The Oscar nominations are all the buzz after last week’s announcements. Even though 2015 saw some very strong roles for women in film (did you see Suffragettes?), as a whole the entertainment industry is still lacking in gender and racial diversity so we thought InPower Women should highlight a program that is trying to fix that. – InPower Editors
by H. E. James
I admit it. I’m addicted to Netflix, especially anything that’s related to murder or the law. Why? I wanted to be a cop when I was a kid, but circumstances led me on a different path. Watching murder mysteries on Netflix is an escape into worlds I will never know otherwise.
One world that I stumbled on is the world of the Honourable Miss Phryne Fisher, and it opened my eyes to the gender gap in the entertainment industry.
A creation of woman-owned Every Cloud Productions, Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries is distributed by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. The second episode hooked me when one character says, “Well, it will be a pleasure to serve a respectable lady with a strict routine who appreciates the quiet life,” and his companion responds by spitting out his drink.
The women who founded Every Cloud, Fiona Eagger and Deb Cox, create characters like Phryne and Myrtle in the Dressmaker, and we need more of these strong female leads in today’s film and TV industry worldwide.
In order to ensure that the Australian film and TV industries see more women in film like Fiona and Deb, Screen Australia has created Gender Matters. The initiative is based on research that shows a discrepancy in funding for projects with women in key creative roles or writer, producer, director, or main protagonist. It aims to inject $5 million Australian in funding directly into projects with women in at least three of the four main creative roles.
This initiative has potential to set the bar for gender equality in the entertainment industry around the world as audiences have more opportunities to see strong female characters in compelling and entertaining productions.
Gender Matters cites statistics showing that women in film are underrepresented across the board in the four key creative roles, especially in film. In Australia, of the 37 films released in 2014, only 16 percent were directed by women. In a worldwide study titled Gender Bias Without Borders, SeeJane.org showed similar statistics in the film industries of major countries around the globe. The films were created by production companies from Brazil, Germany, the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and many others. For the top films screened in the international markets, no U.S. films were helmed by female directors. Australia did a little better, seeing 8.3% of its films screened directed by women.
Strong female characters are better represented when women are behind the scenes. Screen Australia noted that 74% of its films directed by women featured a female character, while just 24% with a male director did. In the Gender Bias Without Borders study, the ratio was 37% to 30.2%.
Mind the Gaps
These gender gaps in the media exist for reasons not wholly in control of the women in the industry. In the U.S., where Hollywood reigns supreme as the decision-making hub, agism factors into the equation as much as sexim. Both male and female actors receive a similar numbers of roles well through their 20s.
Yet when female actors reach 30, the curve on the graph drops dramatically. For male actors, it continues to rise, not dropping until they hit the ripe old age of 46. Why the agism? Screen Australia points to simple bias in the industry as a reason, and this is echoed by the creator of the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film, Dr. Martha Lauzen. “There may be some bias at work,” she stated to Variety regarding major releases versus independent film.
The wage gap that gets constant press throughout the world, and rightly so, exists not just because of inherent bias in the industry, but also because of a reason cited in Gender Matters: Women can sometimes lack self-belief or self-confidence to see to their own career progression. Female actresses are as susceptible to this dynamic as any women in any other industries.
In her essay regarding the Hollywood pay gap, Jennifer Lawrence pointed to her own needs to get along in the industry, or “be liked,” as she put it. She’s correct in her assumptions that it could be her age. She is, after all, just 25. Or that it could be her personality. There are men, too, who are pleasing to the point of self-destruction. However, Lawrence’s resume is impressive. She has been in nearly 30 projects in her short career, and her first credit was an appearance on the celebrated show Monk. She is right in demanding better pay for her work than she gets.
If you have the experience, you should receive the pay and the work.
Leading by Example
No matter the industry, it appears that wage gaps in the U.S. are a fact of life. Men made nearly $900 per week compared to just over $700 per week for women in the third quarter of 2015. Even in nursing, an industry traditionally dominated by women, men earn more.
