Oh, not verbally apologizing. My apologies were so much more hurtful because I didn’t say I’m sorry with my words. I apologized with the way I lived my life. Every time I felt ashamed for taking a business trip. Every time I swallowed the lie of mommy guilt. Every time I dressed a certain way or spoke a certain way in order to be better received was an apology for who I really was, a lie of omission. And every single time I lied about who I was, I reinforced the belief in my own mind that there was something wrong with me. I honestly believed I was the only woman who felt this way.
Then, in 2015, I went to a conference that would change my life forever. I talked about it in detail in my last book, and I swear I won’t be that author who just repeats all her old stories in the sequel, but the gist of that experience was, we were doing some work on limiting beliefs and the lies that hold us back. I began to dig into my childhood and what I might have learned or accepted back then that was still affecting me today.
Spoiler alert: most of the things you learned in childhood are still affecting you today. I was no exception.
I grew up in a home with a traditional structure. Dad worked, and Mom took care of the house . . . even when she also worked. Somehow I still found my way into being a proud feminist—which means, in its totality, that I believe men and women should be treated equally. I went into marriage believing my husband and I would equally share the load, but it was so easy to slip back into the structure I’d grown up with that told me what a woman should be like and how she should act and what her value was.
Let me step to the side for a moment and unpack the idea of living into what a “woman is supposed to be.” If I only get to give you one thought to chew on in this book, it would be this: Most of us have been raised with a massive disparity between the way women should be and the way men should be. This isn’t a question of masculine versus feminine. I’m typing this out right now while wearing full makeup—with contouring! This is a question of who little boys are raised to be versus who little girls are raised to be. Like I mentioned earlier, most women, regardless of where they grew up or what their cultural background is, have been taught essentially that to be a good woman is to be good for other people. The problem with this is that it means you’re letting other people determine your worth. Is it any wonder that half the women I know suffer from anxiety and depression, drowning underneath the wave of what other people think? We’ve been taught that we don’t have any value without the good opinions of others.
But I digress. I went to this conference and had a life-changing epiphany. I had been taught to play small, but I had been born with a heart that only dreamed big. That heart and all it encompassed had been built into me while I was still forming. My dreams weren’t just a part of me; they were the core of who I was. They were a gift from God, and if my creator endowed me with something, how could it be wrong? I dug deeper and realized that my desire for growth and work only really felt wrong when I started to worry what other people might think of it. Staying at home can be a beautiful personal choice and life calling—but it wasn’t mine. It was what other people wanted for my life. It was culturally what we knew, but that didn’t make it right for me. So I started to wonder, What if what was right was truly believing in myself enough to be honest about my life? What if what was right was being proud of who I was made to be? What if what was right was to find pride in my hard work and accomplishments and to stop playing small?
I left that conference on fire! I came home a completely different woman—or actually, I should say, I came home fully living into myself for the first time in my life. The years since then have been the happiest, most fulfilled, and most rewarding of my entire existence, and they’ve also made me aware of something important. I didn’t corner the market on feeling ashamed because I didn’t fit into the mold of the other women around me. I’m not the only one who has ever carried around those feelings. But the catalyst that propelled me into the dreams I’m so privileged to be living today is that I accepted the challenge to actively get past those feelings and, in doing so, massively changed my life.
If you’ve been affected by my work, if you enjoyed the last book or had a life-changing weekend at one of our conferences or found nuggets of wisdom in my podcast, remember that none of that would have happened if I hadn’t stopped listening to that little voice inside my head that says, “This is not what other women are like. This is too bold, too weird, too obnoxious. Sit down. Be quiet.” Fighting the instinct to listen to that voice is one of the hardest things I’ve ever worked through, but because I did, my life—and maybe yours too?—changed for the better.
EXCUSE 2:
I’M NOT A GOAL-ORIENTED PERSON
My instinct is that the majority of the women who pick up this book are goal diggers. Not gold diggers—goal diggers. Meaning, you have a goal or a dream that’s been on your heart and you want some advice or encouragement to propel you forward. But chances are, amongst the crowd are also women who are curious or wondering or maybe just fans of my YouTube channel who aren’t really sure how this whole goal thing is going to work for them, because, well, they’re just not a goal-oriented kind of gal. They’ve decided that it’s simply their genetic makeup; some people are into that whole “personal growth thing” and some people aren’t. These people may even wish they were that kind of person but don’t have a lot of hope for it, because “that’s just not the way I’m wired.”
The thing is, I totally understand why you’d think that. I mean, obviously if you didn’t come into the world already having mastered something, it was just never meant to be yours. Walking, speaking, eating solid foods without choking to death, driving a car, spelling, using a computer—all of that was just naturally a part of “who you were” from birth, right?
No. Don’t be dumb!
You learned those skills just like you learned a million other things. I’m not arguing that you aren’t currently a goal-oriented person, because perception is reality and if you believe it’s true then it absolutely is. What I’m arguing is that you’re missing a word in the sentence. You’re not a goal-oriented person yet. Finding your goal, focusing in on it, and learning to work to get closer to it every day is possible for anyone. Finding your goal takes some soul-searching and some clarity, but the other two? Having focus and being productive enough to get closer to where you want to go? Those are just habits. If you don’t already have them, it’s only because you haven’t developed them yet. Not because they’ll never be yours.
Dreams are things you hope for, for your life. Dreams are the things that occur to you as you go about your day. Things like, I wish I didn’t feel so tired all the time. Wouldn’t it be great to get into shape? Or, I’d love to be debt-free. Or, I wish we could take a luxury vacation this summer. Or, I wish we didn’t have to live paycheck to paycheck. Maybe I could start a side business. Because we all come from different places and backgrounds, our dreams are as unique and varied as our hairstyles. Everyone has dreams for their life—everyone. Not everyone admits it to themselves or even considers their idle wishes a possibility, but every single person reading this book wants something. Those wishes you have? Those are dreams. But a dream and a goal are two different things entirely.
A goal is a dream with its work boots on. A goal is a dream you’ve decided to make real. A goal is a destination you’re working toward instead of an idea you’re only considering or hoping for. Hope is a beautiful thing and an incredibly valuable tool to help keep us motivated and inspired about the possibility for the future. But let’s be very clear on this point: hope is not a strategy.
Simply hoping that life will get better, that you’ll get better, that you’ll suddenly develop focus and motivation when you’re not taking any active steps to make that a reality, is worthless. You’ve got to plan for your success. You’ve got to be intentional, and you’ve got to decide right now that you can be whoever you want to be and achieve whatever you want to achieve.