Until a few years ago, I could not say the word out loud. Expert. I have forty years of hands on fabric and fit. I have taught internationally. I have written two books. And still, if someone complimented my work, my first instinct was to wave it off. It was nothing. Anyone could do that. I got lucky with the fabric. If you have ever wondered why it is hard to accept compliments, even ones you have earned, you are not alone in that.
Why it is hard to accept compliments in the first place
I think most of us do this. Somebody notices something true about us, something we actually worked for, and we hand it right back like it was too much to hold.
A quote has followed me around for years, one a few different coaches have handed me at exactly the moment I needed it. Marianne Williamson asks, “who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?” And then she turns the question back around on you. Because the real question isn’t who am I to be all of that. It’s who am I not to be. Playing small doesn’t protect anyone. It doesn’t serve a single person around you. Read the full quote here
We don’t shrink because we’re not enough. We shrink because somewhere along the way, we started believing what other people said about us, or what we’ve been quietly saying to ourselves for years, instead of what’s actually true. We are marvelous. We are talented. We are worthwhile. We have a purpose in this world. Somewhere along the way, we let a smaller story win.
I see this in fitting rooms constantly. A woman will put on something that fits her exactly right, something that shows her shoulders or her waist or her color the way it was always meant to be shown, and her first move is to explain it away. Oh, I couldn’t wear this out. This is a little much for me.
It isn’t much. It’s accurate. That’s what throws people.
I stopped downplaying what I know how to do. Not because I got braver, exactly, but because I got tired of handing away the truth every time someone tried to hand it to me. And once I stopped, I started noticing it everywhere, in clients, in friends, in the way we’re all trained to make ourselves smaller so nobody else has to feel anything about it.
Who are you not to be good at what you’re good at?
If you’re ready to find out, [fit refinement](link to Closet Consultation page) starts with one conversation.