A Reflection on How to Stop Talking Yourself Out of Things
- Vanessa Marquez-Kramme
- Jul 7
- 7 min read
The thing about a full body yes is that it doesn't wait for you to be ready.
Have you ever had this big “OMG I WANNA DO THIS” feeling? For example, you hear about an opportunity to cross a bucket list item, a role that seems to have your face all over it, a chance to do the thing you've been tiptoeing around for a while, and your brain immediately starts its “but” list: I don't know enough people yet. I'm probably too old for this. The timing is off. I have too much going on. Maybe next time…
But even when your brain is trying to inject itself into the decision-making process with reasons NOT to do the thing, your body already knows you HAVE to do it.
That knowing doesn't announce itself. It starts as injected enthusiasm—sudden, almost involuntary. Then the pit. In your stomach, or your throat, somewhere in between. It feels like fear, but it's not exactly fear. It's excitement mixed with the insecurity of realizing: oh damn, I really want this. But what if it doesn't happen?"
That's what I call a full-body yes. And that’s how it shows up for me 80% of the time, and I've learned (logically, at least) that talking myself out of it never works.
In practice, though? It still takes some dancing to act on it; I'm still working on how to stop talking myself out of things.
This past spring, I got an email about elections for the NYU SPS Integrated Marketing Association, the student organization of my master's program. The email came in the middle of finals prep, while I was already doing a gazillion other things. And my first instinct was to THINK: this would be cool, but… can I do it? I’m too shy in big groups. Im too old for student clubs?… Then, I felt the full-body yes, but I didn't act on it. Instead, I just chose not to delete the email. That was step one. A few days later, I opened it. I added the deadline to my calendar. I started a draft. I closed the draft. I reopened it. And three days before the deadline, I finally listened—really listened—and submitted my candidacy for IMA President.
Chaotic? Yes. On brand? Absolutely.
If a tree falls in an empty forest...
Embarrassingly enough, even though I had the courage to submit my candidacy, campaigning out loud was a different story entirely. My original plan was to campaign only by word of mouth. No flyers. No mass messages. Just let people who knew me do the talking.
And I know that may sound ridiculous coming from someone with a blog, a coaching practice, and an actively growing external presence. But there's something about school systems that made me feel like I didn’t belong in my schools growing up, which makes it hard to be loud loud. There was a lot of vulnerability in putting my name on a flyer, hanging it in a hallway, and saying, " This is me, I want this, please see me.”
Right around the same time as elections, my Native team and I were preparing for the finals of a marketing strategy challenge—you can read about that whole experience in this blog article—and they were the ones who changed my mind. They'd watched me obsess over messaging, push for specificity, think through every executional detail of a real campaign for a real brand. When I told them I was planning to run quietly, they reminded me of something I apparently needed to hear:
I'm a marketer. I should run like one.
So I did.
Turning the volume up (and actively campaigning)
In marketing, a good campaign needs a connective thread—one idea that ties every execution together. We call it the big idea.
When I sat down to think about why I was running, it became clear pretty quickly. IMA is already doing something real: building community, bringing industry into the room, creating a tighter network for students in the program. But I kept seeing something more. Not just a student club, but a premier marketing organization for the next generation of marketers. The connective tissue between what we're learning and what the industry actually needs from us.
That became my campaign: IMA is the big idea. Let's run it like one.
I built two flyers. One typographic—IBM-meets-Apple energy, just words on a white page doing all the work. One personal—my photo, my statement, my story. I wrote a candidate statement that began with a feeling rather than a resume. I posted first across three WhatsApp groups. I printed professionally and put my flyers on the boards across campus before anyone else had put anything up.
I ran with intention. Not the loudest campaign in the race, but the most aligned to myself. And that made showing up every day feel grounded instead of performative.
One of our classmates sent a message to the group where we'd all been campaigning, the kind that doesn't name anyone but says everything:
"I love this round of IMA elections. It's been really insightful for those of us watching the candidates and seeing how and when they show up to and for us. Best of luck to everyone ☺️"
"How and when they show up...." That line stayed with me.
Winning is not a zero-sum game— Stop Talking Yourself Out of Things
My colleague, Ashley, won. She was the incumbent Student Relations Coordinator—with board relationships, existing name recognition, and a year of connections I didn't yet have as someone who hadn't been deeply embedded in the organization.
I expected this result. Not because she was better—because, for the record, each candidate brought something genuinely distinct to the race—but because in small-electorate elections, familiarity often beats vision. And watching that happen, even when you saw it coming, still confirms something you already suspected about how rooms work sometimes.
What stung wasn't the loss itself. It was the old wound underneath it. The one that lives at the intersection of school and belonging—the one that whispers you were never quite the right fit for these spaces. I know that voice. I've been working on it for years, and it still shows up.
However, when a door closes, many others open.
Remember how I said I had four other things going on? While I was campaigning, I was also in the middle of job interviews, preparing for a study away program in Paris and Cannes, and planning a wedding celebration. Because life doesn’t hand you just one thing at a time.
I have a lot of eggs in my basket at any given time. For most of my life, I was told that I had a focus problem. Now I understand it differently—it's how my neurodivergent brain actually moves forward. I need variety. I need parallel projects. Having multiple things going on doesn't mean I'm not serious about any of them; it means I need that stimulation to do my best work in each one. And it also means I hold outcomes more loosely. Not because I care less, but because I know something way beyond my control is also already in motion.
Within days of the results, a classmate messaged me.
"You would've been a great president, ngl. The chair positions for GSC [Graduate Student Council] are still open."
I applied. Then thought about it more carefully and withdrew. Because I realized I wasn't looking to be in a student group just to be in one—I wanted to be in IMA specifically. Because I care about IMA. Because I remember what it felt like to be an international student trying to figure out how to make it here, and IMA reminds me of NSMH [National Society for Minorities in Hospitality]—the first student organization I was part of (and part of the board back in Northern Virginia Community College), and the first community that made me feel like it was possible to “make it” here.
For me, getting involved with IMA is more than resume-building; it’s about giving back and paying it forward. So when the IMA Head of Events position opened under the new board, it was an easy yes.
And the new job? It also came through. And looking at everything together, I think the universe did me a solid. Being IMA President would have been too much responsibility on top of a new role and a new season. Events Chair is focused. It's mine. And I have a team I actually trust.
None of this was the plan, but all of it was the result of showing up in April and letting the ripple move and take me where I needed to land.
Don't wait until you're ready.
Writing this three months later, I can see the pattern clearly even if I couldn't see it in real time:
The full body yes showed up. I danced with it for a while. I submitted late, campaigned louder than I planned, ran with more intention than I expected, lost the thing I ran for, and landed somewhere that fits better than the thing I was reaching for.
That’s manifestation 101 for me: Manifestation isn't thinking about something, standing still, and waiting for it to magically reach you. You have to show the universe—or God, or whatever you pray to—that you're in on it. You have to take action even when the outcome isn't guaranteed. You have to put your name on the flyer.
The full-body "yes" doesn't promise you the specific thing. It promises you that something will move if you move to meet it.
If you're sitting on one right now—the injected enthusiasm, the pit in your stomach, the “oh, I really want this”—don't let the list of reasons why not do it win.
Submit late. Run with intention. Let the ripple do what ripples do.
The spiral doesn't go where you think. It goes where you need.
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