I’m Done Dimming My Light
What optimism has taught me about leadership — and the cost of shrinking to fit.
I am a positive person. Most people I have worked with over the years have embraced that part of me. Some have mocked it. A few in leadership have tried to crush it.
For a long time, I struggled to understand why. I work in the public realm, where your energy influences the experience of everyone around you. Being hopeful, welcoming, and encouraging has always felt natural to me. It is how I connect with people and how I lead.
But a positive person can be irritating in a room that has grown comfortable with negativity. When you believe something can improve, you can unsettle people who have stopped believing it — or stopped wanting to try. I have learned that being welcomed into a role does not always mean every part of you is welcome in the room.
And sometimes, without quite realizing it, you begin to adjust.
You temper your enthusiasm. You become more careful about what you say. You spend time considering how your energy will be received instead of putting that energy into the work. Eventually, making yourself smaller starts to feel like part of the job.
I have done this. Recently enough that I can still feel what it cost me.
During a difficult chapter, I began dimming my light to fit the environment around me. I told myself I could manage it. I had navigated complicated personalities and challenging workplaces before. Surely I could keep going.
But I became physically and emotionally unwell. The effort of holding myself back followed me home. I was using too much of myself to endure a situation that was asking me to be less of who I am.
That experience changed me. It forced me to question something I had long taken pride in: my ability to stay, absorb, adapt, and get through almost anything. I had treated endurance as evidence of strength without asking what I was enduring — or what staying was doing to me.
Who needs your light?
Throughout my career, the people working on the front line have given my optimism a purpose.
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Serving the public is demanding work. You are expected to remain patient, informed, and welcoming through hundreds of interactions, including some that leave you depleted. Much of what you do well goes unnoticed. People may remember the difficult encounter and never see the dozens of moments you handled with care.
Those teams need a cheerleader. They need someone who notices their effort, takes their concerns seriously, and reminds them that their work matters. They also need someone willing to act when the conditions around them make that work harder.
I have always tried to be that person.
My optimism has room for frustration, difficult conversations, and the acknowledgment that something is wrong. I can see a problem clearly and still believe we can do something about it. That belief is often what gives me the energy to begin.
A leader’s presence helps set the conditions for everyone else. When I show up with warmth and enthusiasm, I give people room to bring their own. When I listen and follow through, encouragement becomes something they can trust.
Frontline teams deserve leaders who are willing to be bold and bright. There is enough in a public-facing job that can wear a person down. Leadership should offer some energy back.
Choosing where I belong
I now pay closer attention to how I feel in a room. I notice the patterns: encouragement met with dismissal, enthusiasm treated with suspicion, conversations that repeatedly leave people feeling smaller. I also notice my own response. If I am constantly editing my personality to avoid someone else’s reaction, I need to ask why.
That awareness helps me protect myself. I can work through disagreement. I can hear criticism and reconsider an idea. But I no longer want to spend my energy earning acceptance by becoming less recognizable to myself.
The more fully I show up, the more energy I seem to get in return. Connection comes more easily. Ideas move. I have more to give because I am spending less effort holding myself back.
I wish I had understood sooner that shrinking to fit a room where I do not belong serves no one. It costs me, and it costs the people who depend on what I bring.
I once thought strength meant proving how much I could endure. Now, strength also means recognizing when staying requires too much self-abandonment — and making a different choice.
I still believe in being the light in a room full of darkness. That is part of who I am. I have simply learned that my light needs protecting, too.
If you have been dimming your own light, I hope you give yourself permission to shine again. Your warmth, your enthusiasm, and your belief that things can get better are worth protecting. Someone on your team may be finding their courage because of the encouragement you offer.
Be the light. Make room for others to shine alongside you. And remember that you deserve the same warmth you give so freely.
