Why is it so difficult for us women to confidently accept praise or compliments, to sell our performance? Why this is the wrong tactic - and we're changing it now.
A difficult job project is good - which means: excellent! - gone over the stage. And that is mainly thanks to your performance. What is also honored by the boss or colleagues: "Great job, Ms. XY, if you hadn't kept track of things and negotiated with the customer …"
But instead of self-confidently straightening our shoulders, we immediately begin to reduce our performance. Stammer sentences like "Well, luckily the colleagues have …" or "Wasn't that big of a deal, others would have done too".
Looks familiar to you? It's a classic. For some absurd reason, few women manage to handle praise and compliments well. Instead of trumpeting our performance and bringing in the harvest like men, we women often hold back. However, this low-level staple is sympathetically unpretentious - but definitely the wrong tactic for professional advancement.
Because whoever is always quiet, stuck in the background and stays in the background shows: I am not convinced of myself. You don't trust someone like that to take the next career step. Woman is passed over, someone else gets the promotion or raise. If you want to prevent this, you have to learn to communicate your skills to the outside world - authentically and confidently.
Why do we women have deep stapleritis?
Why do so many women find it difficult to receive praise with self-confidence or to sell their own performance well? In part it is imprinted with childhood. Girls get to hear much more often than boys that "self-praise stinks". If a boy presents himself, he receives recognition - girls are raised differently and blocked more quickly if they are successful.
The good news: women can quickly overcome this imprint. Analyze the situations in which you slow yourself down because you think you are too cheeky or too boastful now. When does this happen? And why? If you become aware of this, you can work on it.
Just one example: we are usually better prepared than men in meetings. Unfortunately, we don't know the rules that apply there. The result: We get started too quickly and often reveal our ideas at times when men are still skirmishing about unimportant things. Then it happens that the same idea is later put forward by a man - who then also earns the praise.
And we? Annoy us again in silence.
Which is why we are now firmly behind our spoons: If we have performed well, then we are proud of it. Don't always speak of "WE" in a collegial manner, but also in "first-person" form about our ideas and successes. If we get compliments, then in the future we will keep our backs and just say "thank you". We did our job well after all. So the praise is only justified …
