I talked about the fear of the unknown and how it either motivates or stalls you, but what about the fear of being seen or unseen?

To be invisible may be appealing to some because they prefer their own company or are autistic or just don’t like people. But there are others who are invisible because they don’t believe they have what it takes to be noticed. Are you one of them?

Maybe you’re a waffler who becomes less distinct to others because when asked your opinion or input then you say you have none. This can result in you failing to get the raises and promotions because your boss doesn’t know you deserve them or believes you’re content in whatever your current position is. You may not believe your ideas are any good or think that if something goes wrong with an idea that you’ll be burdened with blame. I’m not sure what it would take to get you to speak up, especially if the idea gets voiced by someone else and is successful. Your boss may have seen you then and possibly suggested the raise or promotion. And in a relationship when you always leave choices and decisions up to your partner, you shouldn’t get mad and think that s/he is controlling.

It could be that your timing is off. There are times when you’re up against someone who is quicker to come up with a retort, for example, but you get frazzled and don’t have a good response until much later. That frustration makes you say something truly mean or really inadequate. Or maybe it halts you and you don’t say anything at all because you may say something mean or inadequate. Either way, words spoken are not retrievable, and words thought of but not spoken fester.

Sometimes this type of scenario generates one-sided animus against the boss, the person who did speak up, or maybe the whole team. But it’s not their fault that you didn’t speak up, because no one is a mind reader. And even if the person who did speak up stole your idea, you still did not express it first. But sometimes you may speak up with an idea and no one seems to hear it until someone else voices the same thing. What can you do about it? Maybe be more assertive, animated, and/or louder next time.

Or maybe you don’t voice your needs or wants because you either feel unworthy or are a born people pleaser and want what others want. This is also not something to blame others for. If you continuously fail to express your wants and needs, you allow things to go the other person’s way. That person will come to the conclusion that you must like what s/he does or that you are a person who likes someone else to take charge.

What about the times when you have something that you need to say but the opportunity never seems to arise? I know that is one of the most frustrating things because it makes you feel unimportant or not as significant as whatever is stopping you. I know it made me not speak as much when I was younger because I felt like what was important to me at the time was not important to the other person at all.

And of course, there are the people who are put in the spotlight who may not want to be because the reason for their notoriety (brief or lasting) comes from something they didn’t mean to do. These are the embarrassing moments where you wish you could melt into the ground or run away or reverse time.

You can laugh at yourself (if it was a clumsy act or someone said something insulting), or you can walk away from it, or you can go into hiding, or you can face it head on. People are easily distracted and may forget about it, but if you choose to run away or go into hiding, it will stay in their memories longer. I always think back to 8 Mile when Eminem beat his challenger to the insults – see where it got him?

Sometimes we want to be seen and heard but are not, and sometimes we are seen and heard but don’t want to be. It’s part of human nature – the only thing to do is to face it as something that happens sometimes. You decide how you want to handle it.