Still Becoming Still Matter
Redefining influence: it's not about perfection, it's about showing up.
When they asked me to submit another article for this group, I didn’t immediately feel honored.
I paused.
Because if I’m being honest, I don’t always feel like an “influential woman.”
I think we all have an idea of what that’s supposed to look like. Someone confident all the time. Someone who speaks and people listen. Someone who has it all together—or at least looks like they do.
And that hasn’t always been me.
I have been the one, at times, looking up to heaven and asking God, What do I truly have to offer? Especially when it feels like all I get are doors slammed in my face.
Or people who are kind to your face but belittle you behind your back.
I’ve been the one who second-guesses herself after she speaks.
The one who replays conversations later, thinking, I should have said that differently. Now they will never pay attention to me.
I have trusted people with my deepest, darkest secrets. I have shared stories I spent hours, even days, crafting—only to see them stolen or used without care.
That doesn’t exactly sound like influence.
But I’ve started to think maybe we’ve been looking at it the wrong way.
Because influence isn’t always obvious.
Sometimes it’s not loud. It’s not polished. It’s not perfect. Sometimes it’s just… continuing.
Continuing to show up.
Continuing to create.
Continuing to believe—at least a little—that what you are doing has meaning, even when you don’t have proof of it yet.
I didn’t notice it at first, but that’s where it was for me.
In the small choices. In not giving up.
In sitting down to write even when I felt unsure.
But I have influence not only in the choice I make every day to sit down and write, despite how I feel, but also in the choice to keep living and take another breath when life seems to throw everything it has at you. That, too, makes you an influential woman.
Because sometimes one honest moment, one real story, reaches someone in a way you will never fully see. And that counts.
I’m still learning. Still figuring things out. Still working on using my voice without questioning it so much.
But I don’t think influence is something you arrive at one day.
I think it starts earlier than that. I think it starts the moment you decide your voice is worth using—even if it shakes a little when you do.
So if you’ve ever felt like you don’t quite fit into that title…
You might be closer to it than you think.
Not because everything is perfect.
But because you’re still here. Still trying. Still becoming.
And that matters.
