I Was Never Taught to Play Small. And It's Time You Stopped Too

Panel Discussion Char for Optical Women's Association Leadership Panel 2026

I need to tell you something about where I come from.

I grew up in a house where abundance was not a concept we discussed, it was just how we lived, in our thinking, in our decisions, in the way my family approached every opportunity and every obstacle.

Not because we had everything. But because we were wired to believe that more was always possible, that risk was not something to avoid but something to move toward before you felt ready, and that the only ceiling that existed was the one you built yourself.

I think that's what it means to be the daughter of an immigrant.

When you come from a family that left everything familiar to build something in unfamiliar ground, you absorb a particular kind of courage by osmosis. You learn that comfort is not the goal. That waiting until you're ready is a luxury you don't always have. That thinking bigger is not arrogance, it's survival.

And then I entered a profession full of brilliant women who had been taught the exact opposite.

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The language that keeps women small

I want to talk about limiting language. Not as a concept, but as something I hear, every single week, from women in optometry and healthcare who are more capable than they will allow themselves to believe.

"I don't want to come across as greedy." "I'm not sure I'm ready yet." "Maybe when things are more stable." "I don't want to charge too much." "Who am I to do that?"

That last one. Who am I to do that. I want you to sit with how often that sentence, or some version of it, has stopped you from doing something you were absolutely qualified and ready to do.

Limiting language is not just self-talk. It is a decision-making framework. Every time you speak those words, you are choosing a smaller version of your life. And most of the time, you don't even notice you're doing it.

What abundance actually looks like from the inside

I didn't earn an abundance mindset. I inherited it. And I'm aware that not everyone did, which is exactly why I'm writing this.

Abundance thinking is not about ignoring reality or pretending everything is fine. My family faced real hardship. Real uncertainty. The difference is that hardship was never used as a reason to stop. It was used as fuel.

It means taking the risk before you feel ready, because you understand that readiness is often just fear in a sensible outfit.

It means pricing your services at what they are worth, because you know that undercharging doesn't make you more ethical, it just makes you more resentful.

It means applying for the opportunity, submitting the proposal, putting yourself on the stage, because you understand that the people who get those things are not necessarily more qualified than you. They just stopped asking for permission first.

Where most women in healthcare get stuck

The clinical training is exceptional. The mindset training is almost non-existent. And so women enter this profession, brilliant, committed, trusted, and spend the next decade playing by rules that were never designed for them to win.

Chronically undercharging. Over-delivering. Waiting to be noticed. Using careful, hedged, apologetic language in every negotiation, every conversation, every pitch.

Not because they lack skill. Because they have absorbed a scarcity story, from their training, their culture, their professional environment, and nobody has ever sat them down and said: that story is not true, and you do not have to keep telling it.

The neuroscience behind why this is so hard to shift

The beliefs we carry about money, worth and risk are not just thoughts. They are neural pathways, laid down early, reinforced repeatedly, and felt in the body as truth. When you try to charge more and your stomach flips, that is not intuition telling you you're wrong. That is a conditioned response telling you that you're about to do something that doesn't match the story you've always told about yourself.

You cannot out-hustle a scarcity mindset. You can work harder and harder and still find a way to make yourself smaller, because your nervous system is not yet calibrated to hold what you're capable of building.

The work is to rewire it. Not through toxic positivity. Not through affirmations that your body doesn't believe. But through evidence-based approaches that interrupt the pattern at its root, and then build practical strategy on top of a foundation that can actually hold it.

What I want for you

I want you to take the risk before you're ready, because that's where the growth lives.

I want you to stop softening your language every time you ask for something you deserve.

I want you to charge what you're worth without the paragraph of justification that follows.

I want you to build a practice, a business, a life, that is as large as your actual capability, not as large as your current comfort zone permits.

Confidence, wealth and freedom are not three separate goals for three different versions of yourself. They are the same goal, approached from different angles. And you are not only allowed to want all three, you were built for them.

My family moved countries with nothing but the belief that more was possible.

The least I can do is pass that belief on.

If you're ready to do the mindset and strategy work together, the 1:1 mentoring and my Inner Circle membership are where we start. Not when things settle down. Not when you feel ready.

Now.

About Dr Pretty Basra

Dr Pretty Basra is a TEDx speaker, international keynote speaker and award-winning healthcare entrepreneur with over 20 years in optometry and 10 years in leadership. She delivers neuroscience-informed keynotes on mental fitness, burnout, the female advantage, and confidence, wealth and freedom, for organisations across the UK and internationally.

She is Head of Events for the Optical Women's Association, Chair of the ICB Optometry Forum, a WOPEC assessor, and a member of the General Optical Council's fitness to practise panel. She is also the first UK optometrist to integrate medical aesthetics and ocular wellness into clinical practice.

Pretty hosts the The Women Money Business podcast and runs the Inner Circle membership community for women in optometry and healthcare.

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