Where Do You Belong Without Having to Fit In?

I grew up feeling like the outsider.

I never quite felt as though I fitted in. At school, I moved between different groups of people rather than really belonging to one particular group. I could talk to lots of different people, spend time with them and move quite happily between different circles, but there was always something underneath it. A sense that other people had somehow found their place and I hadn't quite found mine.

When you're young, you don't necessarily have the language to understand what you're experiencing. You just know how it feels. And when you feel as though you don't naturally fit, you start finding ways to make yourself fit.

I did what I think many of us learn to do. I adapted. I paid attention to what people wanted and needed from me. I tried to be liked and wanted. I became useful. I achieved. I helped. I learnt which parts of me worked well in different situations and which parts were better kept to myself.

At the time, I wouldn't have described any of this as trying to earn acceptance. I was simply navigating life and relationships in the way I'd learnt to navigate them.

It is only much later that I've been able to look back and see what was happening.

I thought the problem was that I didn't fit in

For a long time, I think I interpreted those early experiences as evidence that there was something about me that made belonging difficult.

Why couldn't I just find my group?

Why did I move between different people rather than settle comfortably into one place?

Why did I so often feel slightly different?

Looking back now, I wonder whether I was asking the wrong questions.

Because there was another side to moving between those groups. I could talk to different kinds of people. I was interested in different perspectives. I could move between conversations and worlds rather than needing everybody around me to think or behave in the same way.

And when I look at the work I've created decades later, that's rather interesting.

The Minerva Manifesto began with conversations.

I sat with women and listened. I asked questions about their experiences of business, money and life. I heard different perspectives, noticed patterns and started connecting things that didn't necessarily appear connected at first.

In many ways, I've continued doing what I did all those years ago.

Moving between people. Listening. Connecting ideas. Seeing something from different perspectives.

Perhaps not fitting neatly into one group wasn't only a problem to be solved.

Perhaps there was something useful in it too.

Fitting in and belonging aren't the same thing

This has led me to think much more deeply about belonging.

For years, I think I confused belonging with fitting in. I assumed that if I could find the right people, understand what was expected and adapt sufficiently well, eventually I would experience that elusive feeling of being part of something.

But I've come to realise that fitting in and belonging are almost opposites.

Fitting in asks, Who do I need to become to be accepted here?

Belonging asks, Can I remain myself here?

That's quite a distinction.

When we're trying to fit in, we're monitoring. We notice what gets a good response and what doesn't. We edit. We adapt. Perhaps we become quieter, more agreeable, more useful or less complicated. We might take responsibility for keeping a relationship working or avoid saying something because we're not entirely sure how it will be received.

And sometimes we're so practised at doing this that we don't even realise we're doing it.

The relationship exists. The connection is real. There may be love, history, friendship or loyalty there.

But somewhere underneath it is the question: Would I still be accepted if I stopped being the version of me that works here?

That's very different from belonging.

Your family isn't necessarily your tribe

One of the other things I've questioned is an assumption most of us probably grow up with: that our family is automatically our tribe.

I'm not sure that's true.

Family can connect us through blood, history, shared experiences, responsibility and love. Those relationships can matter enormously. But that doesn't necessarily mean our family will also contain the people with whom we feel most completely ourselves.

I think acknowledging that can be uncomfortable because we have such powerful ideas about what family is supposed to be. We assume these are the people who should automatically understand us, see us and provide our deepest sense of belonging.

Sometimes they do.

Sometimes they don't.

And perhaps neither experience needs to become a judgement on the relationship.

I've come to think that our tribe is defined by something different. Recognition. Reciprocity. The ability to be ourselves without continually having to translate, diminish, defend or prove who we are.

And a tribe doesn't have to be large.

That has been another important realisation for me.

We talk about finding our tribe as though somewhere out there is a fabulous room full of people who will finally understand us. Maybe there is. But perhaps a tribe can also be two or three people.

Two or three people who really see you.

People who want to know you, not simply what you can do for them.

People with whom responsibility and consideration are mutual.

People with whom difference doesn't automatically threaten the relationship.

People who leave you feeling more like yourself rather than less.

These days, that feels much more like belonging to me.

It changed how I think about connection in business

Perhaps inevitably, all of this has influenced the way I think about Minerva.

Business culture talks a lot about connection. We're encouraged to build networks, audiences and communities. We collect followers and contacts and attend events designed to put us in rooms with as many useful people as possible.

But being surrounded by people isn't necessarily the same thing as feeling connected to them.

Some of the most valuable business experiences I've had have come from one conversation. Sitting with somebody over coffee and talking properly. Hearing something I hadn't considered. Being asked a question that made me think differently. Meeting somebody I would never otherwise have encountered.

That is one of the reasons conversation became such an important part of The Minerva Manifesto.

I'm not particularly interested in creating spaces where everybody has to present a polished version of themselves or prove that they're successful enough to be there. I'm much more interested in what happens when women can sit together and actually talk about business, money and life.

Because good conversations don't require us all to be the same.

In fact, they're usually considerably more interesting when we're not.

Stop auditioning for acceptance

There is a phrase that has stayed with me as I've explored all of this:

Stop auditioning for acceptance.

I think I spent a surprisingly large part of my life auditioning without realising there was an audition taking place.

Trying to be liked. Trying to be useful. Trying to understand what was required. Trying to make relationships work. Trying to find the version of myself that fitted most comfortably into whatever environment I happened to be in.

And perhaps the real shift hasn't been finally learning how to fit in.

It has been realising that I don't need to belong everywhere.

None of us do.

There will be people with whom we don't particularly connect. Groups where we feel slightly out of place. Relationships that matter to us but don't provide everything we need. That's life.

The difference now is that I don't automatically interpret that as evidence that I need to change myself in order to secure my place.

Sometimes we're simply not each other's people.

And sometimes we meet someone with whom something feels remarkably easy. We don't have to explain quite so much. We don't have to perform. We can disagree without fearing the relationship will disappear. We can simply be ourselves.

Perhaps that's our tribe.

For me, that's another part of Do Business. Make Money. Enjoy Life.

Because enjoying our lives isn't only about what we do with our time or what our businesses make possible. It's also about the people with whom we get to share those lives — and whether we can remain ourselves while we're doing it.

So perhaps the question isn't, Where do I fit in?

Perhaps it's a different question entirely.

Where — and with whom — can I belong without having to become somebody else first?

Explore The Journey

The Journey is an invitation to become curious about the experiences, relationships and patterns that have shaped you — and what it might mean to live, work and connect without continually abandoning yourself along the way.

Explore The Journey