advocate (v) – to speak in support of an idea or course of action

The past month I was thinking of how advocating for what you believe in and stand for is so important. It might come naturally for a few of us, and for others it might be tough to build this skill.

We might find it easier to advocate for someone or rally for a cause someone else starts fighting for. You might find it comfortable to hop on a bus which someone else is already steering.

However, we get the most scared when it comes to advocating for ourselves.

And we matter. Our ideas matter.

At times, it might be us who needs an advocate the most.

To be able to advocate for oneself, we firstly need to be clear on what matters to us. It takes reflection, questioning and self awareness to understand our own core values and beliefs.

If you are prone to self doubt and low self esteem, it might be particularly hard to self advocate and drive results in the direction which best suits us.

The journey of self advocating is bound to have failures, embarrassment and disappointments. Just accepting this can make us more resilient and realistic about the effort involved.

We need to slowly and compassionately persist.

Consistently stand up for ourselves and what we believe in, and how we view the world. Having allies and learning from people who are good at advocating for themselves will be helpful.

In the end, we owe it to ourselves to make us and our ideas be heard and seen in the way we deem fit and right for us.