Being immersed in adulthood I have been forced to advocate for myself time and time again, and it has been something I have always struggled with. Growing up, I have realized the importance of being able to build a case for yourself especially when trying to find a job and gain respect from people.
Theoretically, we would like to believe that everyone wants the best for each other, but that is simply not the case. Most people are only looking out for themselves, and while there is nothing wrong with that, it is important to uphold that energy for ourselves when needed. It can be easy to fall into the people-pleasing mentality and lose track of your own needs (I have fallen into this pattern many times) however, it is essential to be able to advocate for yourself in order to achieve any type of success in life.
When applying for jobs, you have to be able to explain why you are the best person for the position. To prepare for moments like these in the future, you need to begin hyping yourself now, with that said there is a difference between cockiness and confidence. It is just important to understand it is never wrong to defend yourself when you are confident in your capabilities because no one knows you better than you know yourself.
People won’t show you respect if you don’t have respect for yourself, and with that, I only mean being able to confidently verbalize what you can bring to the table and continuously speaking highly of yourself. For women, it is not our responsibility to explain why we want respect, if it is not given we should simply disengage with those who don’t give it to us. We are our own worst critics, so it can be easy to bring attention to our insecurities that nobody else even notices.
At the end of the day, we only have one life and we can’t spend it hoping people are looking out for us. We need to be our biggest cheerleaders because nobody will believe in you if you don’t believe in yourself. As cheesy as that sounds, it’s true. Once you start showing up for yourself, other people will too. Another quote I always apply to my life is fake it till you make it because even if you don’t know what you’re doing, nobody else needs to know that.
I’ll leave you with this: never forget how wildly capable you are.
Thanks for reading, V