Edition 1 : Self Advocacy

Earlier in July, I attended BarCamp in Manchester for the first time. If you haven't heard of it, it's basically an "un-conference" where there are no scheduled talks or speakers. Attendees on the day can write a talk on a card and stick it on the schedule on the wall. Talks can literally be about anything and you don't need slides so it's a really good opportunity for someone to try public speaking for the first time or trial out a brand new talk. It's also one of the most inclusive and interesting events I've been to - well worth spending a Saturday on.

When you do a fair bit of a public speaking you'll find often people will ask you to do talks around topics you've already done because it's reliable. I'd had a pretty busy week and I wasn't intending on doing a talk, but as I was getting ready some inspiration started to float around my brain and I decided I was going to try something completely new and talk about self-advocacy as this was a bit of a journey I've been on personally over the last year or so.

I whacked a few slides together over lunch and delivered a talk on "Learn how to advocate for yourself". Though since it was pretty impromptu it wasn't a perfect talk by any means but I got a great turnout and positive feedback so I wanted to share this with a wider audience.

What is self-advocacy?

Self-advocacy is the ability to speak-up for yourself and the things that are important to you. Self-advocacy means you are able to ask for what you need and want and tell people about your thoughts and feelings.

So basically self Advocacy is what happens when an individual feels psychologically safe. It means:

• Being confident in highlighting your achievements to get the recognition you deserve.
• Standing up for yourself when someone isn't treating you right.
• Saying no to things that you don't have capacity to take on or just don't want to do.
• Not gaslighting yourself and allowing yourself to feel emotions that are completely valid.

Why is self advocacy important?

To put it bluntly, it's important because the only person truly looking out for your best interests at heart, is yourself. Others can help you advocate for yourself but it starts with you. Once I grew my confidence and stopped letting people make me feel guilty for putting myself first and standing up for myself, my life got exponentially better.

Though this article is mainly focussing on self-advocacy at work, learning how to advocate for yourself not only benefits your career, but also your relationships, friendships, health and mental health ??

Self Advocacy At Work

Back in 2018 when I started my first job, I was truly miserable. I was underpaid, I had to wake up at 5:50am every day, leave at 6:50am and return home after 6:30pm every day. On top of that I had to deal with a not so nice manager, let's call him Bob (sorry to any great managers called Bob out there). Bob should not have been responsible for young recruiters as he was on a power trip and would clearly favouritise one of the guys in my team, it was that obvious it was actually a running joke in the office ????

I remember when I was a few weeks in, I'd never really had a big girl job before and I was genuinely lost, I didn't have a bloody clue what I was doing and just trying to find my feet. One day I'd forgotten to do a small task Bob had asked because I didn't write it down (this now makes sense that I have been diagnosed with ADHD a few years later). It wasn't anything drastic but he then said "Can I just grab you in a meeting room?". He then proceeded to ask me "Can I ask if you have a problem with authority? I don't understand why you didn't do what I asked you to do?".

At the time, I felt embarrassed, incompetent and not cut out for recruitment at all. I didn't advocate for myself at that point, I just looked down at my feet and nodded and apologised for forgetting that little task. He also chastised me for not buying 2 sales books before I even got my first pay...

That month I almost quit recruitment forever because of what Bob said to me that day buuuuuut I'm my parents raised a stubborn AF daughter so one insecure mans actions didn't jeopardise my career potential. Good thing I didn't because I think I have done alright for myself since.

Self Advocacy Is Not a Solo Journey

Being on a journey of self-advocacy is not about doing it alone. You should have amazing supportive people around you to be your cheerleaders. Personally I have a great support system from my team, manager, family, partner and best friends.

Mike was the first amazing manager I had. At that same company I talked about earlier, Mike joined to set up a new market. Me and Mike got on like two peas in a pod. I eventually changed markets to work with him and though the company was very KPI driven he encouraged me to leverage my ability to build great relationships with candidates and clients and not focus on the numbers, even though he would sometimes get stick for it in the management meetings for not "hitting KPI's".

Mike is the reason I never gave up on recruitment because he used to tell me that I was one of the best consultants he'd worked with and I just had a knack for people. Mike and I are still great friends to this day, my partner and I even went to Mikes wedding earlier this year. Mike if you're reading this, you're a legend ??

My current manager Lorraine also deserves a huge shoutout, because this is the first time I've joined a company after getting my ADHD diagnosis. Lorraine has gone above and beyond to understand my ADHD, how it affects me and how I can be best supported at work.

She suggested that I do a short session with the team in our last quarterly get-together to talk about ADHD so they can understand and support me better. This is a perfect example of how I needed a nudge to advocate for myself because it can be difficult when you're the new person. After the session I felt like I really didn't need to mask anymore.

I suspect most people reading this will have had the displeasure of working with a Bob. If you don't have a manager that advocates for you, move teams or consider leaving your company - go forth and find your Mike/Lorraine!

