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Note 84: The Social Backlash of Becoming Confident · Notes to Her

• 0:14
  Yaya: Hey, girl. Hey. Welcome back to Notes Her, the daily pep talk. I'm Yaya, your confidence and mindset coach, and I'm here to help you keep growing without apologizing for it. Now have you ever started feeling better about yourself and then you noticed that the people closest to you got a little strange about it?
• 0:30
  Maybe the replies in the group chat slowed down. Maybe a friend started saying, you've changed, in a tone that didn't sound like a compliment. Maybe you shared good news and you got a flat, that's great, followed by a very fast change of subject, and you spent the rest of the night replaying the conversation to figure out what you did wrong. That story comes in a 100 different versions, and ambitious women live it every time their confidence takes a step forward. The details change from woman to woman, but the pattern holds.
• 1:01
  Friends get distant, friends get competitive, and women who were warm for years go cold almost overnight. Some friends are jealous, some are scared, some are confused and need time. And it's important to know which is which because you respond to each one differently, and guessing wrong caused you either a friendship that you could have kept or months of energy spent on one that you couldn't keep. Now, Backlash usually doesn't look like a fight. If someone screamed at you for getting confident, you wouldn't know exactly what you were dealing with, but the real version is quieter and that's why it really messes with your head.
• 1:50
  The invitation slowed down. A friend answers your big news with a joke at your expense or a must be nice or complete silence. Someone hands you a compliment with a hook in it like, I can never be that bold, or you're so lucky you get to do that, and you can hear the resentment sitting underneath it. Someone tells you that you change, and they say it with disappointment. Then there's a version that gets asked directly for you to bring it down a notch.
• 2:21
  Like, why do you have to be so intense about everything? You used to be more chill. Translation, you used to be easier for me. Picture a woman whose life starts coming together finally. She moves to a better neighborhood, she meets somebody good for her, and her days feel steadier than they have in years.
• 2:40
  Her closest friend, the one who stayed up with her through the hard seasons, goes distant right as things improve. She looks back and she realizes that very few of her friendships from that earlier chapter made it into the next one. Picture another woman whose career takes off while her best friend is still figuring out her own path. She's thrilled, so she talks about her wins a lot, and the friend slowly stops answering. The friendship never recovers, and she never gets a clear explanation.
• 3:12
  Now we're gonna come back to that one because it really matters. I want you to picture a third woman though who starts just being more herself. She notices that people either like her more than they used to or they care for her less with far fewer lukewarm people in between. That last pattern is worth holding onto because it describes what happens when you stop blending in. The people who like the blended version of you have to decide how they feel about the real one.
• 3:41
  And, yeah, I know it stings, especially when this is from people that you really love. Every friendship runs on an agreement that nobody ever said out loud, and you just wrote your half of it. Think about the role that you played. Maybe you were the one who said yes, the one who listened to everybody else's problems and kept your own short, the one who laughed at every joke even when it stung. Your friends built their comfort around that version of you, and most of them, they didn't decide to do it on purpose.
• 4:11
  It's just something that they naturally reacted to. So when you start saying no, asking for what you need, speaking up in the room, or sharing a goal out loud, the agreement changes without anyone signing off on the new terms. Some people quickly adjust, others push back, and the pushback usually comes from one of three places. The first is comfort. The old you was easy to be around, and the new you takes more effort from them.
• 4:42
  Plenty of people in this group mean no harm. They like how things were, and they haven't figured out how they like how things are now. Think of the friend who counts on you to pick the restaurant, plan the trip, or remember the birthdays. The first time you say, can someone else plan this one? She may take it personally even though you asked for something completely reasonable.
• 5:05
  The second one is the mirror. Watching you forces some women to look at their own lives and ask why they haven't made a move. Jealousy hides in digs that sound like jokes in the quiet competing, in sudden distance, and it tends to be aimed at the woman who makes someone else feel behind. Your growth handed her a question that she wasn't ready to answer, and you got the reaction instead. The third is fear of losing you, and this one gets overlooked.
• 5:39
  A friend who senses you groan may be quietly afraid that you're gonna outgrow her, so she goes cold before you can leave. It looks like jealousy from the outside, and underneath sits a lot of hurt. Now I wanna be real with you about something that I've seen. Sometimes the backlash is a reaction to how the confidence is being delivered. Go back to the woman who got excited about her career and talked about it all the time.
• 6:08
  Now I'm not saying just to blame her. I'm telling it because her friend may have been sitting through a steady stream of good news with no room to share her own struggle, and that wears on the friendship. Secure women rarely spend time putting down other people because they have no need to. That is a good standard to check yourself against. Do you still ask her about her life?
• 6:36
  Do you celebrate your wins as lousy as you want her to celebrate yours? Are you treating your growth like a scoreboard? If you listen to that list and cringe a little, good, because now you have something that you can adjust to. Calling this out is me being a friend who loves you enough to check on you because keeping a friendship through growth is a skill. Ask me how I know.
• 7:00
  But skills can be learned. Now I wanna share this with you too, because I want you to know that the feelings that you're having are normal. There is going to be a pull to go back to the old version of you, and it'll be strong, and it rarely announces itself. It usually starts small. You'll stop mentioning the good news.
• 7:21
  You'll begin a sentence about your goal with, this is probably silly, but... You'll laugh at a joke that stung because laughing is easier than explaining. You'll say yes to the plan that you wanted to skip because the last time you said no, the group chat went quiet for a week, and the voice in your head gets loud. Maybe I really am too much. Maybe I should just go back to how it was so that everybody's comfortable again.
