I wish I could have stopped myself the other day but I wasn't conscious enough until I made the mistake of saying these few words...
Why would anyone care about that?
My thanks to Clare McNamara, a trusted advisor of mine who reminded me very quickly that not only did people care but that my work did matter and I should embrace my success. We all should. She's right.
So what is it about embracing success that is so hard? After all everyone wants a piece of success and when things go belly up, no one is around to claim the credit to such, right?
We simply don't take the time to celebrate and embrace those moments that belong to us. It's because that while success is sweet, it can be just as bitter.
How so?
One of my mentors Sheryl Sandberg says. “Success and likeability are positively correlated for men and negatively for women. When a man is successful, he is liked by both men and women. When a woman is successful, people of both genders like her less."
Whoa. There's pressure, ladies.
So we all want to be successful in our own right, and when it's time to claim that finish line, we must do the end-zone happy dance on the inside, and forget about embracing success outwardly? For if we truly embraced our success that would put us in a whole class of our own kind...you know those confident successful awesome women who aren't afraid to own their touchdown?
Oh how DARE you show us what you are made of! How dare you liberate us from our own fears of failure, boxes, and small thinking?
The sad fact is there are a lot of women (and men) who just can't accept success in others because they don't see success in themselves....or they have a false sense of self. I know this is frustrating but encourage them to be their best ... but don't let them pull you down. Embrace your success.
Clare's article this week about embracing success is spot on. The questions she poses are good nuggets about how we can shift our thinking around women embracing success.
What do you think? What are you (or the women you know) doing to embrace success (it's okay, tell us those secrets!) Why do the women you know fear embracing their success?
I personally think it's time we all took up end-zone dancing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bbzHdqUUFU
