Monday, April 6, 2009

Are You Well-Behaved?

One of the statements Jillian Michaels made during her presentation at the Get Radical Women's Conference was that "well-behaved women never make history".

This resonates with me as I think of successful women I know. At some point, they had to forget about what others said their "place " was. They decided to no longer accept the labels that people tried to put on them. They rejected those that would say they were:

  • less than
  • not smart enough
  • not good enough
  • not educated enough
  • not pretty enough
  • too emotional
  • couldn't handle tough situations
  • wasn't CEO material
  • wasn't able to make the hard choices

At some point, all successful women decide to aggressively step off the path that was paved with comfort, the familiar, the easy, and the ordinary. Instead, they opted to take a deep breath and leap into the unknown - where greatness lies.

With this leap comes the desire to:

  • break the rules
  • make your own rules
  • demand to be taken seriously
  • shake things up
  • kick some butt
  • do the unexpected
  • take charge
  • create a path
  • be a pioneer
  • take no prisoners
  • not be fearful of the "B" word.
As a matter of fact, one of the other speakers that day, Barbara Stanny, encouraged us to embrace the "B" in all of us - giving us her meaning of the word through a t-shirt that she offers on her site:

So, stop being well behaved.

Playing by the rules.

Nodding in agreement when you want to scream NO!

Complaining about your situation instead of doing something about it.

Waiting on something to happen instead of making something happen.

It's great to have goals - a dream. But that's not the end, it's a beginning.

I'll end with one of my favorite quotes:

Some people dream of success... while others wake up and work hard at it. ~Author Unknown

P.S. For the men: success comes for you when you decide to break the rules too!!!

2 comments:

  1. Although there may be people in our lives that try to keep us down or tell us we can't do something-sometimes we are our own worst enemy! We need to silence the voice in our heads that is telling us we can't do something. Can we be the top dog in every avenue that we choose to pursue, probably not. However, can we improve ourselves and accomplish things we never thought possible? Absolutely!

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