The Business of Holding Yourself Back in Business
Setting boundaries are hard. As the firstborn Asian daughter, a lot of my self-worth and pride have been wrapped up in this notion of being helpful. Going above and beyond. Excelling and over-delivering on expectations. Pleasing people.
“Sugoine, oneechan wa,” my mother would say to me while growing up.
It’s a sentence that encapsulates this idea of being the eldest. "Wow, older sister, you are great." Setting an example. Inspiring awe in my parents.
It’s been the secret to my success and the curse that bound me throughout my childhood and young adult life.
I don’t fault my mother for any of the struggles I faced during my time as a people pleaser, though. Now on the other side of the parent-child relationship, I also find myself marveling at my kids when they outperform my expectations. I don’t necessarily believe that this need to excel is outright a bad thing. Like everything, it’s a complicated and nuanced issue here where one factor can’t be the end all be all cause or solution for it.
After all, we all have different motivations behind our inability to say no. Be it lack of confidence, fear of rejection, or need to please others to name a few—but no matter the cause, one outcome remains true. This lack of setting boundaries will forever bind us (irony, much?) to be nothing more than individual contributors rather than leaders. And this is a problem, especially for women and BIPOC in this age of “seize your spot on the table.”
There’s quite a bit of unconditioning and self-reflection that needs to happen.
