Alignment With Jenn - DO THESE 7 THINGS TO STOP PLAYING SMALL✨ Quantum Leap Your Life in 30 Days -- #61

Episode Date: September 4, 2026

✨ Want to explore coaching with Jenn? DM the word "PODCAST" on Instagram: @alignmentwithjennThere's a version of you who knows exactly what she's capable of — and every time she gets close, she hesitates. This is a full psychology-of-playing-small breakdown: why it isn't a confidence problem, but a subconscious pattern quietly protecting you from judgment, rejection, and outgrowing the life and people you already know.Jenn walks through what playing small actually looks like, which is rarely obvious. It looks responsible, humble, even spiritual — undercharging and overdelivering, waiting until you feel perfectly ready, hiding your opinions and your ambition, calling your dreams unrealistic before anyone else can. Then she explains the mechanism underneath it: your subconscious isn't asking whether something will create your dream life, it's asking whether it will keep you safe, accepted and familiar. If visibility once brought criticism, your nervous system now reads being seen as a threat.If you've ever felt a fear of being seen you couldn't explain, or imposter syndrome that gets louder the closer you get to what you want, this episode gets underneath it. Jenn unpacks the hidden payoff of staying small, the real cost to your self-trust and your future, and why hiding your gifts was never actually humility.Then she breaks down a 3-step process to overcome the fear of visibility at the identity level: name the old subconscious rule, build a new internal association, and give your brain new evidence through repeated bold action. This is personal growth and mindset shift work that goes past affirmations, into real subconscious and nervous system change.You'll leave with the 24-hour challenge — one concrete move to make before fear rebuilds the cage. Press play.TIMESTAMPS 0:00 You know you're meant for more1:45 What playing small actually looks like4:30 Your subconscious is trying to protect you7:15 The hidden payoff of staying small9:45 The real cost — your self-trust, your happiness, your future12:15 Your gifts were never only about you14:15 The 3 steps to rewire the belief that expansion isn't safe16:45 Bold action + the 24-hour challenge18:45 Closing — your life is waiting for the full version of you✨ Want to explore coaching with Jenn? DM the word "PODCAST" on Instagram: @alignmentwithjenn✨ NEW: 7-Day Money Block Detox: "Everything I Touch Turns to Gold" rewires your subconscious mind and nervous system so abundance flows naturally" https://jenn-ditzhazy.mykajabi.com/offers/PE995nM2/checkout#playingsmall #stopplayingsmall #fearofbeingseen #impostersyndrome #subconsciousmind #personalgrowth

Hello and welcome to this episode of the Alignment with Jen podcast. I'm your host, Jen Ditsasey. And today we are going to be talking about the psychology of playing small and how to stop doing it. So one of the biggest things that I hear from my clients is that they feel like they're playing small. And it's such a wild thing because I'll have clients come to me in their early 30s as well as like in their 60s. And what's interesting is they all feel this sense of playing small. and they all want to get out of this area of not living up to their full potential. Because the thing is, your soul came here to express itself, to grow, to expand, to become more. That's why you will always want more. You will always want another level is because your soul is literally designed for expansion. And when we are playing small, what we are doing is we are basically resisting the deepest desire of our soul, which is to grow, to expand, to connect with the creator, with source energy. When we play small, we are not living in alignment.

And when we are not living in alignment, it's much harder for us to attract the level of abundance, the level of connection, the level of love, of appreciation of impact that we truly, truly desire. And most of the women that I work with, and I believe most of the women that listen to this podcast are women that have a purpose, that have a very important. vision that want to create something amazing in the world, whether it's a side hustle, whether it's a business, whether it's in their corporate career, but they have this vision of really living their purpose. And I believe one of the things that stops most people from living their purpose is this

habit of playing small. So I want to explain the psychology of this. I want to talk about how your subconscious mind really impacts your ability to play full out in your life. and show up fully and take risks and show up and become the version of you that you want to be. And what you can do to stop playing small so you can actually really create the life that you know that you're here to create. So let's first talk about what's playing small is. So I was at this family barbecue. This is maybe five or six years ago. And one of my cousins was talking about another cousin. And this second cousin was just starting this new business. And his business was getting up and running, but as with most new businesses, there were some hiccups, there were some

