Stop Shrinking and Start Leading

Shrinking can be hard to spot when it’s become second nature. It might look like second-guessing your ideas in a meeting or shifting your tone to seem less assertive, especially when confidence could be mistaken for arrogance. Sometimes, it’s brushing off a well-earned win because celebrating yourself feels risky or out of place.

Over time, these habits become the strategy. Keep the peace. Be agreeable. Stay safe. But they come at a cost and can negatively affect your confidence and your ability to grow. Leading starts by recognizing when you're playing small and choosing, moment by moment, to take up space anyway.

Recognize When You’re Playing It Small

Most of us understand the idea of “playing small,” but it’s harder to notice it in the moment. It can happen in quiet ways, like holding back a thought because you’re unsure how it will land. Those small choices might seem insignificant, but they build over time. Each one slowly creates distance between what you think and what you allow yourself to express.

Eventually, you stop noticing how much effort goes into staying agreeable or how much space you give up to avoid tension. The habit might protect you in the short term, but when you can’t fully trust your judgement, even clear decisions start to feel uncertain.

Gut Check Yourself

• Where are you holding back because it feels easier to blend in?

  
  

• What decisions or conversations would look different if you trusted your judgment?

  
  

Start paying attention to the moments when you over-explain, downplay, or defer to others. Those patterns often show up before you even realize it, and noticing them is the first step toward shifting them.

Discomfort Isn’t Always a Red Flag

When you stop shrinking and start showing up more fully, it’s going to feel uncomfortable. Discomfort is a normal part of growth. It’s what happens when you begin trusting your voice and lead in ways that stretch your comfort zone. Your body may register those changes as risk, but not all unease means misalignment. The challenge is learning to tell the difference between what’s stretching you and what’s genuinely draining you.

Discomfort from growth might make you feel nervous or uncertain, but beneath it there’s still a sense of movement. The discomfort comes from stepping into unfamiliar territory but dies down when you take action and start building evidence that you can handle it. Discomfort from misalignment feels heavy and tense. This discomfort comes from pushing against yourself or compromising your values to keep things running. Discomfort that comes from burnout, on the other hand, shows up as exhaustion that even rest doesn’t fix. Even the parts of your work that used to energize you start to feel flat, and motivation gets harder to reach.

Get clear on what you're feeling:

• What’s really behind the resistance you feel?

  
  

• Which parts of your work feel energizing, and which ones feel forced?

  
  

• Where could you set boundaries that protect your energy without shrinking your potential?

  
  

Being able to recognize the different types of discomfort allows you to respond more intentionally.

You Don’t Have to Do It All Yourself

Just because you’ve always done it alone doesn’t mean you should keep carrying it all. For many founders, overcommitting starts as a way to stay in control. Support goes beyond just delegating tasks though. It’s about creating enough room to think clearly and lead without running on empty. You can feel it when you start trusting others to handle what used to keep you up at night. Or when you give yourself the time to pause and see the bigger picture instead of reacting to every demand. Allowing others to step in gives you space to focus on what truly matters.

This can look like:

• Handing off social media scheduling instead of telling yourself you’ll “get to it later.”

  
  

• Setting specific work hours and actually logging off when the day’s done.

  
  

• Letting a teammate lead a meeting so you can focus on strategy.

  
  

• Saying no to a opportunities that don’t align with your goals right now.

  
  

• Joining a founder circle or accountability group so you start building community.

  
  

• Taking a day off without checking your inbox or feeling guilty about it.

Lead From Where You Are

Leadership takes shape in the moments you choose to stay present, even when things feel uncertain. It develops as you notice what’s working and adjust when something isn’t. Each experience adds depth and gives you a clearer sense of how you want to lead.

You don’t need everything perfectly lined up before moving forward. What matters is staying connected to your values and leading in a way that protects your energy. When you trust your own pace and invite others to share the load, your impact grows in a way that feels lasts and feels right for you.