Dare to Be Yourself – and Believe in Your Own Abilities

In September, I have the privilege of participating as a panelist at the VoimaNaiset event in Jakobstad. The theme feels important – not only because I am a woman myself and have spent many years in working life, but also because the world of work around us is changing rapidly. This raises questions that we need to dare to talk about: What is the situation of women in working life today? Have we become better at creating workplaces where everyone has the opportunity to succeed? And above all – have we become better at allowing people to be themselves?

I can say that a great deal has changed during the decades I have spent in working life. Women today have greater opportunities, more visible role models, and a more established place in many different arenas. We see women as business leaders, entrepreneurs, managers, and experts in industries where they were previously few in number. At the same time, there are still structures, expectations, and invisible demands that affect women. And sometimes, perhaps we ourselves are our harshest critics.

I believe that one of the most important things we can give each other is encouragement to believe in our own abilities. To dare to say: I can do this. Or to say to someone else: I believe in you. You can do it. Not because we always know everything, but because we can learn, ask questions, try, and develop. We do not need to wait until we feel one hundred percent ready before taking the next step.

I have personally experienced how important it can be to dare to venture into the unknown. I chose to resign from a permanent job that I enjoyed and where I had fantastic colleagues. But somewhere along the way, a feeling began to grow that I still wanted to challenge myself and use my experience in a new way.

Leaving that sense of security was naturally both exciting and frightening. There were no guarantees. But sometimes I believe we have to dare to take the step even when we do not yet have all the answers. For me, it marked the beginning of PPLE The People Company and a new chapter in my working life.

This does not mean that everyone should quit their job and become an entrepreneur. It is about daring to listen to yourself. Daring to try. Daring to fail. And daring to believe that you have something to contribute. It means not ruling yourself out already when reading a job advertisement.

Another issue that I believe is becoming increasingly important is how we navigate a working life that is becoming more and more diverse. Today, our workplaces consist of people with different nationalities, languages, cultures, ages, experiences, and ways of thinking. This is an enormous opportunity – but it also requires us to develop ourselves.

Sometimes I wonder whether we are actually more tolerant and inclusive in our free time and in society at large than we are within our own workplaces.

Creating inclusive workplaces is therefore not just about impressive wording in a strategy. It is about everyday interactions. How we speak to one another. Who gets to have their voice heard. Whether we are curious about each other’s experiences. Whether we dare to ask when we do not understand – instead of drawing our own conclusions. And perhaps it is also about being allowed to be yourself.

I believe we perform at our best when we do not constantly have to play a role or try to fit into an image of what a “real” leader, colleague, woman, or man should be. We need different personalities and different perspectives. It is precisely our differences that make a workplace community strong.

Finally, I want to highlight something that may sound simple, but that I believe we women need to become better at: being kinder to ourselves.

We often place high demands on ourselves. Our homes should look nice. We should look good. We should be engaged parents, partners, friends, and colleagues. At work, we should perform, develop, and preferably do everything perfectly.

But does everything really have to be 100 percent in every area of life, all the time?

Perhaps good enough is sometimes exactly good enough.

Our children, once they are adults, are unlikely to remember whether the house was dust-free. They will remember the picnic under the kitchen table, the laughter, the conversations, and the time spent together. And perhaps the same applies at work. It is not always the perfect performance that people remember – it may be something entirely different.

So my message to women – and really to all of us – is simple: Believe in yourself a little more. Dare to take up space, but also allow others to take up space. Dare to try something new. And above all – dare to be yourself.

Because we do not need more perfect people. We need more people who dare to be themselves.

Tina Nylund, PPLE The People Company