You’re Not Too Much Owning Your Power Is the Key to Confidence (Ep. 5)

Have you ever been told you're too much? Too loud. Too emotional. Too ambitious. Too sensitive. I have — and I know how deeply that message can get under your skin.

In this episode of Confidence Unfiltered, I’m pulling back the curtain on the real reason so many of us shrink ourselves to fit in. I talk about the invisible rules we’ve been taught — especially as women and ADHDers — to stay small, agreeable, and nice... even when it costs us our confidence, clarity, and self-worth.

I’ll walk you through how I broke the pattern of people-pleasing, overthinking, and playing small — and how you can do it too. Because confidence isn’t about faking it or being perfect. It’s about owning your power, showing up unapologetically, and finally taking up the space you were always meant to.

🎧 In this episode, I share:

• Why being told “you’re too much” is a tactic that keeps women small
• The shrinking cycle and how it messes with your confidence
• How I stopped editing myself to fit in — and how you can too
• What it really means to own your power as an ambitious, sensitive woman
• How to move through the fear of judgment and show up fully

This episode is for every woman who’s ever felt like she had to tone it down just to be accepted. It's time to take your power back.

👉 Hit play, take the challenge at the end, and tag @skymareesteele on Instagram to share what you’re finally giving yourself permission to do!

FREE 3-Day Masterclass: From People Pleaser to Powerhouse

Break free from the 'Nice Girl' rules, set strong boundaries, and reclaim your power to achieve meaningful results in 2025.

