The other day, I tried squeezing into a jacket that didn’t fit.
I knew it didn’t fit. Shoulders too tight, arms stuck like I was doing a bad robot dance. But I still stood in that fitting room, yanking and twisting, trying to make it work.
Why?
Because some twisted part of my brain thought the problem was me, not the jacket.
The funny thing is, I’ve done this outside the fitting room too.
I’ve swallowed my opinions to avoid conflict.
I’ve softened my personality to make others comfortable.
All so I could “fit.”
And it’s exhausting.
No, scratch that. It’s soul-sucking.
The lie they teach you early.
It starts young.
You are told to “be nice,” “play along,” “don’t make a scene.”
So, we learn to make ourselves easy to handle, and people will like us.
Fast forward a few decades, and you’re in meetings, agreeing with ideas you know are trash because you don’t want to rock the boat. Or in relationships where you suppress your real needs because you’re scared they’ll leave if you’re “too much.”
You get so good at being agreeable, you forget how to be yourself.
But no one tells us what’s at stake.
You lose your spark. Your weirdness. You lose the very thing that makes people fall in love with you in the first place.
Shrinking doesn’t protect you. It erases you.
You get so good at being agreeable, you forget how to be yourself.
Why do we do this? Fear.
Shrinking is a survival mechanism. It’s fear, dressed up as self-preservation.
Fear of rejection. Fear of conflict. Fear of being labelled “difficult” or “arrogant”, or “weird.”
So, you make yourself appealing.
You try to be the right amount of everything. Not too opinionated. Not too loud. Not too ambitious.
But shrinking doesn’t make people love you. It just makes them tolerate you.
When you shrink, people don’t love you. They love the version of you that makes them comfortable. They love the edited, quiet, watered-down version that doesn’t challenge them.
That’s not love.
That’s convenience.
The irony is, no matter how much you shrink, you’ll never satisfy everyone’s expectations. Someone will always think you’re too much or not enough.
So, why not just be you?
People who can’t handle the full version of you don’t deserve any version.
Fitting in vs. belonging.
Fitting in isn’t the same as belonging.
Fitting in is when you shape-shift to match the room.
Belonging is walking into a room where you don’t have to change a damn thing.
Fitting in is an act. Belonging is a homecoming.
If you have to edit, soften, shrink, or silence yourself to stay in someone’s life… You don’t belong there.
I know, it’s terrifying to stop performing. Because what if people don’t like the real you?
Here’s another question:
What if they do?
And even better, what if you do?
If you have to edit, soften, shrink, or silence yourself to stay in someone’s life… You don’t belong there.
Some people won’t like it. Let them leave.
When you stop shrinking, some people will pull away.
They liked you quiet. They liked you easy. They liked you when you didn’t challenge them.
You will be too loud for their quiet little world. Or too ambitious for their comfort. Your big dreams will make them feel small.
Now? You’re disrupting the dynamic. And they don’t like that.
Let. Them. Be. Uncomfortable.
Whatever the reason, they’ll label you “too much” and hope you shrink to make them feel better.
Don’t.
You are not too much. They’re the wrong ones. The right people will love your extra.
They’ll celebrate it and say, “Finally, someone who gets it.”
Let. Them. Be. Uncomfortable.
Expand the life around you.
Instead of forcing yourself into spaces that feel too small, build a life that expands to fit you.
A life where your quirks, passions, and ambitions aren’t things you need to apologise for, but things that make you shine.
A life where you don’t waste energy wondering, Am I too much? and instead ask, Am I being enough of myself?
Honey, that’s magic.
That jacket I tried on in the fitting room? I left it behind. Not because I wasn’t good enough for it, but because it wasn’t good enough for me.
It was a reminder that I don’t have to squeeze into anything: clothes, relationships, or expectations that don’t fit who I am.
Neither do you.
So take up space. Speak your truth. Be bold.
And if something, or someone, doesn’t fit you?
Leave. It was never yours in the first place.