Quit shrinking so other people’s rooms feel bigger.

Making yourself smaller often gets learned as a form of kindness. You play down the grade, skip the good news, laugh a bit less loudly, so that nobody in the room feels shown up. It rarely helps them and it reliably costs you, and it quietly teaches everyone that your presence is negotiable.

Take up your normal amount of space in one conversation this week. Say the thing without the disclaimer, finish the story, leave the good news in. Anyone who genuinely needs you smaller is asking for something no amount of shrinking will ever satisfy.