Wednesday Women of Wisdom: I’m Every Woman

Nothing inspires me quite like Whitney Houston (if you haven’t watched the music video for I’m Every Woman recently, do yourself a favor and watch it right now) and I’ve always loved this song, but I have a love/hate relationship with the lyrics.

“Everything you want done baby, I’ll do it naturally.” I don’t know about you, but I think women try too hard to be everything for everybody, both professionally and in our personal lives. My hero Sheryl Sandberg talks about it in terms of holding ourselves back by not raising our hands.

So my question today is… what are you doing at work right now that is more about PLEASING someone than GETTING RESULTS? 

At the end of the day, your career is about you, so if you’re in the habit of doing any of the following currently, choose one habit to quit right here, right now:

• Apologizing for doing your job (I really struggle with this, check out my thoughts about this issue here)

• Keeping good ideas to yourself

• Withholding compliments for a peer

• Not speaking up when someone isn’t being treated well at work (including yourself!)

Experiment this week with speaking up when a friend at work does something awesome that you may not normally congratulate them for, or sharing an idea in a team meeting that you may normally have kept to yourself.

Comment below and let me know what you’re committing to do this week. I’d love to hear how it goes. I’m going to commit to not saying sorry for doing my job this week!