Minorities and Self-Advocacy

A few month ago, I created a WhatsApp group chat with 3 other women in tech in Manchester because we were going to the same Meetup and we wanted to meet for a drink beforehand. Slowly people started adding more women in tech into the group and now we're at almost 30 people.

Someone in the group recently asked if she was being "too sensitive" about the fact that a man in her company was taking credit for her work despite doing little to contribute towards it. Several of us responded and said no, you are absolutely right to be annoyed at that and you should speak up about it. Anyone can struggle with imposter syndrome but minorities are affected disproportionately. Having this group with other women in tech acts as a sounding board for when we need support from others like us ??

In 2014 Kieran Snyder conducted a study on "The abrasiveness trap: High-achieving men and women are described differently in reviews" and honestly her findings are fascinating. Snyder collected 248 performance reviews from 180 people from 28 different tech companies. Her goal: to determine whether the tone or content of performance reviews differed based on the employee’s gender.

• 58.9% of the reviews received by men contained critical feedback. 87.9% of the reviews received by women did.
• “You can come across as abrasive sometimes. I know you don’t mean to, but you need to pay attention to your tone.” and “Your peers sometimes feel that you don’t leave them enough room. Sometimes you need to step back to let others shine.” are two examples of sharper elements of negative feedback received by women and not men. This kind of negative personality criticism shows up twice in the 83 critical reviews received by men. It shows up in 71 of the 94 critical reviews received by women.

There's another infuriating stereotype which is the "angry black woman" stereotype which characterises Black women as more hostile, aggressive, overbearing, illogical, ill-tempered and bitter. Reacting to something in the workplace with anger is something that happens a lot, but when a Black Woman does it people will attribute this to her personality rather than the cause itself.

This leads me nicely into the next topic of....

Being Able To Self Advocate Comes From A Place Of Privilege

Though I come from several marginalised groups, I also acknowledge that I have privilege. I'm educated to Masters degree level, my family are now "middle class", I sound British even though I wasn't born here and I articulate myself exceptionally well for someone of my age. I'm financially stable with enough funds to support myself for 6+ months if things went south at work. This means my confidence to self-advocate is greatly strengthened by the safety net I have to fall back on.

Everyone is at risk of consequences from standing up for yourself, but the risk to minority groups is greatly increased. It is important to acknowledge the role that privilege plays in self-advocacy.

People pleasing and self advocacy

Learning to say no is very difficult, especially if you're an inherent people pleaser like I used to be. I felt that I'd be liked better, my career would go further and I'd be more successful if I just said yes to everything. This was a 1-way road to burnout town. It's not a nice place I'll tell ya that.

No is a complete sentence. The world won't end because you said no.

Over the last 6 months I've learnt how to say no to things I don't want to do, or maybe I want to but I simply do not have the capacity to. Guess what? No one hates me for it (or if they do I haven't noticed yet so they probably don't matter that much ??). I'm still getting speaking opportunities, podcast requests, my friends still ask me to hang out even if I said no last time. The world doesn't end because you say no.

Signs That You're Getting Better at Advocating For Yourself

? Instead of immediately wanting to say yes to everything because you want to help, you weigh up your workload/available time and make a decision based on that (or if you want to do the damn thing or not).

? You have less negative self-talk. Less of "I really shouldn't have made that small mistake at work, I've made my colleagues life more difficult" and more of "I'm only human, I have apologised and acknowledged my mistake. There's no point on me dwelling on it and if they harbour a grudge against me for it, it's a them problem not a me problem ????♀?"

? You stop apologising for every little thing. Saying things like "Thanks for your understanding" instead of "Sorry for being a pain!!!"

? You stop gaslighting yourself for feeling certain emotions when it is completely valid to feel those emotions.

? You've stopped feeling exhausted and overwhelmed all the time because you're no longer carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders ??

? You don't feel guilty spending time on yourself instead of fretting that you could be doing something that will please other people instead.

3-2-1 and Conclusion

3 pieces of advice:

1?? You're not too loud, too confident, too smart, too fierce or too sensitive. NEVER make yourself smaller to make others feel more comfortable.

2?? Change your self-talk to how you would speak to a younger sibling who you love very much. How would your tone of voice change? Would you be more compassionate to yourself?

3?? How someone treats you is a reflection of them and not you as they will very likely treat others in the same way. So it's a "them problem" not a "you problem"

2 resources :

1?? The "Feel Better Live More" Podcast by Dr Rangan Chatterjee : The Healing Power of Compassion

2?? Become your biggest advocate article

1 food for thought:

Can you think of any ways you can help others around you be better self-advocates? Try to pick your top 3 actions and work on them this month.

I appreciate this is my first article in the newsletter, I'm a bit of a perfectionist so I've mulled over whether this is ready to publish or not then I thought I'd be a bit kinder to myself and remember that the articles will only get better from here.

If you have a topic you'd like to suggest for me to cover, please fill in this short google form here.

Thank you so much for reading. Please feel free to share this newsletter with anyone you think may benefit from it ??

The next Edition will be on "Journey to an adult ADHD diagnosis" so stay tuned and stay fabulous!

Thanks, Parul x