Stop Being the Discount Version of Yourself
When I told my ex I was legally changing my last name to Bombdiggity, he didn’t even hide his disbelief. He just stared long enough to make it awkward, waiting for me to reveal the punchline. When it finally landed that I wasn’t joking, he said the quiet part out loud.
“I’m afraid that’s going to close a lot of doors for you.”
There it was. The whole curriculum of girlhood tucked into one sentence. Not “does it feel right,” or “is this who you are becoming?” Just a warning about doors.
The ones we’re supposed to slip through quietly. The ones we’re supposed to keep open for everyone else. The ones we’re never supposed to outgrow.
But I wasn’t building a life around fear anymore. I wasn’t designing my identity around polite little openings. So I said, “Yeah. But what if it opens others.”
And it did.
Bombdiggity opened every door that the discount-version-of-me kept slamming shut. Speaking opportunities. New clients. New rooms. New love. New identity. New oxygen.
Every time someone calls me “Kirsten Bombdiggity,” my nervous system hears a quiet truth. You didn’t shrink. You expanded. And the world adjusted.
This is what happens when women stop offering the “safe” version of themselves. The world around them has to reorganize.
YOUR DISCOUNT REFLEX ISN’T PERSONALITY. IT’S YOUR NERVOUS SYSTEM TRYING TO SURVIVE.
Let’s pull in the science. Not to sterilize the story. Just to confirm you’re not imagining any of this.
1. The fawn response is not a vibe. It’s biology.
Women are more likely to default to appeasing under pressure. That response shows up in the same brain regions used for threat detection. Your body literally thinks disappointment equals danger.
2. Approval gives you a dopamine hit.
It’s tiny, but it’s enough. Combine that with the crash-avoidance of skipping conflict, and you get a reward loop that feels like relief. Not happiness. Not authenticity. Just relief.
3. Chronic self-silencing erodes identity.
Research from Stanford found that the more you suppress your truth, the less clear your self-concept becomes. Meaning you lose track of yourself while trying to be easier for others.
So no… this isn’t “just how you are.” This is how you were trained. This is what your biology learned to do to keep you alive, accepted, unpunished.
But survival isn’t the same as living.
THE DISCOUNT VERSION OF YOU IS NOT KIND. IT’S COSTLY.
Women bargain their way through life. We slice off pieces of ourselves, just a little at a time, hoping the final version will be more likable, more hireable, more dateable, more palatable.
But shrinking isn’t kindness. It’s self-abandonment with a smile.
Let me say it plainly.
If you keep offering the clearance-rack version of yourself, people will never discover the luxury-level human you actually are.
And here’s the part nobody wants printed on a throw pillow. Every time you discount yourself, even a tiny bit…
with a fake yes, a swallowed no, a softened opinion, a talent you hide, a “don’t worry, I’ll handle it,” a smile that covers the burn…
You’re not buying peace. You’re buying resentment on credit. With interest.
People pleasing is not generosity. It’s spiritual price-cutting. It’s taking your brilliance, slapping on a bright-red 40 percent off sticker, and hoping someone will treat you like a treasure anyway.
They won’t. Discounts train people to expect more discounts.
When I became Bombdiggity on paper, the right people didn’t blink. They leaned in. They squared their shoulders. They recognized me.
Some doors closed. The wrong ones. The right ones swung open like they were waiting.
That was the moment I learned something I want you to feel in your bones.
Real doors do not open for the version of you that apologizes for existing. Real doors open for the version that knows her full price and refuses to be haggled down.
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF FULL-PRICE WOMEN
Let’s keep it simple.
Full-price women have better boundaries. They are more satisfied with their lives. They attract healthier relationships. They experience less identity confusion. They carry less resentment. They recover faster from setbacks. Not because they’re special. Because they stopped discounting themselves.
Authenticity lowers the cognitive load of being alive. Pretending is exhausting. Pretending is expensive.
When you stop negotiating your worth, you stop paying with your health.
THE KNOCKOFF VERSION OF YOU WAS NEVER THE POINT
So here’s the truth I want to tattoo on your frontal lobe.
Every time you shrink yourself to make someone else more comfortable, you become a knockoff of your own life.
Stop being the knockoff.
Be the original. Be the full-strength version. Be the woman whose name, literal or metaphorical, makes the room blink twice.
You are limited edition. Act like it.
Refuse to be the garage-sale version of your own life. Set fire to the roles that required your smallness. Walk out of the ashes full-volume, full-price, and entirely too bright for anyone who only ever loved you dimmed. If at least one person isn’t stunned silent, checking the exits, and reconsidering their choices… you’re not done yet.
