THE COST OF SHRINKING YOURSELF / EPISODE 55

How much of your life has been spent trying to make other people comfortable?

In this episode of I Am Spice — The Podcast, we’re talking about something many of us do without even realizing it: shrinking ourselves. We stay quiet when we want to speak. We downplay our accomplishments. We postpone our dreams until some future version of ourselves feels more ready, more confident, or more worthy.

But what if the problem isn’t a lack of confidence?

What if the real issue is that we’ve become so accustomed to making ourselves smaller that it feels normal?

This episode explores the hidden cost of people-pleasing, self-censorship, fear of judgment, and the survival strategies that once protected us but may now be holding us back. We’ll talk about how old patterns can quietly shape our decisions, why familiarity is not the same as fulfillment, and how growth often begins with radical honesty.

If you’ve ever felt stuck, unseen, disconnected from yourself, or afraid to fully step into the life you want, this conversation is for you.

Because sometimes the life you’re dreaming about doesn’t require you to become someone new.

It simply requires you to stop hiding who you’ve been all along.

 In this episode:
• The subtle ways we make ourselves smaller
• How survival strategies become limitations
• The price of staying silent and playing safe
• Why honesty is often the beginning of growth
• The question that can change everything: What is it costing me to stay where I am?

If this episode resonates with you, please share it with someone who needs to hear it, follow the podcast, and leave a rating or review. Every share helps these conversations reach someone who may need the reminder that they are allowed to take up space.

I am Spice.

Unfiltered. Unapologetic. Unstoppable.

