Take a social risk, such as speaking up in a meeting or giving a presentation.

“I didn’t suddenly transform into someone who could speak confidently in every meeting. I began by picking my moments—offering short reflections in smaller team meetings where the stakes felt lower. At first, it was just a sentence or two. But every time I spoke up and it went okay (which it usually did), I felt a little braver. Over time, those small steps added up. They gave me the confidence to speak in larger forums and with more senior colleagues. The momentum came from doing it, not from waiting until I felt completely ready.”

“Making a goal of saying at least one thing or asking one question works well for me! Especially well when the meeting is particularly relevant to my work so I have a goal going in: alignment, confirming a key piece of information, making a decision, etc. Next, decide when it’s relevant and elbow your way in. You’ll probably have to interrupt or interject. It gets a little easier and you’ll get smoother over time. It also helps to decide not to say the most important or revolutionary insight. Most of the time I speak up in meetings it didn’t feel « important » enough or even that insightful, but I continue to get people coming up to me telling me I made a good point, that it was really helpful having me in the meeting, etc. It’s weird tbh!”

“Last week I lobbed a snarky tweet about $7 oat-milk lattes into the void and went back to Netflix without breaking a sweat. Two days later, in the Monday status call, all I had to do was ask why our deck still said “Q3 2023,” and my pulse spiked like I’d just seen my ex at the gym. Same brain, totally different panic level.”