From My Inbox: Gathering The Confidence To Step Off

I recently wrote about delayed confidence - how competence often arrives before confidence for women.

The delayed confidence I'm musing on this week, isn't the pushing "you can do this" voice in your head - instead, it's the more discrete, challenging "do you even f’g want to do this?" one.

'Cause this moment when “you can” shifts to “do you even”, well, that's the moment I've learned when confidence shifts — shifting from proving yourself to choosing yourself. It's the confidence not only to step up, but also the nerve to walk away.

When Delayed Confidence Collides With Quiet Ambition

Quiet quitting was the buzz word of 2022. Then in 2023 Fortune declared we’d entered the era of quiet ambition.

Quiet ambition isn't a passing fad, especially as it relates to women, who have a long, and very complicated relationship with ambition - and success. Rather quiet ambition is an invitation to explore what is fulfilling, both personally and professionally, for us individually. It's the softer voice that shocks you by whispering the unspoken, seemingly from out of nowhere (I write this, speaking from experience…).

Quiet ambition is a pivotal career moment: it’s when we finally accumulate enough proof of who we are and what value we contribute, to fully hear our wants - then question the career game we’re playing, itself.

Take my friend Melissa Gonzalez. Melissa started her career on Wall Street in institutional sales before pivoting into entrepreneurship, leading the retail revolution with pop-ups and building a successful strategy firm advising leading as well as emerging brands. After a successful exit, Melissa continued climbing, building, making a name for herself in brand activation and immersive retail. Then boom, a life-threatening medical crisis forced her to reassess.

Lying in a hospital bed, Melissa realized something few high-achievers admit: she'd built a remarkable career — and it wasn't all of the life she wanted.

In her book The Purpose Pivot, Melissa gives us a lived blueprint for what happens when you pause to listen to what your heart and soul are telling you. When your ambition quietly catches up with your go-go-go self.

The moment you are challenged to answer: is this still what I want?

Through her story, and the stories of 35 other leaders, Melissa is showing women what it looks like to let ambition serve you — not the other way around.

The Competence Trap

Every woman striving for more understands this conflict: the "Don't blow this!" voice battling the "This isn't all there is for you!" gut feeling. It's the battle that rages when you've worked years to get "there". It's the moment when everyone assumes you've made it. And there you are, sitting in your hard-won so-called success, trying to figure out what actually matters, ‘cause where you’ve landed isn’t all that.

Here's another scenario.

Maybe you've finally realized you’re good enough to have options — but are still terrified to use them (hmmm, I’ve been there and know this all too well). Because stepping off the sure path, the one where you've proven yourself, where you’ve led and excelled? Deviating from that path takes a different kind of courage.

The trend pieces I read in crafting this post, frame "quiet ambition" as some gentle, serene choice.

LOL

Let’s be honest, there's nothing gentle about the internal tug-of-war, nothing quiet about the wrestling match between your desires and your fears, nothing calm about your competence finally relenting in its pursuit of external validation, and handing you a permission slip to seek something else entirely.

Melissa's medical crisis thrust the “is this what I want?” question on her, but many women arrive at the same crossroads through less hazardous professional experience. The delayed confidence, and quiet, closeted ambition that once felt like a disadvantage becomes the thing that saves them from spending more time with their careers racing in the wrong direction.

Sometimes the most confident move isn't climbing higher — it's realizing the ladder was leaning against the wrong wall.

And delayed confidence?

Hardly a negative. It's what gives you the nerve to step off and build something entirely new.

The Network You Need for a Confidence Pivot

The career confidants, the support crew, the tribe aka the inner circle you relied upon to expertly guide you during your ascent to the top, may not be the one that helps you forge a new route, or take a big leap.

You need an inner circle who understands the incessant pull of needing to “step away from established identity issues” (to paraphrase Suzy Welch).

When you’re making a confidence pivot, surround your ambition with a tribe of acknowledgers, door-openers and permission-pushers — not just encouragers and cheerleaders (and definitely not, well-meaning, have-your-best-interests-at-heart, fear-mongers).

You need people who say (without qualification): "You're allowed to want something else, and what help do you need from me?"

You need others who've experienced and acted upon similar internal shifts in their career desires — not necessarily resulting in the same bold badass career moves, but who have made the same evolution from proving themselves to choosing themselves.

When your quiet ambition is not-so-quietly making itself known, find the women who've stepped off, over and around, not just up. Lean into their practical wisdom. And when you’re doubting your decision to make a pivot (as you surely will), recognize they will be there to remind you: you’re not crazy for wanting more than what’s been offered in the past.

Need more?

💡The Confidence To Step-Off Worksheet (download this free worksheet with reflective prompts) and if you haven't already downloaded Chapter 2 of my next book, why don't you download that resource (also free!) too.

💡Americans are in the era of quiet ambition: No longer ‘chasing achievement for achievements’ sake’ (Fortune)

💡Why we are in the era of 'quiet ambition', and how you can thrive (Glamour)