The Hidden Cost of Playing Small
What Accomplished Women Lose When They Shrink After a Setback
She had the résumé that made recruiters pause. The credentials that opened every door. The kind of career trajectory that other women pointed to and said, “That’s where I want to be.”
And then something shifted. Maybe it was a layoff that came out of nowhere. A business that didn’t survive. A divorce that dismantled the life she’d built. A health crisis that forced her to stop. Or maybe it was quieter than that. A slow erosion of confidence after years of being overlooked, underestimated, or undervalued in rooms where she was clearly the most qualified person present.
Whatever the catalyst, something fundamental changed. Not in her ability (that remained intact) but in her willingness to fully show up. She started editing herself. Dimming her voice in meetings. Lowering her rates. Hesitating before raising her hand. Saying “maybe” when she meant “absolutely.”
She started playing small. And she may not have even noticed.
As a social and behavioral scientist, I have spent nearly two decades studying the forces that shape human behavior, decision-making, and self-perception. But that work has never been purely academic. It has been forged across corporate finance and accounting at Deloitte, healthcare management and leadership, global health and behavioral science research with UNICEF, Harvard-affiliated institutions, and the U.S. Federal Government, and years of hands-on coaching with accomplished women navigating pivotal life and career transitions. In every one of those environments, I observed the same pattern: accomplished women who had every reason to be bold were shrinking after setbacks they never saw coming. It is that rare intersection of rigorous behavioral science, cross-industry leadership, and direct coaching practice that shapes my perspective on this issue. And after nearly two decades of studying it, I can tell you with certainty: the most dangerous consequence of a setback is not the setback itself. It is what happens to a woman’s relationship with her own ambition afterward.
The Science Behind the Shrink
Here is something that rarely gets discussed in leadership circles: accomplished women do not lose confidence because they lack evidence of their competence. They lose confidence because their brains are wired to interpret setbacks as identity threats.
Research in cognitive psychology shows that high-achieving individuals, particularly women, are more likely to engage in what psychologists call “counterfactual thinking” after a failure. This is the mental pattern of replaying what went wrong and constructing alternate scenarios: “If only I had done this differently.” “If only I had spoken up sooner.” “If only I had seen it coming.”
This is not a sign of weakness. It is actually a function of high emotional intelligence. Women who are deeply invested in their work and their impact tend to process failure more internally. But when this processing goes unchecked, it creates a distorted feedback loop, one where the setback becomes evidence of unworthiness rather than a data point in a much larger story of growth.
Albert Bandura’s foundational research on self-efficacy, the belief in one’s ability to succeed in specific situations, demonstrates that confidence is not a fixed trait. It is shaped by our mastery experiences, the models we observe, the voices we allow to speak into our lives, and the emotional states we carry. What this means is that a single negative experience can temporarily override years of accumulated evidence that you are, in fact, extraordinarily capable.
The key word is “temporarily.” But too many women treat that temporary dip as a permanent verdict.
What Playing Small Actually Costs You
We talk about playing small as though it is simply a mindset issue, something to be fixed with a motivational quote or a morning affirmation. But the cost of playing small is not abstract. It is measurable, concrete, and compounding.
It costs you financially. When you undercharge, decline the speaking invitation, pass on the pitch opportunity, or stay in a role that no longer reflects your value, you are leaving real revenue and wealth on the table. Studies consistently show that women who negotiate less aggressively after a career disruption can experience earnings gaps that persist for a decade or more. Playing small is not free. It is expensive.
It costs you relationally, and not just in professional spaces. When you shrink after a setback, that contraction follows you home. It shows up in your marriage or partnership as a quiet withdrawal, a reluctance to ask for what you need, a tendency to over-accommodate, a slow disappearance of the woman your partner fell in love with. It shows up in your most intimate relationships as a version of you that is managing rather than truly connecting. And it shows up in your parenting and mentoring, because the people watching you, your children, your team, your mentees, are learning from your example. When you play small, you inadvertently teach the people closest to you that setbacks are things to hide from rather than grow through. The ripple effect of one woman dimming her light extends far beyond her own life.
It costs you your legacy. Every woman reading this has expertise, perspective, and hard-won wisdom that someone else desperately needs. When you hold that back, the world doesn’t just miss out on your talent. It misses out on the people you were supposed to reach, the businesses you were supposed to build, and the change you were supposed to lead.
And perhaps most painfully, it costs you your own joy. Because there is a particular kind of restlessness that comes from knowing you are capable of more and choosing not to pursue it. That restlessness does not go away on its own. It only gets louder.
Getting Back Up Differently
The women who ultimately win, the ones who go on to build thriving businesses, generate extraordinary income, write the books, lead the movements, and create lives rich with both success and genuine joy, are not the women who never experienced a setback. They are the women who got back up differently.
What does “differently” mean? It means they stopped treating the comeback as a return to who they were before. Instead, they treated it as an evolution into someone stronger, clearer, and more aligned with their own definition of success, not the world’s.
Through my work with hundreds of accomplished women, I developed a proprietary methodology called the Transcend Framework™, a five-phase process grounded in social and behavioral science, neuroscience, and universal growth principles. It maps the journey from setback to what I call “joyful transcendence,” and it is the same framework that anchors my coaching, my programs, and my upcoming book. What I have seen, repeatedly, is that lasting transformation requires more than positive thinking. It requires an approach that speaks to the whole woman: her mind, her nervous system, her environment, her relationships, and her spirit.
The first phase is Release. This is where you consciously let go of the narrative that the setback defines you. Neuroscience tells us that when we repeatedly revisit painful memories without a structured reprocessing strategy, we strengthen the very neural pathways that keep us stuck. Release is not about pretending the loss didn’t hurt. It is about interrupting that cycle with intention, creating space for your brain and your spirit to begin building something new.
