Fake Vulnerability is Keeping You Stuck

Brené Brown taught us that vulnerability is good, so now we’re all open books. We share things about our childhood, our hardships, our feelings, and we give ourselves a check mark for vulnerability.

Only, we don’t share anything that actually makes us feel vulnerable. That stuff — the real vulnerability that Brené was talking about — we keep hidden.

It’s a win-win. We get to seem vulnerable while remaining fully protected.

The sacrifice is our own progress.

This facade of vulnerability enables us to ignore those cans of worms we don’t want to open. And by keeping them shut, we keep ourselves stuck.

My client, Lou, is very self-aware. She understands how her parents’ relationship growing up impacts her people-pleasing tendencies at work today. She can articulate her strengths and, more importantly, her weaknesses. She shares stories of her past failures and what she learned from them. From the outside, Lou is indeed an open book.

But in part, she shares these things because she knows the reaction she will get: A leader who expresses self-awareness and humility is likable. A leader who can embrace past failures is inspiring (especially if she is successful now!). For Lou, these shares are safe.

This isn’t vulnerability; this is the mirage of vulnerability.

In her book, Daring Greatly, Brené Brown defines vulnerability as “uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure.” True vulnerability doesn’t feel safe; it feels like a risk.

Lou came to a session recently feeling stuck with an executive on her team. She didn’t feel like they were driving toward their goals, even after she had tried to nudge them forward.

She started rattling off potential reasons they were stalling out, though it didn’t seem like she believed any of them. She could give them feedback that they didn’t do enough data analysis or that they hadn’t talked to enough users or that their strategy was too long-term.

“What’s the truth?” I asked.

Lou said, “I don’t know!” throwing her arms up. “It seems like it should be working, but it’s just not working.”

Now that is a vulnerable share.

When I asked Lou to consider sharing exactly that, she bulged her eyes, “I am the boss,” she said. “I’m supposed to know why it’s not working. What are they going to think of me if I say I don’t know?”

There’s the risk of true vulnerability: uncertainty. True vulnerability requires that you don’t know. You don’t know how your share will be received; you don’t know how others will perceive you for sharing it; you don’t know if there’s a happy ending yet.

I am great at fake vulnerability, too. Once I feel resolved about something on my own — a past failure at work, a weakness that I now see as a strength, a family wound — then I share it with others.

Now that I feel confident in public speaking, for example, I can easily share the story of the time I froze in front of a hundred people, stammering and apologizing into the microphone. 5 years ago, I wouldn’t have been so forthcoming!

But the topics that are still fresh, the ones I’m still working through — how I dream of contributing to the field of psychology or why I feel insecure in large social settings—I’m less quick to share.

These are the topics where I feel like I have something to lose, namely my painstakingly protected self-image.

But these are also the topics where I have something to gain.

I distinctly remember a moment nearly 10 years ago where my husband lovingly shined light on one of these topics for me. “Why do you keep telling people you like your job?” he asked, “You hate it.”

That night at dinner with friends, I said for the first time, “I’m not happy at work, but I’m not sure what’s next.” I walked out of that meal with clarity on my feelings, an introduction to a friend-of-a-friend who recently made a career pivot, and that little “I did something scary and survived” high.

This is the reward of real vulnerability (and the sacrifice of fake): Progress.

Time and time again, clients come into my office with self-proclaimed vulnerability and years of past therapy as a coat of armour, protecting them from needing to open today’s can of worms.

Their perception of themselves as an open book prevents them from seeing where they’re hiding precious vulnerabilities: the dream of starting their next company, the honest conversation they’re afraid to have, the feeling of lost-ness that they don’t know what to do with.

When we find these inklings and voice them aloud, the process of real vulnerability begins. As we start to engage with these topics — first with ourselves, then with people we trust— we start to move forward. Slowly, but surely, we shift from hiding, to noticing, to talking about, to taking action.

We make progress.

I’m not saying we should all go around sharing our most tender, unresolved feelings and challenges. I’m saying we should start to notice where we’re getting away with being fake vulnerable and ask ourselves what would be real vulnerable.

Maybe it’s talking about the failure you’re in the middle of, the thing you don’t know the answer to right now, or the job you don’t like anymore even though you’re not sure what’s next.

We take meaningful steps toward the future we want when we’re vulnerable with people we trust.

But it has to be real.