The term self advocacy is thrown around frequently, but the practical and necessary tools to get there are rarely discussed.
Self advocacy is a critical part of healthy relationships, long term success, and overall happiness in life.
One of the many benefits of self-advocacy that helps establish these three pillars of overall wellness, is that when you feel comfortable advocating for yourself, you can get what you want and deserve out of your negotiations.
Zabeen Mirza, Founder of Jobs.mom and podcast host of Mom’s At Work, discusses what self advocacy is and how to use it to better your negotiations and general life.
What is Self Advocacy...Truly?
Word ADVOCACY written on wood block,stock image
Mirza states that self advocacy is teaching people how to treat you.
You teach people how to treat you in the following ways:
- Setting boundaries and expectations
- Helping others to understand exactly what you need and what your requirements are
- What kind of support you need in order to perform effectively at work
Self advocacy is communicating those things, and then helping others understand how they can best support you.
It is a common misconception that self advocacy is just about speaking out or standing up for yourself, and that only good communicators or extroverts would be good self-advocates. However, you don’t need to be outspoken, assertive, or even confident in order to be able to advocate for yourself.
One of the biggest ways in which you can advocate for yourself in the workplace, is by asking your employers to help you develop you professionally. For example, ask them for more training, a professional development course, or even more responsibility.
Another way you can advocate for yourself is by asking your higher ups what priorities are.
If you have a million and one tasks to complete and your manager is asking you to take on even more tasks, take this opportunity to practice self advocacy.
If this happens, tell your manager something like this: “I understand this is important for you. However, let me show you the tasks I still need to complete. Can you please help me understand what the priority is? What is the deadline? What are things you want me to put on the back burner so that I can now do these more important things?”
Doing this does two things.
First, it allows you to advocate for yourself without having to be assertive. You are simply asking a question for clarification.
Secondly, it shows that you're organized.
It shows that you care about your work enough to keep track of your assignments and that you are making sure you complete those tasks to the highest level of quality and on time.
While it can be intimidating to have the conversation who out-ranks you, remember that a lack of advocacy on your own behalf increases your likelihood for a multitude of problems such as severe stress, anxiety, burnout, job dissatisfaction, etc.— all which can negatively impact employee performance, and can be more costly for your employer in the long run.
In other words — you have leverage.
Advocating for yourself early and often by setting those limits in instances of increased demands on your time are also incredibly important to set the tone for what future practices and behaviors will be tolerated, and will make it easier for you to address demands in the future that go outside those limits.
- Barriers to Advocating for Yourself
The unfortunate reality is that there will be barriers for advocating for yourself, both internally and externally.
What are these barriers?
Implicit Bias can play a major role in self advocating, according to Mirza.
When we see ourselves through a biased lense, we may be less likely to feel compelled to advocate for ourselves.
If we are biased to others, we have the potential to ignore critical aspects of a person's identity that maybe they need more support with.
In order to recognize these biases, we need to reflect internally and notice our behaviors: are we treating a certain person or group differently? If, so - why?
Once you have reflected internally and recognized these behaviors, you can work on identifying, learning from, and correcting that bias in future interactions.
- How to Effectively Advocate For Ourselves
“Easier said than done” applies perfectly to self advocating.
If advocating for yourself doesn’t come naturally already, it will take time to get to a point where it does. That’s okay, be patient with yourself through this process.
In the meantime, Miraz advises us to take a “fake it till you make it” approach. Self advocacy is like a muscle. You need to work it out consistently in order to develop confidence and self belief.
Start with your internal monologue.
Instead of saying “I can’t, I’m not good enough, they won’t like this or that”, try correctly those initial thoughts to “ I CAN, I WILL, I AM good enough, and they WILL like this or that”.
Again, this won't happen naturally, but try your best to catch yourself in the act of doubting yourself and your abilities.
