Sally Helgesen and Marshall Goldsmith have identified 12 habits that hold women back: these are discussed in their great book entitled – ‘How Women Rise’ and are as follows –
- Reluctance to claim your achievements.
- Expecting others to spontaneously notice and reward your achievements.
- Overvaluing expertise.
- Building rather than leveraging relationships.
- Failing to enlist allies from day one.
- Putting your job before your career.
- The perfection trap.
- The disease to please.
- Minimising
- Talking too much.
- Ruminating
- Letting your radar distract you.
Over the next few weeks I am going to explore these habits in more depth.
Habits are learned behaviours that have been so ingrained in our psyche that we often don’t even notice we are doing them.
They are hard wired in the Striatum of the brain and are very difficult to eradicate by pure will power alone. The most effective and lasting way to get rid of bad habits is by replacing them with new empowering ones.
Let’s look, in-depth at the habit of ‘Reluctance to claim your achievements’.
We are brought up to be modest, to be humble and particularly as women, to nurture and care for others.
I well remember my father saying “Don’t get above your station young lady” when I was excited about achieving great results at school.
This hardwiring from childhood means we naturally default to deflecting praise, feeling we don’t deserve it.
Hearing good things about ourselves can often make us feel uncomfortable or even embarrassed.
We handle this by making light of what we have done or hiding it altogether by saying things like – “It was nothing” or by shining the light on others or praising the team.
Socially, we instantly deflect compliments on our appearance, particularly our clothes with typical responses such as –
“This old thing – I have had it for ages” or “It’s only Primark” or “it was £5 in the Charity shop”
When we do this, it is like throwing the compliment back and it is deflating for the giver. When people respond to praise or a compliment with “thank you, you have made my day’” there is an exchange of the feel-good hormone, Oxytocin, and both people feel uplifted by the interaction.
THE IMPACT of deflecting compliments at work is that we play small, minimise TRUST and will stop ourselves being seen as a major player. This can lead to us being stuck in the same role for years because we show no signs of progression or personal growth.
To overcome this habit, start consciously saying ”thank you” when you are praised or complimented and feel the flow of Oxytocin as you receive and relish the gift that has been given to you. Watch the impact it also has on the giver and I guarantee you will soon get rid of the deflecting habit that leaves everyone feeling deflated.
Also, by accepting the praise for work done well – you will be seen as a major contributor to the success of the team and ultimately of the business.
I would love to hear your thoughts and if this habit sounds familiar to you.