The Courage to Take Up Space
- Rachel Boutin
- Aug 16
- 2 min read
There is a button I looked at for a long time before clicking it. Registration for a networking event. Name, business, what you offer.
Three fields. It took me days.
What was in the way
It was not shyness. It was a quieter question: do I have the right to be in that room?
Introducing yourself as an entrepreneur requires asserting something you have not finished believing. That what you do has value. That what you offer is good.
As long as I did not believe it, no wording fixed the problem. I could rewrite my introduction twenty times and it still rang false, because it was.
What changed
I stopped waiting to feel legitimate before acting. I decided the opposite.
I accept that I am here now. I accept that what I have to offer is good, and that I have a great deal to give. So I speak up.
It is not a triumphant declaration. It is a quiet decision, made in front of a form.
In the EQ-i 2.0 model, assertiveness is the ability to communicate what you think, feel and want, clearly and without steamrolling anyone. What we say less often is how much courage it takes.
We are creatures of emotion
Nobody wakes up feeling perfectly legitimate. The people who seem to have simply decided to act before they were certain.
Confidence does not come before action. It follows, late, dragging its feet.
Why it matters at work
Since my EQ-i 2.0 certification, I have administered more than sixty assessments. Assertiveness is one of the subscales with the widest gap between what people are worth and what they dare to name.
It is almost never a question of competence. It is a question of permission never granted to oneself.
What if you stopped waiting to feel ready?
Courage is not the absence of discomfort. It is clicking anyway.
If this resonates, write and tell me what you have not yet dared to name. I read everything.
Rachel
What if taking up space required no one's permission?
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