challenges. And this other cousin was his brother. And he said, I don't understand why he can't just be okay with what he has. And that has stuck with me so, so deeply because I think that that is a mentality that a lot of people feel and it creates this playing small. Like, why can't I just appreciate what I have? Why can't I be okay with what I want? And feeling almost this dissonance or this guilt for wanting more when as I said your soul is here to desire more it's normal to want more and there should never be any guilt or shame about wanting to create an extraordinary life for yourself and I think that has to be said at the beginning of this episode the dreams that you have for yourself like the most outlandish wild dreams that you have for yourself are tiny in comparison

to what the universe wants to give you to what's true really available to you. And so any dream that you have is part of your path. You're meant to go after it. You're meant to become the person that you need to be to manifest that dream. So that's the piece number one that I really want to get out of the way. So if you're thinking anything similar to that, come into this episode with a new frame of mind of recognizing maybe I actually can create these most extraordinary things. Maybe I'm not beholden to what society has said is okay. Because average is average for a reason, right? But if you want to be extraordinary, you have to start acting as an extraordinary person. And part of that is not playing small. So what does playing small look like? What are the

symptoms? So one of them is staying in a job, a relationship, or a version of you that you've outgrown. It can be a job that you're like, oh, this job, this was me. This job pays. so well. Honestly, I don't know how I'm going to make this much money doing anything else. That was me for eight years. I wish I had shrunk that down to two years, right? It can also be a relationship. Oh my gosh. I have so many clients that have been in relationships for decades and they are like, this isn't for me, but I'm so afraid to leave, right? That's playing small. Why do we play small? Fear, right? We're afraid of what's on the other side. That's always the result. Fear is the thing that we are in this life to learn how to overcome. And there's also identities that we've outgrown. So sometimes if you hang out with people from your past, like I'll hang out with some of my friends from high school or even college and they'll remember versions of me that I no longer am. Right. And it's a really interesting thing because it's like they have in their mind this old identity of me and I have in my mind the new version of me. Right. And there's this disconnect. And sometimes we can,

sort of fall to that level of what people are expecting of us of these old identities. But part of your growth is to say, yeah, you know, I used to be like that, but actually now I believe this or actually now I feel this way. And if that friendship or that relationship's meant to stay in your life, it will. And that'll be okay, this new version of you. But part of the challenge of this work of personal growth and becoming different than you were and becoming better is that relationships are going to fall away, especially if people are not open to growth. if people are not open to becoming better versions of their cells, there's going to be some challenges there.

Right? I call it the clearing. I think I've talked about this in past episodes. When you're manifesting any new level, there's always this phase that I call the clearing, and it's where old stuff gets cleared out. So that could be your limiting beliefs, your doubts, your fears. It could be relationships.

It could be a job. It's like the universe is like, I'm going to get rid of all this stuff because you don't need it anymore. One of my best friends just went through a breakup. after two and a half years. And she said, you know, she was struggling with this breakup. And she said, she's like, you know what I realized? And I was like, whoa, this is a mic drop. It was so good. She was like, I realized that this relationship, the universe took this relationship away because I wouldn't have let it go, even though it wasn't right for me. Oh, sometimes things have to go because you won't outgrow them

and you need to grow. It's like you need to get your little butt kicked out the door sometimes. And that's what she said and I was like, that's amazing. Like, whoa. So there's waiting until you feel perfectly ready. That's playing small. I'm a big proponent of just doing the thing. I see a lot of people spending months and months and months in preparation. And I just don't think that's valuable. I think if you want to create something, you need to start taking action on it almost as immediately, as quickly as you can. because the more that you stay in preparation, it's almost like this mountain of resistance slowly starts to build up and it becomes harder and harder and harder. Oftentimes, the reason we're over-preparing is because we're afraid anyway. So that fear just has time to grow. But it's like if you just step

off the ledge and you just go, it's so much easier. When I started this podcast, so I started this podcast about a year, a little over a year ago, and I knew that if I stayed in preparation, If I did all the research on how to launch a podcast and those strategies and all that kind of stuff, I probably wouldn't launch it. So I bought this podcasting course. I spent like maybe two days going through how do you set up like a mic and I initially did it in my house. How do you do like the logistical stuff?