We women make up nearly half the world’s population today, and in Australia and the U.S., we outnumber men. There is power in numbers, and when coupled with initiatives like Screen Australia’s Gender Matters, we have a great ability to forge change in the entertainment industry, and perhaps beyond.
It’s up to us to be inspired by women like Phryne Fisher and the women who’ve brought her to the screen, who don’t take no for an answer.
About the author: Hattie James is a writer and researcher living in Boise, Idaho. She has a varied background, including education and sports journalism. She is a former electronic content manager and analyst for a government agency. She recently completed her MBA and enjoys local ciders. Tweet at Hattie: @hejames1008. Find her on Linkedin.
Guide to Women in Leadership
Organizations with women in their executive suites regularly out-perform others. Yet rising female executives (and their mentors) are frustrated at how hard it is to break through the glass ceiling. In this extensive guide, Executive Coach Dana Theus shares her tried and true strategies to help women excel into higher levels of leadership and achieve their executive potential.
Someone once gave me the greatest compliment. She said, “Since you’re my mentor I think you can help me with this.” Until that moment I had no idea I was her mentor! From that day forward, I started paying more attention to my interactions with her, being more clear explaining my thinking, being more conscious of giving her explicit feedback. And something else happened in the process – I became more conscious of my own leadership mentoring style and began to improve it. (more…)
There’s merit to the feminist narrative that says professional women aren’t hired for the top jobs as often because corporate cultures aren’t accommodating and sexism still exists – but sometimes it’s not about that at all. Sometimes, high-achieving women leaders are just not ready, or we aren’t investing in ourselves appropriately or we stress the wrong things in the interview. And while the former issues seem bigger than us as individuals, we can sure as heck prepare better for an interview! Here are some job interview tips for all levels, but if you’re a professional women hoping to skirt the glass ceiling and land yourself in the executive suite, scroll right to the bottom. (more…)
You don’t know where you are going if you don’t know where you have been.
It’s a common cliché, but it can be true – especially when we talk about women and leadership.
When we think about historic women leaders, names that frequently come to mind are Cleopatra, Joan of Arc, Elizabeth I. We don’t often hear about women leaders in our history classes in school – we are taught that men have traditionally led countries, armies, and philosophies.
This means that men have more leadership role models in history and women typically don’t. And this leads us to quickly realize that trailblazing is hard! We believe that we are doing something new that women haven’t really done before.
What if that perception wasn’t quite right? What if women have been leading – not as often as men – and we just weren’t told much about it?
That changes things – especially what it means for women to lead today.
If we believe that women leading is a new idea, then each time a woman encounters struggles or faces opposition, we accept that it’s just women forging new territory. But if we believe that women have led before then leadership transitions from being something men have traditionally done to something that people – men and women – do.
I recently did some quick research about women leaders before 1700 AD and there are a number that we don’t often hear about in history class.
One favorite is Hildegard of Bingen. She was a nun who lived around 1100 AD. We tend to think that women religious leaders didn’t have a lot of power, but this isn’t true. She is considered to be the “greatest woman of her time,” and was a type of “Dear Abby.” She was elected to lead her monastery by her sisters and maintained her position until her death. She wrote over 300 letters, a musical play, 72 songs (still played today), 70 poems and 9 books. She also had visions.
…Pope Eugenius III sent a commission to inquire into her work. The commission found her teaching orthodox and her insights authentic, and reported so to the Pope, who sent her a letter of approval…She wrote back urging the Pope to work harder for reform of the Church.
Another favorite is Hrotsvitha (b 935 AD). She is considered to be the first woman playwright, and much of her work was set aside and not performed for at least 500 years. Hrotsvitha was strongly aware that her gender made her less likely to be taken seriously as a writer. She used a number of strategies to counter this, including arguing that her talent is divinely inspired, leveraging the etymology of her given name to to back this up (it technically meant “strong honor;” she interpreted it as “a clarion voice”).
In China there was Empress Wu Zetian (624-705 AD). It is said that she achieved power through ruthless and unconscionable means, including killing her own children. However, some of those stories have been doubted by historians because at that time in Confucian beliefs severely limited women’s roles in Chinese society. Women just did not lead.
