The hidden cost of playing it safe
Happy December! The holiday season is already in full swing. As soon as we enter the last month of the year, everything gets festive fast around our house. Decorations go up, we turn on a Charlie Brown–style jazz playlist, and after dinner we work on a puzzle we’ll try to finish before we take off for our Christmas travels to Northern California to visit family and friends.
This month I pause not just to review the year, but to understand the deeper patterns that shaped it: where I showed up from a place of purpose and intention, and where I led from fear and scarcity.
Like everyone else, I work to uncover unconscious self-sabotaging patterns that make me play small. My goal each year is to become aware of them and experiment with more supportive habits in the new year.
If you want support in doing this work and designing your 2026 vision with intention and from a place of expansion, you can book a 90-minute year-end/new-year planning session here.
As I reflect on my clients’ journeys this year, I’m struck not by the external changes — promotions, reorganizations, layoffs, new beginnings — but by how much they grew in the face of those changes.
Some stepped into bigger roles, others navigated shrinking teams. Some transitioned into more balanced roles, others had to adapt fast to major internal shifts.
We all are navigating so much change right now. And the question is,
How do you show up when the ground beneath you moves?
When times get tough, we all can feel the tension between self-protection and self-expansion.
In times of uncertainty like right now, with rapidly shifting priorities, reorgs, and layoffs, the pull toward playing it safe can feel like the most sensible strategy.
Maybe you delay a project because your perfectionism takes over. Or maybe you agree to a deadline you know won’t work because of a people-pleasing tendency.
Maybe you stay quiet in a meeting, avoid difficult conversations, or put on a confident persona who has it all together instead of asking for help.
These choices aren’t wrong, but they often come from fear. And the cost of leading from fear is always the same: it dims your power. It shrinks your voice and contribution.
So how can we shift and stay empowered?
It starts with moving your attention from what feels like a threat, back to what you are creating. Moving from a victim mindset or complying, to courage.
This is what Kegan calls developing the self-authoring mind: the capacity to define your own direction, choose your values, beliefs, and commitments, instead of being shaped by external pressures.
Some questions to reflect on help develop the self-authoring mind:
Am I choosing what I truly want, or what I think I’m supposed to want?
What conversations am I avoiding that would align me with my true direction?
What is the vision I’m building toward, and how does this moment fit into it?
Sitting with these questions begins to shift how you lead, how you choose, and how you show up in the new year.
And I’m right here with you as you do.
With love and courage,
Ramona
P.S. If your team is navigating change and wants to build stronger collaboration, clarity, and purpose, I’m now offering team leadership sessions designed to support exactly that.