And then I made myself record the first episode that weekend because I knew if I didn't, it would be so much harder for me the longer I waited. Then I recorded episodes and episodes and episodes and then it's grown and la la la la la la la la. right? You've got to get yourself to take that initial action. Hiding your opinions, your gifts, or your ambitions. Being small, right, with other people, being small with what you want, not sharing what you truly desire. This happens a lot in intimate relationships because we fear that we'll lose that person if we fully express what we truly, truly want. And that's hard. That's courageous to do that. Undercharging is also a big way that we play.

small. Oh, you know, like I'll just charge like this little amount, right? I don't, I don't know. I'll just charge this little amount when you don't really want to charge that. You want to charge more. Something I really, really often see is people supporting other people's visions rather than supporting their own. Like whether it's your partner, whether it's a person that you work for, it's putting a lot of effort into someone else's vision when you have this vision inside of you that hasn't been birthed yet. and you're afraid to birth it. And this can create a lot of disharmony within us. I have a client who she works on movies, like film productions, and she also wants to start writing her own films. And she asked me, she's like, do you think I should wait until I have a break in order to start writing my own films?

And I was like, absolutely not. You should always find a way to prioritize your own dreams and your own visions alongside whatever it is that you're doing for your income, for whatever it is that you are doing currently in your life. Because if that's your current life, but you're like, I want this, you need to start building that now, even if it's an hour a week or 15 minutes a day. When I started my first business, it was a supplement business, I didn't know what I was doing. I was working a full-time corporate job. I was traveling basically across the country every single week. And I didn't have a lot of time. But what I did have, is I had 15 minutes a day and I had a desire to create this business. So I spent 15 minutes,

Monday through Friday, learning how to start a supplement business. And eventually that little snowball got bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. And I had a business. I had customers, all sorts of stuff, right? Wild. Starting with 15 minutes a day. So time is not an excuse. I don't believe money is an excuse. I think that if there's a will, there's a way. It's not a lack of resources. it's a lack of resourcefulness. How resourceful are you willing to get? So why do we play small? Essentially, it is our mind, particularly our subconscious mind, trying to protect us. We may have had experiences in the past where we went for something and we didn't succeed. I remember I went, I had a swim meet. And it was like the first time, this was when I was in high school, I was swimming

this race and I was swimming on varsity and I was so, so, so excited. And I get in the pool and I'm swimming and I'm trying my hardest and I had just eaten flaming hot Cheetos. You know where the story is going. It's gross. So I had to get out of the pool. I threw up. It was so gross. And for me, that was like this, oh, this thing I had to rewire because in my mind I took it as, oh, you shouldn't play full out because something bad will happen. That's how my subconscious interpreted that event. So I had to rewire that. Right. But we all have experiences like that where we've tried to go for something. And maybe it didn't work out or people judged us or people were mean about it. I really struggled to learn to read. I didn't learn to like fully read. I think I've shared this before until like third grade.

That created a lot of fear in me of public speaking, of feeling like I was intelligent and those are things I've had to rewire. I feel good about those now. That's why I can share it with you. But for you, what are those stories that are playing in your mind that are saying it's not safe to play full out. It's not safe to go big. It's not safe to go big. It's not safe to. go to that next level because you need to do that work to rewire those beliefs, to change those beliefs, to get your mind to see things in a different way. Because what happens is your subconscious mind takes that memory, especially if it's very emotionally charged and it finds evidence of that for years and years and years and years. So it will find evidence that it's not safe to playful

out. It's not safe to be seen. It's not safe to be me. Other people will judge me. I can't do it. I'll fail and it will stack all that evidence. Not that that evidence is true, but because of this memory, your mind is filtering the world for that experience to prove that to be true. It's like the opposite of how science works. Science, you have a hypothesis and then you remain objective to find if it's true or not. Your brain works the opposite. Your brain is like, oh my gosh, this is the truth. Dang, okay, we got to make sure we find every shred of evidence to prove that to be true. This is why I'm so passionate about doing the deeper subconscious rewiring work. Because once you do it, your mind automatically sees the world in a different way. Your mind automatically creates different results

