Advocating for yourself rarely comes wrapped in comfort. Sometimes it looks like asking outright for the raise, the opportunity, the support. Other times it’s quieter but no less radical: setting a boundary or saying no.
And right now, that discomfort feels especially relevant. Burnout is on the rise. The workforce is being reshaped by AI. Return-to-office mandates are testing flexibility. And amid all of it, the pressure to prove value hasn’t let up. The expectation to do more with less remains a constant—if not a growing one.
And with that, employees—especially women and caregivers—need to learn that self-advocacy isn’t just about ambition. It’s about sustainability.
The First Ask
For me, the first real test was money. Negotiating my starting salary fresh out of college, in a brutal economy, made my stomach do somersaults. Hundreds of applications, few interviews, fewer offers. And yet, when the offer finally came, I forced myself into the most uncomfortable space I knew at the time: talking about money. Not money in the abstract—my money.
My palms sweated, my voice cracked and every instinct said “be grateful and be quiet.” But silence doesn’t move you forward. On the other side of that awkward, shaky conversation was a locked door I hadn’t even realized existed. Self-advocacy was the key, and opening it revealed a world of possibility that began with one small act of defiance: asking.
Because nobody cares about your career as much as you do. Comfort and inaction won’t get you ahead. But the courage to advocate for yourself just might.
The Double Bind For Women
Self-advocacy is deeply personal, and the barriers to it are systemic. Women negotiate less often than men, and when they do, they’re more likely to be penalized. The cost isn’t only financial; it’s emotional, especially for those carrying a disproportionate share of the invisible labor at home while trying to be indispensable at work.
That creates a bind: Do more and still feel it’s not enough, or ask for more and risk being seen as “too much.” No wonder comfort feels safer. But comfort is a ceiling, and ceilings don’t shatter from the inside out. Sometimes you have to launch through them, like Charlie in the Chocolate Factory’s glass elevator, breaking past the confines of the factory and into open sky.
Erika Ayers Badan: Asking As A Muscle
I discovered Erika Ayers Badan’s book Nobody Cares About Your Career at 2 a.m., rocking my wide-awake baby in my New York City apartment, earbuds in, clinging to any words that might cut through the exhaustion. From the first chapter, Erika’s voice felt like a jolt—blunt, practical and unwilling to coddle. She didn’t talk about careers as something bestowed, but as something you build for yourself, brick by brick, ask by ask.
And in the spirit of that same power of asking, I reached out to her for this article. Would she say no? Maybe. Would my message get lost in the ether of her overflowing inbox? Also maybe. But I made the uncomfortable ask, and on this occasion, she said yes.
When we video chatted, her candor was exactly what I had hoped for. “Too much comfort is deadly in the workplace,” she told me. Comfort, she explained, makes you soft. It lulls you into routines. It dulls your instincts until you miss the signals that could move you forward. “Your antenna goes down. You stop noticing the moments that matter.”
Her alternative? Exposure. Seek out the edges of newness and disruption, because that’s where growth lives. “The most fulfilling, most dynamic career,” she said, “is one that evolves with you and also evolves you.”
And when it comes to asking—for context, for opportunity, for money—Erika doesn’t sugarcoat it. Too often professionals, especially women, preface their questions with apologies or self-deprecation with things like “I might be missing something…” or “I know this is dumb, but…” She’s adamant: “Your question is as valid as anyone’s. Just ask it.”
The ask has to be intentional. She bristles at requests that are lazy or entirely self-focused. “Nobody cares that my company needs money,” she said. “That’s my problem. What people care about is what’s in it for them. You have to put your ambition in the context of somebody else’s ambition.”
And if the answer is no? That’s not a failure in Erika’s playbook. “No is a great answer. It’s the second-best answer to yes. It’s clarifying, it’s educating, it’s the start of a conversation.”
What stuck with me most was her reminder that nobody is coming to save you. “You are the captain of your ship,” she said. That may sound harsh, but it’s also liberating. Because if nobody else cares about your career as much as you do, then you’re the only one who can keep pushing it forward.
Tori Dunlap: The Reclamation Of Asking
Tori Dunlap, founder of Her First $100K, has turned asking into an unapologetic movement. For her, negotiating isn’t just about money—it’s an act of reclamation. Every time a woman asks for better pay, stronger benefits or greater control over her future, she chips away at the narrative that she should simply be grateful for what is given.
“The phrase ‘you should just be grateful’ is a death sentence,” she said when we spoke. It translates to: Sit down, stay controllable. Tori’s counter is to reframe negotiation success entirely. “Success isn’t ‘I got what I wanted,’ because you can’t control the final answer,” she said. “Success is: I prepped well, I showed up and I made the ask.”
She urges women to treat negotiation as collaboration, not combat: You and your manager on the same side solving the problem of fair compensation.
There’s rigor in her philosophy but also generosity. “If you can’t negotiate for yourself yet, negotiate for everyone who comes after you,” she said. Research shows women perform better when they picture advocating for others. “We’re great at arguing for people we love. Practice turning that muscle on yourself.”
And the numbers are not subtle. “Women who negotiate can earn a million dollars more over a lifetime than women who don’t,” she told me. Is avoiding a few uncomfortable conversations worth a million-dollar price tag?
Tori’s final prescription is exposure therapy by micro-ask: Practice tiny, low-stakes asks like a hotel upgrade, a deadline extension or a better table at a restaurant. Not because the answer matters, but because you do. “It’s a muscle,” she said. “Hard never becomes easy, but it becomes familiar.”
The Takeaway: Risking Transformation
To advocate for yourself is to feel uncomfortable and to risk rejection. That’s the point. The discomfort is the signal you’re at the edge of possibility.
So ask. Ask for the raise. Ask for the scope. Ask for the chance. The worst outcomes are silence or a “no.” The best? A career, and life, that expands because you dared to step into the awkward pause, and maybe even pressed the glass-elevator button that carried you further than you imagined.