How to Honor Your Achievements

Have you ever found yourself downplaying your achievements just to fit in? In this episode I tackle the challenging dance between humility and self-recognition. Inspired by a powerful phrase I share my own struggles and revelations about honoring my accomplishments. 

Explore why societal norms often hold women back from proudly owning their achievements and how these expectations differ drastically for men. Delve into the societal pressures that push many women to suppress their accomplishments and the negative perceptions faced when they don't conform. This episode is a call to action for all women to find a healthy balance, to proudly stand by their successes, and to redefine what it means to be humble and assertive in today's world. Join me on this journey to empower yourself and honor your achievements unapologetically.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

Hi everyone, welcome back to the Brown Girls Journey podcast with your host, me Manpreet, and today I'm going to be talking about the fact that we need to stop dishonoring our successes in order to meet societal standards of being humble. True, there is a space for being humble, you know, and there is also space for our accomplishments to shine. We need to balance both, and the dance can be a tricky one, as we will talk about. So why is it a tricky dance and why has it been tricky to balance for me and for many other women in today's society? That is a question that we will be talking about in this episode. But first let's talk about a phrase that you know was the starting point for this episode and the phrase that kind of surprised me.

Speaker 1: 1:06

The other day I was reading a book and I read the sentence take yourself seriously. This was a very powerful phrase for me to read in that moment in time and it set the tone for this episode. And it set the tone for this episode. When I read this, it takes me back to a time where I believe I wasn't taking my accomplishments, which were educational and career accomplishments, seriously. Sure, I was acknowledging them, but was I taking them seriously? I don't think so. I wasn't acknowledging the many successes I've had, the wide range of experience that I had accumulated within my career and, to be honest, I still struggle with lowering my levels of humbleness so I can place greater weight on my achievements. Like many of us women struggle with, and some men as well us women struggle with, and some men as well there was another time when I was younger but still in the career path, an older man came up to me at the organization I was working at and took me back by his elevator pitch of his experiences in the workforce and his career successes. And when I say it took me back, I'm telling you I was stunned, and not in a good way. In this situation, I immediately ended up judging him. I was like who does he think he is coming up to me out of the blue and listing his accomplishments like that? I felt that he was really breaking. I saw this to be a somewhat a show off move, because I had my accomplishments too, but I wasn't going up to people and listing them off out of the blue like this individual. However, now I realize that the problem wasn't this individual. This individual was just honoring his accomplishments and making them known, because if they are not known to individuals, no one will know about his accomplishments. So it was really me who was struggling between balancing being humble and honoring my career and educational progress, and the way that this individual was able to do it in such a way that it honored his successes, his experience, his education. It mirrored what I didn't see in terms of what I was putting out into the universe. So, at the end of the day, it was me who was struggling between balancing being humble and honoring my career and educational progress, and this is something that a lot of women might struggle with. This is something that a lot of women might struggle with.

Speaker 1: 4:00

As women, we are held back by society's values, which expect us to be humble, and if we aren't, we are often not liked by others, and that's why we have such a problem with asserting our successes and truly honoring our successes. Men aren't expected to be humble. They are expected to be assertive and even aggressive in their approach, and that's why it may be easier for them to give honor to their successes and achievements and bring them to light. At the end of the day, society expects men to be strong, aggressive, goal-oriented and independent, while women are expected to be gentle, sensitive, warm, cooperative, caring and humble. When women don't conform to their expected roles, what happens is they are often not liked by society and people can see them in a negative light. Those who speak up or are dominant are often disliked, insulted and even not trusted. So knowing this can lead to women to suppress their fear side so individuals will accept them. And that's what many of us end up doing we suppress our fierce side so we will be liked and accepted. So at the end of the day, the playing field is way different for men and women. This leads us women to be overly humble in situations where we should confidently outline our experience and educational accomplishments, because many of us do have educational accomplishments and great experience, but we're just not bringing them to light. So us women tend to be less assertive in situations where we need to draw boundaries and negotiate and to be a strong leader. This also leads men to get more leadership opportunities and greater access to resources. Being too nice, giving too much to others and not speaking up or asking for help more leads us women to be denied opportunities, while men get an unequal share of opportunities and resources.

Speaker 1: 6:20

You might not even be playing into these stereotypes, and that's something you might say like hey, mamri, I don't conform to these stereotypes. However, we cannot control society. So, although you might not be playing into these stereotypes, society may still be viewing you through the lens of its unconscious stereotypes that it takes to be in charge. So, although you may not be playing into the stereotypes, society may still view you through the lens of a stereotype and if you don't, you know, assimilate to society's stereotype of women being gentle, nurturing, kind, not kind. Nice, nice is the right word, nice Too nice. And if you don't play into that and you are assertive and you are fierce, what may actually end up happening is the workplace may see you in a negative light. So it's like we can't win.

Speaker 1: 7:34

But the quote says take yourself seriously. So we need to take a deep breath and we need to say despite the challenges, I will take myself seriously, because when we don't take ourselves seriously, we will be unhappy. Those who are unable to assert themselves end up being more anxious and depressed in the cases that they experience challenges. In contrast, women who are firm and are authentic with their fierce and tender qualities are happier and have greater life satisfaction. So what do we need to do happier and have greater life satisfaction. So what do we need to do In a world that does not want to see us for all the qualities that we have the tender and fierce qualities?

Speaker 1: 8:21

We must see ourselves clearly. For example, we might begin to believe the messages that we are not effective leaders because of society's stereotypes. This is why it's important for us to believe the messages that we are not effective leaders because of society's stereotypes. This is why it's important for us to learn the unconscious stereotypes the world attributes to us because we are women. So we must learn these stereotypes and then we must unlearn the idea that we have to meet these stereotypical standards, because research has shown that when we aren't living authentically and balancing our fierce qualities, we become very unhappy as women. So we must learn and then unlearn and then see ourselves clearly, because the world, when we encounter these stereotypes, it doesn't let ourselves see ourselves clearly for who we are, for all the tender and the fierce qualities that we do have.

Speaker 1: 9:23

We truly need to take ourselves seriously and in order to do so, we need to grab the narrative about women, tear the pages and create a new narrative. At the end of the day. We need to do as the quote says as women, we need to take our achievements seriously. There is a time to be humble and there is a time to be fierce and vocal about our accomplishments. We need to learn to first take our accomplishments seriously and then ensure that we communicate our accomplishments, whether they are educational accomplishments, career accomplishments. We need to communicate these in a serious manner. Our successes, our achievements are not small. We need to set the tone for our accomplishments. Make each achievement a big one, because if you don't take your achievements seriously, no one will, and if you don't make them known, who is going to know of your accomplishments and your achievements? So listen to that sentence that led to this beautiful episode being recorded and take yourself seriously. I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you did, please press like, please follow and please leave a review. Thank you.