from what's happening in your life. I'll share a little bit more about that, but if you want help, rewiring those deeper beliefs, those deeper memories, and really shifting to become someone who feels comfortable, playing full out, being seen, showing up for yourself, then you can send me the word podcast on Instagram. My Instagram is at alignment with Jen. And I will send you a five minute video about my program, my community, where I guide you through rewiring these deeper beliefs that hold people back. We've got the idea that our subconscious is trying to protect us, right? It's trying to keep us safe from repeating those negative experiences. The other side of this coin is that anything that we do or don't do has a hidden payoff.

and playing small has a hidden payoff, right? It protects us from being rejected. It protects us from publicly failing. It protects us from outgrowing people we love, becoming responsible for something bigger. There's a lot of protection that happens from playing small. And so when we want to play a bigger game, we have to reconcile within ourselves. What am I trying to protect myself from? And how do I overcome that? And a big part of this is that rewiring. work, it's really changing the way that our mind is relating to being seen, right? Responsibility, our connections and love, because there's often a fear of something we're going to lose when we play small. So what might that be for you? And I just want you to kind of sit with that, right? In an area of your life, if you find you're consistently staying in a job that you

don't really love, right? Why? Your soul didn't come here to do that. Your soul didn't come here for a mediocre relationship that doesn't feel that good for you. Your soul came here to expand to express itself. So if it's not doing that, if you're not doing that, why? Ask yourself that question, right? Journal about it. See what comes up. The thing that happens when we play small is there's also a cost, right? There's a payoff. We protect ourselves from things that aren't necessarily bad things, right? They, and likely they won't even happen. Most of the time they don't even happen, but there's a cost as well to playing small. So the first cost that I see is the cost of our self-trust. So when we don't fully show up for ourselves, when we don't fully put ourselves out there,

we damage that internal relationship with ourselves. Your subconscious sees you not fully showing up. And it's like, oh, okay, I guess that's like how we do things. So when she wants to go after this bigger thing, she might not fully show up, right? She might play small. so I don't know if I'm going to fully feel comfortable doing that because I don't know if we can handle that. It creates this weird internal relationship. And so part of the way that you build that self-trust and self-trust is the foundation of every area of your life, part of the way you build that is starting to play bigger, even in micro ways. Right.

It could be posting a piece of content even though you feel it's super cringy. It could be expressing to your partner a need that you have, even though you feel, so uncomfortable about expressing it. It could be telling your friend that something they said hurt you. It's starting to play a bigger game. You don't have to go from zero to a million. You can start in all of these micro ways playing a bigger game, expressing yourself more, showing up more. Maybe it's raising your hand in a meeting and being like, uh, I got an idea, right? And you can stumble through the whole answer. It doesn't even matter. It's just the fact that you showed up. And like I said in the last episode, it's about the rep.

It's not about the perfect result. And I believe the biggest cost is the unlived life. I've talked about this in previous episodes. And this is not a concept I came up with. This is a concept from Carl Young. And it's this idea that our shadow basically, our fears, our doubts, our insecurities, prevents us from living the life that we truly came here to live.

And the way I see it is like, it's almost like, you remember that game, get ready to rumble. And there's like the boxers. That's kind of how I see our life. It's like our soul is like, I want to do this. And then our fear, our unlived life side of ourselves, that shadow side is like, actually that's scary. Like let's not do it. Like the devil and the angel on the shoulders, those different sides of us. And your goal here in this life is to overcome those fears and those doubts so you can express yourself and you can live your life fully. Because the unlived life is getting to the point where you're 90 years old and you're laying on your deathbed and you're like, dang, I really wish I had gone

for it. I really wish I had been the person I thought I wanted to be. You know, I really wish I had not cared so much what people think. I really wish that I had taken those risks because pretty much any mistake that you make, you can undo and pretty much any challenge that you face, you can overcome, right? And so that's a part of this. The other thing I always think of too with playing small is oftentimes when we play small, it's we're hiding something that our soul really came here to express. And usually that's our purpose with the people that I work with. The thing is, is those gifts that you've been given to express, right? Whether it's, you're an astrologer, whether it's you're a coach, whether you're an actress or a writer, it doesn't matter. Whatever you've came here to express,