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Transcript

0:00

Welcome to Confidence Unfiltered. I'm your host, sky Marie Steele, a clinical psychologist, business owner, A DHD, and recovering people pleaser. If you've spent your life trying to keep everyone else happy while feeling like you're never quite enough, you are in the right place. Here we ditch the people pleasing, silence, the self-doubt, and have real unfiltered conversations about confidence, boundaries, and building a life that feels unapologetically yours. No fluff, no perfection, just raw, real talk to help you trust yourself, show up fully and own your dam power. Let's dive in. Welcome to another episode of Confidence Unfiltered. I'm Skye, I'm your host. And today, before we kick off, I wanna ask you something. Have you ever been told that maybe you are too loud or you're too sensitive, or. You take up too much space or you're too abi, like ambitious, or you're too much, or maybe you've been made to feel like you actually need to tone it all down. Like you need to play small in life, like you need to shrink to make others more comfortable. Well, today's episode is your permission slip to own your too muchness and to stop making yourself smaller. For people who literally can't handle your greatness, because here's the truth, and it's the truth that I also have had to learn, is that you are actually not too much. You are just enough for you. And when you finally start to embrace and everything that you've been told to dim down, not only do you get to unlock a whole new level of confidence, success, and fulfillment. But those parts of you that you've made wrong, you actually get to accept and grow. So let's get into it. So why do we actually believe that we're too much? Like where does this story come from? Because I want you to hear my words there. It is a story. It's something that we've been told and listened to enough so we believe it's true. But here's the thing. It's actually not, you know, society, whether it be through social media, whether it be through parenting, the coach at school, teaching just rules in general that are around you have taught us that, especially women, we need to be polite. We need to be quiet. We need to be agreeable, we need to be modest. We are taught that confidence can be arrogance. We are taught that ambition is often seen as selfish or up ourself. We are taught that taking up space is rude. Speaking is like just being too opinionated. Like there's all of these little stories and innuendos that get attached to things that actually just aren't true. And what happens though when we are fed these messages over and over again from different peoples and different places and different spaces. We actually start to believe it. So we start to shrink ourselves to fit in. We start to apologize, right? This is a theme in all of my things. We start to apologize for things we shouldn't. We tone down our personality and whether it be in the way that we speak, or our energy, or what we wear, or how we hold ourselves, or our opinions or our dreams, all of those parts of us get toned down. But let me ask you this. What if the very things that you've been told to dim down are actually your biggest strengths are actually your fucking super power? What if your loud laugh or your big energy, or the way that your voice sounds, or your bold opinions, or your ambition, or your sensitivity, whatever that thing is for you, that you've been told? To dial down. What if those things, all of them are exactly what makes you powerful. What if by shrinking, by playing small, by turning it down, by giving away your gifts, you've actually disempowered yourself. Because the problem is that you've actually never been too much. I am gonna say this on repeat. The problem is that some people in your world are uncomfortable. With someone who fully owns themselves. So how do we shrink and how does that hold us back? Well, what happens when you spend your life making yourself small? Different things start to happen. Now, I don't know about you, but for me, one of the biggest things that happened when I started to kind of shrink myself and make myself too small and think like my hyperactivity, my impulsivity, my swearing, that thinking that all of that was too much for people. What happened when I made that go away was I started to doubt myself. I started to doubt who I was. I started to doubt how I wanted to show up in the world. What I meant to people, what meaning I wanted to bring to things. I started to overthink every fucking thing. Did I say that? Okay. Did I, did I do that? Like did I do the wrong thing there? What are they thinking about me? Like, should I do this? Should I do that? Like I fucked myself over with the shoulds. You know? I had this sense that being myself was bad. It was wrong, right? Like you feel this sense of like, I can never fully be me. Because that is not gonna be okay or accepted by others. I started for a long time to play life safe even when I wanted more. Like have you found yourself doing this? That you're stuck in your own box that you've unintentionally created and maybe you're like, oh my God, I'd love to change my career, and you're like, can't do that. Oh my God, I'd love to start a new relationship. Or end one. Can't do that. Oh my God, I'd love to pivot in my business. Can't do that. Like anything you say that you want to do or change gets shut down and kept in this little box of safety. And what happens is then you settle. You settle for less than you deserve, right? You are not enough. So this is enough versus you are worth fucking more. You get to be more, you get to do more. You get to have more. We get stuck in this conditioning. Any of this sounding familiar to you? You know, this is what I call the shrinking cycle, and it's a trap. You cannot live a full, authentic, confident life if you are constantly editing yourself to fit into other people's comfort zones, because let's be clear, the comfort zone that you've created for yourself, it isn't actually yours. It's not comfortable, it's familiar, and it keeps other people safe. Not safe as in harm. Safe as in, oh, they might like me. I'm not rubbing up against their edges. So guess what? Today I want you to think about how you break the shrinking cycle. And there are three biggest too much lies, and I wanna go through them and explain to you why they're utter bullshit. But let's look. We're gonna bust some myths together. So the first one, this is what I was told, right, or taught. Should I say. If I take up space, I will push people away, meaning that they won't like me, they won't love me, they will leave me truth bomb and easy to say. But a practice to do is the right people will love you for the space that you take up. And the energy that you will bring. The people who feel threatened by your confidence, your energy, your magnetism, your ambition. They're never your people, right? If everybody in the world likes you, you are doing something wrong. You are not being authentic. Not everybody is going to like you. You don't like everybody, right? You are real people. The people who wanna see you grow, who wanna see you, be yourselves. They're the ones you will see will celebrate your success. Not minimize it, judge it. Put it down and criticize it. They will encourage your boldness, not put a lid on your too muchness. They will love you for exactly who you are, not. Put conditions around the love that they're willing to give. The more you own your too muchness. The more you attract the right people into your life. Now, the second lie that comes up, if I fully express myself, people will judge me. Truth bomb people fucking judge you anyway. It doesn't matter what you do, what you say, how you present yourself, how small you make you. There are going to be people. That judge you no matter what. And as I said a minute ago, if you are doing it right, someone's not gonna like you. If you are loud, they might say You are too much. Oh, well, Mel Robbins, it might be I am allowed to own who I am. It might simply be it's okay to feel the fear, but the fear is not gonna stop me. It might be, and this is the one I love. It's okay. I get to choose whatever your sentence is. Write it down, put it on a post-it note, put it in your phone. Tell a friend to remind you when you're about to do the big, bold thing, right? And share with someone. Let 'em know, Hey, I'm going to do this big, bold thing. I would love some enthusiasm from you. I would love for you to check in with me later. Like, actually reward yourself once you've done the thing like. Absolutely make it something that you get to be proud of because it is going to be the base of where you start building something new. And I wanna keep this conversation going, so I want to hear from you. If you wanna share with me what is the big, bold move that you are gonna take to own your too muchness, then let me know at Sky Marie Steel on Instagram. Jump in and share it with me so I can celebrate you too. Here is the final thought though for today, the world. It does not need you smaller. It needs you fully in your power. Stop shrinking. Start thriving, and the people who can't handle your shine, that my dear, is a them problem.