How often do you find yourself mentioning something you’ve achieved, or that you’re proud of, only to then downplay your success in the next breath with a huge but? At Nonpareil Network we want you to ditch the buts. Seriously there are no buts allowed. Nope, not even small buts.

Do any of the following sound familiar?

“I ran 5K this morning. But I was really slow.”

“I passed all my A levels at school but I only got a D in English.”

“I’m quite good at cooking, but I’m rubbish at baking.”

Or how about:

“Oh, thanks - it was only a cheap one from Primark though!” when someone compliments your outfit, or “Oh, really? I wasn’t sure if it made me look fat/old/frumpy” when someone says that you look nice. What’s stopping us from just saying “Thank you!” or even “Yes, I love it too, I feel really good in it”? 

Do you even find yourself downplaying your career to certain audiences? Not mentioning your job title if you’re in a senior role and saying “I work for a bank” or “I work in marketing” instead of “I’m marketing director of a bank”?

As women, we come under so much pressure to be modest about our achievements. It’s a fine line between being confident and being considered over the top, full of ourselves, boastful or vain. We automatically downplay things or deflect compliments so that we don’t risk being seen in a negative light or having certain assumptions made about us. 

The problem is that being self-deprecating very quickly and easily becomes a habit and what starts as a way of not seeming to be over-confident to others turns into a negative mindset. Questioning and downplaying our achievements and worth in our own mind becomes the norm. In fact, it’s a habit that many of us develop before we even reach adulthood. We look for the negatives and have a tendency to focus on the weaker points about our appearance, our skills and our personality - instead of celebrating and building on the positives. 

Sadly, it’s often other women who will react negatively to a woman who seems confident in her own skin, proud of her achievements or comfortable with talking about her own success.

We really want to change that. 

At the Nonpareil Network, we are building a community of like-minded women who want to support and build each other up - and support a future generation of professional women to do the same. We believe that women at work should be allies, not rivals. And we’d love to make it the norm to compliment each other - and ourselves - and accept being complimented without adding any ‘buts’ or throwing in a negative point to balance out the positive. 

To start spreading the positivity, why not make it a daily habit to say something positive about yourself? You could write it in a journal, or share it with a trusted friend or family member. 

You could even start a positivity circle with like-minded friends, where you say something positive about yourself and each other, making sure not to add in any negatives, qualifiers or caveats - and making sure you accept compliments without trying to point out something that’s less worthy. Challenge each other and call it out if someone is putting themselves down, being self-deprecating or highlighting a negative.

The objective is to get yourself into a positive mindset where you don’t look for the bad points about yourself - or others.

Even better, come and join us at the Nonpareil Network and surround yourself with positive women who want to support each other! Our first event is scheduled for January 14th 2022 and we would love you to join us.

Sign up here to find out more and to be kept up to date with articles and of our upcoming event on the 14th January 2022. 

Written by Hannah Poulton

Co-founder of Nonpareil Network.

Hannah is a portfolio Marketing Director. She is also a Non Executive Director for the Welsh Cycling Union and a Lay Member for the British Chiropractic Council. She also volunteers as a Magistrate and is a Lay Member for NHS Blood and Transplant.