those gifts are not just for you. Those gifts are here and they've been given to you so that way you can share them with other people. And so when you don't share your gifts, the people who need those gifts are not receiving them. So it's important to also realize, like, there's somebody out there that your gifts were made for, that you're meant to share those gifts with. So thinking about that as you do or don't play small. So I want to kind of give you three steps to basically help you begin to rewire this. Now, I will say, I can't rewire this for you in a podcast episode. Sometimes I'll get comments and they're like, why can't you like do more rewiring in the episodes? Literally, that's something I do in my community.

It's very tailored. It's very specific. It's live. Like it's a real thing. It's very precise. So, but I can give you a formula and I can give you a structure to get started. But if you want that deeper work, then that's something we do together, right? That is something that I've spent over a decade perfecting.

I do it live because I get feedback from my clients as I do it. it's not something that I can just put onto a podcast and you can listen to, you know, 30 times and you're good. That stuff can help a little bit, but there's deeper levels to it. So anyway, but I want to give you these three steps. So the first is identify whatever the subconscious rule that you're operating off of is. And I recommend going back to looking at that area where you've been playing small and ask yourself, what am I really avoiding? And I would do some deeper journaling on it. I would ask yourself, you know, this is a great question. What bad thing happens if I post on social media? If I, you know, go big in my business. If I put myself out there in dating, what bad thing happens? And you're going to get a

response from your subconscious. Your subconscious always answers you. It's not hiding anything. It's just we don't always know how to talk to it. And I would encourage you to just write and write and write and and write and just keep asking yourself that question to get to those deeper layers so you can it. Then once you understand it, this is where that deeper rewiring work comes in. Part of the process, though, is just understanding what's operating and that's going to create changes for you just from understanding it and bringing awareness to it. It's like shining a flashlight in a dark corner. Then what we do is we neutralize the emotion on that. So I use a variety of different tools to neutralize that emotion. I use my subconscious rewiring process to neutralize that emotion.

some ways that you can do this is like tapping is pretty good at it. That's probably the one that I think most people use. Tapping is good. I would say it's like it's like a lighter tool, but that's something you can do to neutralize that emotion on top of it. Another thing you can do too is when you're doing that journaling afterward do something to release that emotion. So it could be breathwork. You could go to a yoga class. You could do something to help yourself move that energy out of your system. But again, my rewiring, you know, that I've spent a very long time perfecting, I think is the best way to neutralize this. And I can't really explain that in this. But then the next part of it that you can also do is finding new evidence for your brain. So deciding, okay, what do I want to believe instead?

And then actively teaching your mind to actually look for evidence of that. Right. You should always be looking for evidence of the reality that you want to create instead of the reality that you don't want to create. So many people create evidence of what they don't want through this like, oh, you know, I'm worried about this. I'm worried about this. It's like worry becomes this defense mechanism, but it's actually a reality creation mechanism. And we start to worry and then we start to find evidence of what we're worried about. So instead, pick the belief that you'd rather believe and actively every single day, look for evidence of that. And that's going to start to really shift these things and change these things in your life. Because as I mentioned earlier,

your mind's already finding evidence of the opposite, right? But when you clear that out, neutralize it, then start to find evidence of the opposite, things start to change. So the last piece of this is taking that bold action in the direction of your dreams. This is such a powerful way and it's essential part of the rewiring process of the becoming process. Pick things that you can do to actively move toward that vision, right? Even if it's 15 minutes a day, even if it's on the weekends, right, even if it's outside of your nine to five job. But what can you do? What are like three specific actions that you can take in the next week to actually start

to change that programming within yourself and stop playing small? Right, because playing small is a habit. It's a pattern. So you overcome that by doing the opposite. So I hope you've loved this episode. If you want help with this process, this is literally the work I do in my programs. send me that word podcast on Instagram at alignment with Jen, and I'll send you a five-minute video about that. And if you've enjoyed the episode, please follow the show. It really,

really helps the show grow. It helps new people find this content. And yeah, all right, I hope you have a fantastic day. Bye.