Despite that, her achievements included:
A peaceful and prosperous reign
Introduction of meritocracy for bureaucrats
Being open minded to act on advice from her ministers
Agricultural growth
Reduced taxes
To help shift the perception of women in society, she:
Required children to mourn both parents, rather than only their father
Replaced Confucianism with Buddhism
Published a book Biographies of Famous Women to raise awareness of women’s achievements
There were a number of Ethiopian Empresses who challenged – and won – military conflicts against Western empires. There is much confusion in these stories, however, because the word for empress was Candace, and historians have a tendency to flip-flop the name Candace between being a name and title. There are many writings about Candace of Ethiopia, from legends where her army defeated Alexander the Great to leading the Kushites against the Romans and winning.
My other favorite women in history are Roman women. They weren’t allowed to be rulers, but they held a lot of influence over the men in charge. In one instance, Hortensia, an orator, gave a speech before the second Triumverate against them taxing 1500 women:
Not having any say in politics themselves, the women were furious at being taxed for a war they had nothing to do with. The women arrived at the forum with Hortensia as a representative to make a speech to the triumvirs.
The outcome: only 400 women were taxed and the government went to find other men to pay.
There are many more women who had a profound impact on history (see links below). And note that this covers on 3 continents – I didn’t even get a chance to to explore women leaders in the Americas before 1500.
If we took some time to research women leaders of the ancient world, we would find a number of role models. We need to stop thinking that women leading is something new and that we are the only ones breaking through the “glass ceiling.” And imagine if these are the women that we do know about, who may have been written out of history?
We need to keep women’s history alive so we remember what’s possible for women. We can only do this by talking about their achievements, including men in the conversation, so collectively we can have a different understanding of what it means to lead.
Organizations with women in their executive suites regularly out-perform others. Yet rising female executives (and their mentors) are frustrated at how hard it is to break through the glass ceiling. In this extensive guide, Executive Coach Dana Theus shares her tried and true strategies to help women excel into higher levels of leadership and achieve their executive potential.
Recently when reading about work-life balance, I read that millennials are more focused on “finding the work that fits your life” than their mothers were at the same age. In my Baby Boomer generation women left the workforce in large numbers to be with family—and through my coaching practice I know that these off-rampers still tend to think that work is only an inflexible “corporate” endeavor. Millennial women, on the other hand, are just leaving inflexible jobs, not leaving the workforce altogether.
That’s a good decision—and perhaps, as a result, millennial women will age with the ability to always support themselves and their families, fund all of life’s “you never knows” and save enough money for a retirement that could last 30 years or more. Too many women in my generation have too little financial security.
Though many millennials (ages 18 to 34) seem to be headed in the right personal finance direction, there are still quite a few women in their 30s and 40s who struggle with the challenge of integrating work-life and family. Ultimately, many still make the decision that it is not possible to “have it all”. It is very possible, however, because so many women do not have the choice to opt out, and they find ways to care for both families and a job.
The more important decision women have to make is whether they want to struggle now or later. I would argue that when you are young, you have the energy, mental capacity and resourcefulness to find a way to make work work—and, to the best of your ability, lock in financial security. It is so much harder to be older—in your 70s, 80s or 90s—without enough financial resources, with health issues, with fewer opportunities to find paid employment and perhaps no other option than asking adult children for financial support (at a time when they need to stay on track for funding their own long retirements).
It is true that many people are working long past the traditional retirement age of 65—yes, for continued fulfillment…but also because retirement coffers are low. It seems like a logical plan, but it’s not always a viable option. Women who say “I’ll work again when my children are out of the house” roll the dice for two reasons—their own health and the health of aging parents. Many women find that when their first caregiving job ends (children), their second caregiving job begins (aging parents). The average age when a woman assumes a caregiving role is 46—and that doesn’t necessarily mean it is a full-time job. Even a “supervisory” caregiving role (one where you are supplementing or overseeing paid care) can take a big chunk of your daily time. It is far easier to work during Caregiving Job #1 since, in most cases, raising children is an experience not involving illness, disability or grave, sustained worry. With even the best of children we all experience bumps in the road, but the total transformation of parents from vitality to frailty, the often long string of falls, illnesses and general discomfort, issues of senility, depression or Alzheimer’s, decisions of where to live and who will provide daily care and the psychological toll of watching beloved parents slip away is more life-encompassing than making meals, carpooling and overseeing homework day to day.