• 7:47
  Is it even worth it? Giving in feels like relief for about a week, then it turns into resentment because you're sitting in a room that you shrank yourself into and the friends you were protecting have no idea about what you gave up. Picture yourself staying quiet at a dinner table so your friend doesn't feel uncomfortable. You go home and replay everything you didn't say, and you wake up tired the next morning. Doing that for a year, you can lose track of what you even wanted to say.
• 8:20
  Your confidence gets weaker each time too, because confidence gets built by using it, and each time you swallow your answer, you skip a rep. The other cause is loneliness in between, when the old circle is shifting and the new one isn't built yet. A lot of women who go deep into discipline and self improvement hit this gap. They build the routines and the skills, and they realize they never built the close relationships to match. Maybe you're sitting in that gap right now.
• 8:52
  The loneliness and in between is what it feels like for you to want more from your relationships than you're used to getting. Wanting more takes some time to get that, and the waiting is part of the process. Now let's chat about the reactions that you get from your friends because you can sort these reactions into three kinds, and each kind needs a different response from you. The first group is adjusting. They're awkward.
• 9:20
  They'll ask questions. They'll get it wrong sometimes, but they'll still show up. Give them time because adjusting takes weeks, sometimes even months. Invite them in directly with something like, I've been working hard on myself, and I'd love you to know about the woman that I'm becoming. Say it out loud because they cannot read your mind, and they're probably more nervous than you are.
• 9:42
  Now the second group is struggling. They are warm on some days, sharp on others, and the digs show up right after your wins. This group deserves one clear, kind conversation. Try something like, when I shared my news last week, it felt like you got quiet. Did something land wrong?
• 10:03
  Or after a dig, that comment hit differently than I think you meant. What's going on? You are naming the behavior and leaving the door open, and what she does with it will tell you a lot. The second group is leaving. They keep pushing you back toward the old version of you.
• 10:22
  They ignore a boundary you set twice, they mock your goals, they go cold after your wins, and they mostly appear when they need something. This group does not need a speech. You can wish them well and stop chasing them. Picture a friend you've had since college who answers your promotion news with, wow, so you're gonna be too busy for us now? Before you decide which group she belongs to, I want you to watch them next month.
• 10:53
  If she texts you to apologize or asks you about the new role or shows up at your birthday dinner, she was adjusting and she had a rough moment. Now if she keeps making that joke, skips a dinner, or mentions how different you are each time you talk, that tells you something. One comment doesn't sort a person into a group, but more time does like a month. Now if you don't take anything away from this episode, here's what I want you to know. Ask yourself whether this person is asking questions about the new you or asking you to go back to the old one.
• 11:28
  Curiosity means she's adjusting. A request for the old you repeated over months means she's leaving. Plenty of women walk down this exact road. They stop keeping the friends around who called them insufferable or told them they couldn't take a joke, and it takes a while, but then they meet condor women, they build a life they love, and ends up with a fuller circle than they had before. That's the part that we don't hear enough.
• 11:58
  The circle gets smaller first, and for more women, it gets better afterward. I promise you this. So here's what you can do this week if you are currently experiencing this in your own friendships. Start by retiring the pre apology. When you share good news, skip the sorry to brag or this is silly, but say the news the way you would say it if you were proud in one clear sentence.
• 12:30
  Next, I want you to choose where your biggest wins go, and this is something that I actually had to learn recently too. Not every win belongs in the group chat, and you don't need to broadcast it to everyone who knows your name. Share the big news with the people who have earned a front row seat, and keep things lighter when people are still adjusting. Third, stay generous. Ask her about her job, her kids, her dating life, her marriage, the real questions, the ones that need more than a good for an answer, and show up for her moments.
• 13:03
  When you keep your side of the friendship generous, you're making sure that even if it ends, it ends for reasons that don't include you pulling away. Fourth, hold your boundaries once and calmly. You do not need to argue your case five times or write a three paragraph text explanation. I'm not available for that. It's a complete sentence, and you can say it kindly.
• 13:28
  Fifth, build a second circle while the first one sorts itself out. This is what slay society is for. It's a community of women who are doing the brave things out loud where no one needs to turn the volumes out. When your friend goes quiet after your big announcement, you have women to talk to who will celebrate you, and that changes how the backlash feels. Inside, you'll find the do it scared challenge, seven days of small specific actions for women who are tired of waiting until they feel ready, and the first week is free.
• 13:58
  The link is in the show notes, and I would love to see you in there. Now take a breath with me and think about one relationship or friendship where you've been editing yourself since you started growing. Which parts of your life have you stopped talking about around this person? Is she adjusting, struggling, or leaving? If your friend told you this exact story, what would you tell her to do?
• 14:24
  And whose reaction have you been treating as a verdict on whether you should keep going? This one may have stirred up a friendship that you've been grieving, so give that grief some time. Some people will grow on you and some will need an honest conversation, some will drift, and you can wish all three groups well. Becoming confident changes your relationships, and the change comes with a gift because you'll find out who was built for the woman that you're becoming. Now make sure you're subscribed to Notes to Her so you don't miss the next note.
• 14:59
  I'm gonna give you a two minute reset that you can use before you walk into something scary. So keep growing out loud, girl. The right people are going to be proud of your growth.