Your Mighty Pep Talk

Most women would rather downplay their accomplishments than talk about them, according to research that I helped to lead.

What’s more, over 40 percent of us would rather clean the bathroom than talk about ourselves in front of a room full of people.

This is understandable — but it’s not ok. We need to change this status quo.

We’re conditioned by thousands of years of patriarchy to keep ourselves small. We think it’s gracious to lift up other women, and egocentric to talk about our own ideas and experiences. But no matter your title or status or the size of your paycheck, you have a unique vantage point, perspective, and voice. And when you dare to express yourself authentically, consistently, and publicly, you never know how much it might mean to even just one other woman. In fact, it just might change her life — giving her courage, equipping her with information that helps her overcome roadblocks, and expanding her sense of what’s possible.

Heck, that “one woman” might even be your future self. And I bet she’ll thank you for the groundwork you laid, for the ways in which you beamed yourself out into the world, attracting opportunities she might never have thought to pursue.

A profound gift to Future You

Let’s say your name is Tina. (Hi, Tina.) Tina of Today might think, “Eh, I’m happy enough at work, I’ve got too much else to do”; she might let her LinkedIn profile grow stale, and go for months without engaging with other people’s content online.

On the one hand, good for Tina, right? We’re all busy and have a profound need for rest. But don’t be so quick to label her online inactivity as #selfcare. Because what happens when, six months from now, Tina gets a shitty new boss who makes her life hell, or slowly realizes that she’s outgrown her role or is otherwise dissatisfied? The thought of “the old slog” approach to job searching is paralyzing. She doesn’t know where to start. She gets stuck.

This is why so many people end up staying in jobs they don’t like, or in toxic environments, well past their expiration dates. It doesn’t have to be this way.

What if, instead, Tina set up a recurring calendar appointment for just 15 minutes every weekday to check in on LinkedIn, for example? To make sure her profile was current, to see what people in her network were saying, to read and comment and like and, yes, add some of her own ideas to the mix, too?

Then, when she’s ready to look for a new job, the scaffolding is there. Her LinkedIn connections, for example, have a fresh impression of who she is and what she’s up to in the world, of her voice and of how she thinks and what she cares about. Her network is therefore much more ripe for her to reach out and say, “Hey, I wonder if you know anyone looking for someone who…..”

Because this is how you get a juicy job, these days: Not by sitting alone at your computer, methodically throwing a series of proverbial darts at online job postings, but by being seen and heard from on a regular basis, on a medium (the internet) that lets you reach not only your friends and colleagues but also their friends and colleagues.

Not to mention, being active online is about operating as part of a larger community. That includes reading and sharing ideas that are relevant to your work and understanding of the world.

It comes down to this: The time will come when you’re ready to make a change, and starting from zero is so much harder and more painful than building on existing momentum. So do Future You a solid, and commit to a regular practice of showing up online. Because, spoiler alert: Future You is, well…you.

The opposite of selfish

I often hear from women, even those who have been on world stages, who are worried that creating an online presence, or posting thought leadership, will be seen as self-aggrandizing. First of all, speaking up isn’t making it “all about you”; in fact, NOT speaking up is what centers your own insecurity over the needs of the collective. We’re all interconnected on this rock hurtling through space. We can’t just sit around and wait for the glacial pace of institutional change. We have agency, and we need to use it — especially because some women (a single mom working for a conservative employer, for example, or a sister in an abusive relationship) simply can’t.

Take our word for it, until you can believe it for real: You are a mighty force.