If we somehow escape the care of elderly parents, it’s also just a fact that as we age, we all face more of our own health issues that could make it impossible to generate any significant income in our late 60s and 70s. The EBRI Retirement Confidence Survey notes that due to retirement savings shortfalls 1 out of 3 people expect to continue working beyond the traditional retirement age of 65. But the road to possible retirement hell is paved with good intentions. You don’t know if you will have the energy or the health to work at an advanced age. The rub is that many people are forced to retire fully due to a layoff, a health issue or disability.
None of us can predict what the future holds, which means that when it comes to generating an income, there’s no time like the present. Find even small, but flexible opportunities to work as much as you can for as long as you can from college through retirement years. There isn’t a woman on the planet who will say that it’s easy to blend work-life and family, but it has to be easier than all the ramifications of financial insecurity when you’re facing huge elder care bills and having trouble tying your own shoes.
We’ve all read about the qualities it takes to become a great female leader: how to “lean in,” what language to use in order to show an attitude of cooperation, the importance of personal flexibility. In addition to some of these overt actions and the content of what we say, subliminal messages have an underlying presence. Sometimes these subliminal messages can be more powerful than the outward surface message — they can work to either undermine your attempts to be seen as a leader or bring you a more powerful presence than you’ve had before. Recent research in the areas of psychology, speech and human behavior have brought to light what some of these subliminal messages may be. Read on to find out if you might be hurting — or helping — yourself.
Speech Intonation
It’s not just about what you say, it’s about how you say it. A speech pattern has become common among women in the U.S. that can undermine our perceived strength and authority: it’s called “upspeak.” Have you ever noticed your female friends ending sentences with their voices getting higher in pitch towards the end, as if they are asking a question? This can make you appear uncertain or low in confidence. While it can be perfectly fine to use this speech habit when chatting with friends, in a professional setting, it might work against you.
In my work with women, I have noticed this speech pattern can be spread socially. We all tend to mimic what we hear from our friends, often without even realizing we are doing so. Pay attention to the speech pattern of your friends. Do you hear “upspeak”? If so, it is likely you are using this pattern yourself. The good news is that it’s not a difficult habit to break. Once you hear it, you’ll be able to recognize its sound and remind yourself to make statements sound like statements and not questions. For a lively discussion on the subject among three professionals, check out this “Fresh Air” broadcast with Terry Gross.
Body Language
Like it or not, at a very basic level we are animals. In the animal kingdom, body language can demonstrate who is in charge and who is at the bottom of the pack. Science shows us that those who rise into leadership roles tend to have a different hormonal makeup than those who don’t. Fascinatingly, Amy Cuddy shows us that by changing body language and using more “powerful” body positions, we can not only send a message of confidence and power to those around us but we can even change our hormonal profile to that of a leader.
Do you tend to cross your arms in front of you, touch your neck or round your shoulders? Not surprisingly, as females in a society that has treated genders unequally, we tend to use body positions that are less powerful more often than our male counterparts. I notice my most professionally successful clients take time in their schedules for physical activity. Active people are most in tune and confident in their bodies. Exercise also helps lower cortisol levels and keep adrenaline levels in check. As Cuddy points out in her TED talk, these are marks of true leaders.
Inclusion
For those of us trying to break ground as a woman in a historically male-dominated field, it can be tempting to try to climb the ranks by “becoming one of the guys.” In doing so, we may use subtle means of demonstrating that we are “better than” the other women in the department and therefore more worthy of a promotion. It is a difficult dynamic for us to own, but time and time again, individuals in groups who are not the majority turn against themselves while trying to climb the ranks. Did you know that neither Margaret Thatcher nor Indira Ghandi appointed women to their cabinets during their years in office? This type of “every-woman-for-herself” attitude will hurt you in the long run.
