“No one will advocate for you as effectively as you can advocate for yourself — but first you have to believe you’re worth advocating for.”
~ Carla Harris, Senior Client Advisor at Morgan Stanley
How often do you speak up for yourself? Not because you are guaranteed to get what you want, but because you believe your voice, your work, and your goals are worth advocating for?
Carla Harris is a Vice Chairman and Senior Client Advisor at Morgan Stanley, an author, and a respected voice on leadership and career development. I appreciate her perspective on confidence, authenticity, and advocating, especially her reminder that we have to believe we are worth advocating for. She explains the importance of self-advocacy beautifully in her book Strategize to Win. Her wisdom and insight helped me take some bold steps.
This week I advocated for something I really wanted. I had a meeting. I made the request, explained my reasons, and really put myself out there. And I didn’t get it.
Not yet.
The person assumed I would be disappointed by the outcome and said so.
I told him, actually, I wasn’t.
Of course, I would have preferred a different answer. But I advocated for myself, and I felt good about that. I was confident in the work I had done (and continue to do) and confident that I had made a thoughtful case for what I wanted. I even said, who else is going to advocate for me if I don’t advocate for myself?
Once he explained his reasoning, I understood it. I didn’t have to agree with the outcome to respect the reasoning behind it.
Advocating for yourself isn’t about proving your worth to someone else. It’s about knowing your worth enough to speak up for yourself, and being secure enough to hear a different perspective without questioning your value.
I left the meeting feeling like I had already won.
The win wasn’t getting exactly what I asked for. The win was having the courage to put myself out there, trusting the quality of my work, and showing up for myself. Sometimes the answer is yes. Sometimes it’s no. Sometimes it’s “not yet.”
None of those answers determine one’s worth.
For me, self-advocacy looked like trusting the value of my work enough to speak up for it, and being secure enough in myself to hear a different perspective without taking it personally.
This is HUGE progress for me.
So where might you need to advocate for yourself?
You don’t have to know that you’ll get the answer you want. This is not the point.
You just have to believe you’re worth advocating for.
Because sometimes the win is not getting the yes.
Sometimes the win is having the courage to say, “I believe in what I bring to the table, and I’m willing to advocate for it.”
No one can take that win away from you.
Stretching alongside you,
Amy
