when we speak about our ambitions can be so insightful. I find it even more insightful to find out where it comes from.

The way ambition in women gets read as threatening or selfish, or as in contrast to being a good mother, partner, or friend. Because something that I have also noticed in myself is that I proactively shrink myself so that no one else has to do it for me, and while I thought that this was me trying to stay under the radar, in fact it was me shrinking myself into a corner.

I think I might, once I'm rested, write a longer piece on this, as there is a lot to unpack here.

I think a lot of us hold back from being vocal about our ambition because of the fear of being perceived as arrogant or too full of ourselves. Especially if you are not used to being vocal. Because being hyped and excited about yourself is something that should be the norm, not occasionally tailored to who is in the room.

And this also goes for me. For a long time I wanted to hide behind Orange & Kin, and a few weeks ago I made the decision to shift myself to the centre of it all. To share my thoughts, my opinions, my fears, and most of all to be vocal about my ambitions, the direction where I am aspiring to build towards. And that shift has done so much for me.

I read and see others talking a lot about “giving yourself permission”, because that is one thing. However, I feel like it goes a layer beyond that; coming forward with the ambition while keeping the size intact is the second part of it.

That is exactly what I will be focusing on this season.

Love,

Romy