The second phase is Reclaim. This is where you actively reconnect with the evidence of your own capability, your wins, your wisdom, your track record of resilience. Many women skip this step because they assume they should just “move forward.” But reclaiming is not about looking backward. It is about gathering your full strength before you take the next step. You cannot rebuild confidence on a foundation you have abandoned.
The third phase is Redesign. This is where strategy meets transformation. You audit your environment, the voices in your life, the rooms you’re in, the income streams, the daily practices, and the standards you’re holding yourself to, and you intentionally restructure them to support the woman you are becoming. Redesign is where women begin to see tangible shifts in their finances, their visibility, and their sense of possibility.
The fourth phase is Reconnect. This is the phase most women desperately need but rarely prioritize. It is where you anchor your confidence in something deeper than performance: your purpose, your faith, your relationships, your vision for the life you actually want to live. There is a reason why every enduring tradition of human growth, from ancient spiritual wisdom to modern psychology, points to the same truth: we are not meant to do this alone, and we are not meant to build lives disconnected from meaning. When your confidence is rooted in who you are rather than what you produce, it becomes resilient to disruption. Setbacks can shake what you do. They cannot touch why you do it. And this is also where your intimate relationships, your friendships, and your sense of belonging begin to transform, because you are no longer showing up as a diminished version of yourself.
The fifth and final phase is Radiate. This is where the comeback becomes visible. Not because you are performing confidence, but because you are embodying it. You are charging what you are worth. You are speaking with authority. You are building wealth, creating impact, and experiencing the kind of deep, sustainable joy that comes from living fully aligned with your gifts. Radiate is not the destination. It is the natural result of doing the inner and outer work that precedes it.
What makes the Transcend Framework™ different from conventional confidence advice is that it does not ask you to simply “believe in yourself.” It is a multi-level intervention that addresses every layer of influence affecting a woman’s confidence and behavior change: the neurological patterns running beneath her awareness, the psychological narratives shaping her self-perception, the social and relational dynamics reinforcing her current reality, the environmental and structural conditions surrounding her, and the spiritual foundation grounding it all. Most approaches target just one level. The Transcend Framework™ works across all of them simultaneously, which is why it produces transformation that lasts rather than motivation that fades. It gives you a structured, evidence-based path to rebuild belief through intentional action, one phase at a time. And it honors the truth that success is not one-size-fits-all. Whether your version of thriving means a seven-figure business, a career pivot that lights you up, a restored marriage, or simply waking up without the weight of regret on your chest, the Transcend Framework™ meets you where you are and moves you toward where you are meant to be.
A Personal Note
I did not arrive at this work from a distance. I arrived at it because I have lived it. I have sat in boardrooms and on conference calls where my credentials were impeccable but my confidence was quietly fracturing. I have navigated the disorienting space between who the world saw and who I felt I was becoming. I know what it feels like to carry a résumé full of evidence and still question whether you have what it takes to begin again.
My journey across industries, from the precision of corporate finance to the complexity of healthcare management and global health to the rigor of federal service, taught me that confidence does not live in any single achievement or title. It lives in your willingness to keep showing up, especially when the path forward is unclear. Every pivot in my own career was, in its own way, a comeback. And each one made me more certain that this is the work I was put here to do.
That conviction, combined with years of research and the lived experiences of the extraordinary women I have had the privilege of working with, is the foundation of my upcoming book, The Confidence Comeback Code: The Science-Backed Path for Women to Reclaim Unstoppable Confidence, Abundant Prosperity, and Lasting Joy. It is the most complete expression of everything I have learned about what it takes to not just recover from a setback, but to transcend it.
The Invitation
If you are reading this and something in your chest tightened, if you recognized yourself in the woman who is holding back, lowering her voice, or waiting to feel ready before she makes her next move, I want to offer you this:
The setback did not disqualify you. It prepared you.
The confidence you think you lost is not gone. It is waiting for you to give it permission to return, through action, through community, through the deliberate decision to stop playing small in a world that desperately needs you to play full out.
The women who win are not the ones who never fell. They are the ones who got back up differently. And differently is available to you right now.
Your comeback is not behind you. It is unfolding.
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About the Author
Dr. Marianne, DrPH, MPH, MS, is an award-winning social and behavioral scientist, confidence strategist, and Founder & CEO of Joyfully Transcend™. Known as "The Comeback Doctor™," she helps accomplished women rebuild confidence, increase their income, and create lives of prosperity and joy after life's most challenging setbacks. Her career spans nearly two decades across corporate finance, healthcare management, global health, behavioral science research, and leadership with elite organizations including Deloitte, UNICEF, Harvard-affiliated institutions, and the U.S. Federal Government, giving her a rare combination of analytical rigor, scientific depth, and human-centered strategy.
She holds a Doctor of Public Health (DrPH) with Delta Omega Honors from the University of Texas, a Master of Public Health (MPH) from New York University, a Master of Science in Health Sciences from George Washington University, and a Bachelor of Science in Accounting from the University of Utah, with graduate coursework at Johns Hopkins University and study abroad at the University of Geneva.
Married to a Harvard-trained physician-scientist and a mother of three, Dr. Marianne brings the same intentionality she teaches to her own life, grounding her work in faith, family, and the belief that no woman should have to choose between professional success and personal fulfillment. Her proprietary Transcend Framework™, a multi-level intervention grounded in behavioral science, neuroscience, and universal growth principles, has helped hundreds of women move from setback to success on their own terms.
Her upcoming book, The Confidence Comeback Code: The Science-Backed Path for Women to Reclaim Unstoppable Confidence, Abundant Prosperity, and Lasting Joy, is scheduled for Summer 2026.
