Create Your Impact (Pt 7): Know What You Stand On

If I'm being difficult, I must be wrong.

For a lot of us, that thought arrives before any other. Someone pushes back, and we don't ask whether it's right for us. We ask how to make them comfortable again.

So you say yes to the extra revision. You knock a little off your price because it's been a slow month. You answer her email at nine at night because she seemed anxious. You agree to the project you already know you'll resent.

Nobody made you.

That's the part that stings.

And by the end of the week you're tired in a way sleep doesn't touch.

Let's pause here and breathe. You aren't weak. You aren't a pushover. You just haven't decided yet what you stand on.

I know this one

I learned a long time ago to belong by being needed. If people needed me, they'd keep me. It took me years to understand that "they need me" and "they love me" are not the same sentence.

Lists on the loneliest days

After my marriage ended, I spent a lot of time in two coffee shops with a notebook.

I was making lists. What I wanted in a partner, if love ever came. What I needed. And what I would not accept, ever again.

I didn't announce them. I just lived them.

The only time they came out of my mouth was when something tugged at me to cross one. Then I'd say it simply, "I can't do that." Or, "No, that's not how I do things."

Then I found myself in a relationship where I wasn't being treated the way I needed to be.

There's a voice in me I call Fred. He's fear, the protective kind, and he has been with me through everything. 

Fred had a very good argument. If you let this go, it proves you weren't enough. There won't be anyone else.

But the line was already drawn. I'd drawn it in the quiet, long before I needed it. I didn't have to invent anything while I was hurting.

I decided I would rather be completely alone than be in a love where I took second place.

I made that decision with no proof that anything better was coming.

That’s the crucial golden nugget you need to take home with you.

More than a boundary

We talk a lot about boundaries, and they matter. But a boundary tells someone else where your line is.

A standard tells you.

It's what you hold yourself to. 

How you show up. 

How you won't. 

What you need, and what you simply won't accept.

When you're building something on your own, nobody hands you these. There's no policy manual, no manager down the hall. If you don't decide your standards ahead of time, the moment decides for you. 

And the moment usually sides with whoever is asking.

That's how good women end up overworked, underpaid, and quietly resentful of the work they love.

What you stand on

I keep a page I wrote called, “This Is Me On The Rock” about who I am, and I read it on the hard days. One line on it is very simple. “I have room to create.”

I wrote that line before it was true. Before I had any evidence that a business could be built with space left in it, for thinking, for rest, for the work that actually matters to me.

That's what a standard is. A decision about who you are, made before you’re actually putting it into practice.

Picture the distance between who you are now and the woman you're meant to become as a wide chasm. You cross it one plank at a time, and each plank is one small step. 

Your standards are the solid steel beams under your feet while you lay them. They're how you know where you stand when the wind picks up.

Writing your own

Find a quiet ten minutes. A cup of tea helps. Then write three short lists.

How I show up.How I won't show up. What I won't accept.

Keep them simple and true. Some of mine sound like this. 

I am never dishonest. I say what needs to be said. I protect my time. I don't lower my price because a month is lean. I don't take on work I already know I'll resent.

Then check each one and ask: does this protect the woman I'm choosing to be? Or does it protect me from being seen? 

A standard is a floor, not a wall. If one feels like a rule fear wrote, let it go.

When I sit with women who are building on their own, this is so often the list they've never written down.

When the tug comes

Choose one standard from your list to hold this week.

You'll know the moment when it arrives. There's a tug. Someone asks, and every part of you wants to soften.

Take a breath. Give the feeling about ninety seconds to rise and settle. Fred will say, “She'll be upset. You need this.” 

Thank him. He's trying to keep you safe.

Then say it once, plainly. No long paragraph of reasons. No apology tacked on the end. “That's not how I do things.”

Afterward, notice that you held your line before you knew how it would land. Write it down. That's evidence, and it's yours alone.

This is how the horizon you've chosen draws closer. One Tiny Brave Step at a time, standing on what you know is true about you.

If you'd like a thinking partner, paste this into your favorite AI. Attach your business plan and a personality assessment you've taken, so it knows who you are:

“Help me write my business standards in three parts: how I show up, how I won't show up, and what I won't accept. Ask me one question at a time. Then help me choose one standard to hold this week and find the plain words to say it once, without over-explaining.”

And if you're building on your own and want company while you do it, join us in Creative Spaces on Tuesday, October 13, from 9:30 to 11:00 a.m. Mountain Time. It's a free 90-minute Zoom gathering for solopreneurs who want to keep taking Tiny Brave Steps forward. Bring one task. You'll leave with a little more courage and one real thing done.