You wrote the post and deleted it. In the meeting you had the idea, said nothing, and watched someone else get thanked for a smaller one. You want people to know what you can do. When one of them does notice, you change the subject. I feel seen, and I don't often.
Plenty of people are private and content, and wanting less attention than others want is not a contradiction.
01
What you do when you could be seen
Both halves are real.
You want it. You notice who gets credit, and it bothers you when it is not you.
And you hide. You hold the work back until it is perfect, and then a little longer. You leave before the part of the evening where people talk about themselves. When someone asks what you have been working on, you say oh, nothing much.
People call this shyness, or a lack of confidence. Neither explains the wanting.
The cost may be that you go unseen and resent it. People who might have valued the work may never get the chance, and you may read their silence as proof that nobody was interested.
02
What the hiding may be protecting
"Asking creates a debt I don't want to carry."
Being seen means taking up attention. Under Burden, attention is one more thing received, and you may step out of view before it can be given. Even when I'm just excited about something, somebody tells me to settle down.
Read about Burden →"I'm still working for someone who may not even be watching anymore."
You may want to be seen by one person in particular. Under Approval, everyone else's notice can feel beside the point. I've spent my whole life being who the people in charge of me expected.
Read about Approval →It may be something else. Hiding a hard time, as opposed to hiding your work, can belong to Strong, where the fear is that if they see you struggle, you lose the only standing you have. And it may be no rule.
03
What is under the rule
Under Burden, the fear may be that your needs make you too much, and too much gets left. Wanting attention can count as a need. What would answer it is being able to receive without owing.
Under Approval, the fear may be that without their verdict you don't know what you are worth. What would answer it is an internal measure that doesn't require ratification.
04
One question that separates them
When someone praises you, is the trouble that you now owe them, or that it didn't come from the one person who counts?
Think of the last time someone noticed something you did and praised it. I owe them is the Burden answer. Not the one person is the Approval answer.
If there is no trouble when it happens, and the hiding is only beforehand, this question has not sorted anything. That is a result too, and not enough to tell is allowed.
Not all hiding is a rule. In some workplaces speaking up is not welcomed, and reading that correctly is good sense. Preferring a small circle is a preference. What to look at is cost, and whether you are going without recognition you want.
Ruling one out is the purpose. Subtraction removes what the evidence doesn't support and leaves less to look through.
05
One thing to try this week
Put one small thing where people can see it. A finished piece of work, an opinion in a meeting, a photo you like.
Leave it there for a full day. Don't take it down, add a disclaimer, or explain it.
Write down what you were afraid would happen, and what happened.
When what you are hiding is a hard time, the page is I Hide When I'm Struggling.