8 Signs You’re Not Stuck, You’re Just More Comfortable Playing Small

Sometimes, the problem isn’t that you’re incapable of going after what you want, or that you’re being held back by some other force beyond your control.

Sometimes, the biggest issue in your life is that you’re more comfortable playing small even though you know you’re capable of a lot more. Here, the telltale signs you’re underplaying your potential in a really significant way.

1. You’re vague about what you do.

It’s not that you don’t know what you do, rather, you subconsciously eschew details because you’re afraid of being judged.

When you create grey area, there’s space to go back, correct yourself, adjust yourself to someone else’s expectations and needs. But it all comes at the cost of being untrue to yourself.

2. You have a lot of internal conflict.

You’re stuck in a sort of limbo that only happens when you at once know everything you could be doing, and yet, at the same time, are attached to playing safe.

3. You see your peers capitalizing on their skills in a way you know you’re also capable of.

You recognize that there’s so much potential for you to create a life you really love and are proud of, and you know because you see others doing it all the time.

However, for some reason, you just can’t quite motivate yourself to join them yet. You’re still too filled with doubt, or you’re really attached to being a lesser version of yourself, because you imagine that person to be better liked.

4. You work yourself to the point of exhaustion.

Truly successful people don’t do this, because they know three things:

— How to manage their time.

— How to delete responsibilities.

— That they do not need to prove their importance or worth.

5. You don’t have a top 3 goal list for this year.

You’re more or less just floating, and seeing where life takes you, rather than having a set of specific, overarching goals your daily routines are moving you closer toward.

6. You don’t know your personal “tagline.”

You should be able to summarize who you are and what you do within a sentence or two. Not because you are so uncomplicated that you can be distilled down into a few words, but because true, complete clarity is absolutely essential to success.

7. You’re afraid of being “seen.”

You still carry around the fear of what other people from your past would think of your future successes, and you resist putting yourself, or your work, out there out of fear that others would disapprove.

The fear of being “seen” and standing out from others is natural and normal, but it doesn’t come up unless you already know you have something that sets you apart, something that would absolutely get people’s attention.

8. You have as much anxiety about being successful as you do failing.

For as much as you worry about potentially not succeeding, you likewise have as much anxiety about what it would mean to have everything you want.

Whether it’s the fear that you could lose it, or that other people would begin to dislike you, or that you’d simply leave your comfort zone, it’s imperative to realize that successful people grant themselves permission to be successful. They intentionally allow their lives to be good. It’s definitely an adjustment, one that deep down, you know you’re ready to make.