I want to start this post with the proverbial “elephant in the room”.
What is this elephant, you ask? I’m sure you’ll recognise it as soon as I name it…
I’m talking about the “arrogance” word. When we know we’re good at what we do, and we show it by showing up on social media, developing our businesses as entrepreneurs, applying for higher positions, and so on, we might be looked at funny by people. Some comments that might come up – whether they say it out loud or not:
“well, well, aren’t you arrogant!”
“who do you think you are, showing off like that!”
“attention seeker!
“oh you think you’re that good huh? why don’t you let us decide, huh?!”
Today, I want to challenge that, and get to the title of this article at the end.
If you’ve ever felt like keeping quiet about your abilities, skills and expertise, you’re not alone!
We’ve been taught to be there for others first, and forget about ourselves. So when it comes to patting ourselves on the back, we shy from it because people might not like it.
Let me ask you this: if you don’t celebrate your own wins and own what you know, as well as what you do well, then who will?
Our ability to “put ourselves out there” comes from being confident in who we are and what we do. This is something I see when I’m teaching people how to start blogging to build their practices – there’s a fear that
- their message won’t be well-received
- their message is not that important
- someone else might have written about the same thing
- they might be being arrogant (there’s that word again!) and just showing off
What we forget is that by writing in our own voice, from our own experience, we are reaching that one person (or people) that really needs it.
It happened to me on LinkedIn.
I was having a rant on an article – giving myself a pep talk when I wasn’t feeling too good. I didn’t think anyone would read it, but I got a message saying “thanks for writing this, I needed to hear this today”.
It felt good to feel appreciated! It was also a bit surprising that my ranty pep-talk touched someone’s life.
Never underestimate the power of what you have to say, what you have to offer the world!
Now let’s get back to the title of this article: feeling appreciated feels good!
You know how I wrote earlier about getting your message out? Well, I’ve been doing that in a variety of ways on social media since 2017 and I haven’t looked back.
This has led to being shown love by many people on there, many have asked me to participate in podcasts, interviews, lives, magazines, and more.
There have been many wins lately, and I have learned to not feel like I’m being arrogant when I say it.
Has it been a straightforward, easy journey? Of course not. I’d be lying to you if I said yes to that question.
It is worth it to value yourself enough to put yourself out there.
Trust in the power of connection. Trust in the power of your message, and get ready to feel appreciated by those you reach by putting yourself out there!