#IAmSpicePodcast #PersonalGrowth #SelfWorth #HealingJourney #StopPlayingSmall

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Let's piss some people off. I've been thinking about something a lot lately, and the more I think about it, the more realize it shows up everywhere. It shows up in our relationships, in our careers, in our friendships, and even in the way we talk to ourselves. It shows up in the things we don't say, the opportunities we don't take, and the dreams we keep putting off until some imaginary future when we finally feel ready. What's interesting is that most of us don't even realize we're doing it. We tell ourselves we're being realistic, we tell ourselves we're being patient, we tell ourselves we're waiting for the right time. But lately I've been wondering if that's actually true. What if we're not waiting? What if we're hiding? What if we've gotten used to making ourselves smaller that we don't even recognize it anymore? Because the more I look back on my own life, the more I realize that every time I made myself smaller to keep someone else comfortable, every time I talk myself out of something, I want it every time I convinced myself to stay quiet instead of speaking up, there was a price attached to it. And that's what I want to talk about today. Hi, and welcome back to I Am Spice the podcast. I'm your host, Spice, and as always, thank you for spending a little bit of your day with me. Whether you're listening while you're driving, cleaning the house, working, taking a walk, or just trying to escape the chaos for a few minutes. I appreciate you being here. If you're new here to the podcast, welcome. And if you've been here for a while, thank you for continuing to come back and share these conversations with me. Before we jump into today's episode, I want you to ask something for a small I mean I want to ask for a small favor from you guys. If something in this conversation resonates with you, if you've ever listened to an episode and thought I really needed that, then please share with someone else who might need it too. Make sure you're following or subscribe wherever you're listening from. And if you haven't already, leave a rating. Every share, every follow, and every rating helps these conversations reach people who may be struggling with the exact same things we're talking about today. So last week we talked about visibility, we talked about how more people are paying attention than we think, we talked about the quiet supporters, we talked about the people who watch from a distance and the fact that sometimes we're making a bigger impact than we realized. But after I finished that episode, I couldn't stop thinking about something else. If people were already paying attention, if opportunities were already there, if support existed in places I wasn't expecting, then why was I still holding parts of myself back? And honestly, the more I sat with that question, the more I realized it wasn't really about visibility at all. It was about all the ways I had learned to make myself smaller without even realizing it. You know what's funny? For years I thought confidence was the thing I was missing. I thought if I could just become more confident, more fearless, more sure of myself, then everything would change. But the older I get, the more I realized confidence was never really the issue. The issue was that I had gotten so used to shrinking myself that I it felt normal to me. It felt responsible. It felt mature, it felt like the right thing to do. When I look back now, I can see how often I was making decisions based on avoiding discomfort instead of creating the life I actually wanted. I wanted to avoid conflict. I wanted to avoid criticism. I wanted to avoid disappointing people. I wanted to avoid being misunderstood. The problem is that no matter how careful you are, somebody is going to misunderstand you anyway. Somebody is going to criticize you anyway. Somebody is going to have an opinion about you anyway. At some point, you have to ask yourself whether all that effort you're putting into protecting yourself is actually helping you or whether it is simply keeping you stuck. I think a lot of us learn to make ourselves smaller when we were young. Maybe someone told you that you were too emotional. Maybe someone made you feel like you were too sensitive. Maybe you got the message that your dreams were unrealistic or that your personality was somehow too much. I've been told that so many times in my life. Maybe nobody said those exact words, but you learned through experience that certain parts of you got accepted and certain parts of you didn't. So you started adjusting. You started editing yourself. You started becoming the version of yourself that felt easiest for everyone else to handle. The thing is, those adjustments usually don't happen all at once. They're tiny, they're subtle. There are moments when you decide not to speak up. There are moments when you downplay your accomplishments. There are moments when someone asks what you want and what you say, whatever is fine. Even though you know exactly what you want. Over time, those little moments start adding up, and before you know it, you've spent years building a life around people's comfort instead of your own truth. One of the biggest realizations that I've had recently is that some of the habits that help us survive one season of life can become the exact things that hold us back in the next season. Maybe making yourself smaller protected you at some point. Maybe staying quiet kept you safe. Maybe keeping your needs to yourself helped you avoid conflict. Maybe putting everyone else first was necessary during a certain chapter of your life. But just because something helped you survive doesn't mean it's supposed to stay with you forever. I think that's where a lot of us get stuck. We continue using survival strategies long after we've got grown them. We keep operating from old fears, even when our circumstances have changed. We keep reacting to life as if we were still the same person. We were 10 years ago, and without realizing it, we allow those old patterns to make decisions for us. I've noticed that some of the biggest changes in my life didn't happen because I suddenly became great. They happened because I got tired. I got tired of explaining myself. I got tired of asking for permission. I got tired of caring versions of myself that no longer felt authentic. I got tired of worrying so much about what everyone else thought that I stopped paying attention to what I thought. And maybe that's what growth really looks like. Maybe growth isn't becoming someone new. Maybe growth is finally getting honest. Honest about what you want. Honest about what you need. Honest about what's working and what's not. Honest about the fact that there are parts of your life you've grown but haven't had the courage to admit it yet. I think that's why honesty can be so uncomfortable. Once you tell yourself the truth, you can't unhear it. Once you admit that something isn't working, it's hard to keep pretending that it is. Once you acknowledge that you're unhappy or unfulfilled or disconnected, it becomes a lot harder to keep going through the motions. And there's a part nobody really talks about. Every single time you make yourself smaller so someone else can feel comfortable, you're praying for it. Maybe not immediately, maybe not today. But eventually, you pay for it. You pay for it through missed opportunities, you pay for it through regret, you pay for it through dreams that never leave the planning stage. You pay for it through relationships where you're never fully seen because you've never fully showing up. The older I get, the more I find myself asking one question. What is it costing me to stay where I am? Now what might happen if I change? Now what could go wrong if I if I take the risk? What is it costing me to me not to? Because we spend so much time calculating the risks of moving forward that we forget to calculate the risks of standing still. Sometimes standing still feels safe because it's familiar, but familiar and healthy are not always the same thing. Familiar and fulfilling are not always the same thing. Familiar just means you've been there for a while. And if we're not careful, we can spend years confusing familiarity with happiness. You know what's interesting? I think a lot of us spent years trying to find ourselves and lately I started wondering if that's even the right phrase. Because what if we're not actually lost? What if we're not searching for ourselves at all? What if we're just buried underneath years of expectation, fear, guilt, people pleasing, and all the things we've been carrying around that we never really are we were never ours to begin with. Maybe the strongest version of you isn't someone you have to become. Maybe it's someone you've been trying to get back to. Maybe the work isn't about adding more, maybe it's about removing what doesn't belong. The fear, the guilt, the need for approval, the stories you've been telling yourself about why you can't do something. Maybe underneath all of that is the person you've been looking for all along. As I wrap up today's episode, I want to leave you guys with something to think about. Where in your life are you making yourself smaller than you need to be? Not louder, not bigger, not more important than anyone else, just smaller than you truly are. Where are you holding back? Where are you waiting for permission? Where are you convincing yourself that you don't really want something when deep down you know you do? Because every day you spend shrinking yourself is another day you're trading your potential for comfort. And while comfort has its place, it was never meant to become your entire life. At some point, you have to decide whether you've your fear is protecting your future or quietly stealing it from you. Thank you for spending this time with me. If this episode resonated with you, share with someone who needs to hear it. Make sure you follow in the podcast so you never miss an episode. And if you've been enjoying these conversations, leave a rating, leave a comment, it helps more than you know. And until the next time, remember this the life you're dreaming about may not require you to become someone else. It may simply require you to stop hiding who you've been all along. I am your host spice. Stay unfiltered, unapologetic, and unstoppable. Until the next one, guys. And remember, we're unfiltered, unapologetic, and unstoppable. That's that.