Stop self-sabotaging behaviour

There are a couple of ways that we sabotage ourselves, as women. The one most damaging thing I see us doing, myself included, is mistaking certain traits for humility because we have internalised that being firm and assertive will make people like us less.

In the same way, we are afraid of shedding our ‘good girl’ image, just because we have been taught and told, over and over that this is the way we should be.

Being unnecessarily apologetic

When we perceive that our message or our request may be perceived as being pushy, we qualify it through a range of words. ‘Just’ ‘maybe’ and ‘sorry’ are some of them.

So instead of asking for something, for example a resource that we need in order to complete a task at the work place, or reminding a colleague of something they had promised to supply or send, we use the word ‘just’.

‘’I’m just emailing to remind you to send the documents we had agreed on’ or ‘sorry, but could I ask for a few minutes of your time’. If you sound as if you do have conviction in your idea or ask, do not expect the recipient to take you seriously either.

Keep records Say you have an agreed KPI with your supervisor, which if you fulfill you are entitled to a reward or bonus. In most cases these kind of agreements are documented and put into your files. But if you’re being brought in as an emergency to plug an unexpected resource gap, you might not want to insist on the documentation.

But say you fulfill your part of the agreement but before you close the transaction, the manager with whom you have an agreement leaves the organization. While this is an extreme case, the scenario could be as simple as a misunderstanding between the agreed terms, if they were verbal.

For this reason, always ensure you have communication in writing, and as a precaution printouts in your own records.