Instead of seeing the other women around you as competition, find strength in each other. When we as women bond together to work toward common goals, our power in the workplace will rise. I have been fortunate to coach many academic women in STEM areas. Often, their coaching was funded through grants won through their cooperative efforts. Existing women researchers placed an emphasis on the development of other women in their fields, thereby benefiting themselves as well as new female faculty. Everybody won. If you are a woman in a leadership position, make a conscious effort to support the rise of other women around you. When our numbers grow someday, you will be remembered for your support and your own rights as a woman will be stronger.
The Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) is an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, the YEC recently launched #StartupLab, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses via live video chats, an expert content library and email lessons.
Originally posted on The Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC)
Life isn’t fair. You can’t always get what you want. Even though you know this, disappointment hurts anyway.
You can’t think yourself into feeling better. The shift has to be made emotionally. Hopefully, you will be able to shift to feeling gratitude or happiness after a setback. Most likely, you’ll start with acceptance. From here, you might consider if your expectations were realistic and if there are any lessons to remember. But first you have to shake off your sadness, regret, frustration, and disillusionment. Here’s how.
Force a smile,even a laugh, to trigger the emotional shifting process. Forced smiles and laughter release the neurochemicals that will make you feel better faster.
Move your body. Complex movement (not repetitive actions like running) can lift you out of an emotional rut. Engage in a sport, practice a martial art or yoga, or take a spirited exercise class to shake the bad feelings off your back.
Identify the values that were compromised. Recall a time when your life was flowing and you felt light, alive, and fulfilled. Name five things you had or were doing that helped you feel this way. These five things represent what is most important to you and what you need to feel happy. What could you do now that demonstrates you are doing your best to have these values become a strong part of your daily life? Set some values-based goals you can start working on today.
Make time to reflect on what you are grateful for in the moment. First, list three small things that happened today that you are grateful for, such as finding a short line at the post office, brewing a perfect cup of coffee, seeing your pet’s dreamy eyes, or having a smooth ride into work. Once you open your heart with gratitude, look to see what you are grateful for in the situation where things didn’t turn out as you had hoped. For example, even though you lost a contract, you now have time to finish something important to you. Even though you got a speeding ticket on the way to work, you realize the slower drive in leaves you feeling less stressed. Even though your child failed math, notice what other talents and passions he or she has. Focus on the gifts not the losses.
Reward yourself for riding the waves. Make a list of everything that brings you joy that you could put your hands on or do in a fairly short time. Do you love fresh flowers? Do you have a friend you can call who makes you smile? Do you have a favorite book or YouTube video? Make the list and then write each item on a single strip of paper. Put the papers in a jar. When you have a setback, pull a strip from your Jar of Joy and do what it says no matter how bad you feel. Go buy a flower. Call your friend. Watch that video. You’ll bounce back in no time.
Lift your spirits in the places that cause the most stress. Keep cartoons, family or vacation photos, and small toys near your desk or in the car for stressful moments. Have some way to listen to your favorite music even at work. Photos, toys, and music that make you smile are essentials in your first aid kit.
Practice seeing the funny side of life. Each evening for a week, watch a funny movie, read only comics in the paper, seek out funny people, and try to find thehumor in the mundane. This will increase your creativity(link is external). You might change your mind for life.
The shift can take time. You might have to grieve the loss of friends, jobs, health, ordreams. If your sadness is keeping you from normal functioning, seek the guidance of a therapist.
It’s Fall in Washington, DC. Watching the leaves turn color always makes me think about change.
Did you know that when the leaves turn, the green does not actually change into a different color? Rather, the chlorophyl that creates the green color simply falls away, revealing the amazing reds, oranges and yellows that were there all the time. The leaves let go of something, and something else – often quite spectacular – emerges.
There’s a lesson in this for us. If we want to change, we often assume that we have to make ourselves into something new. Yes, change takes work. But the turning leaves remind us that there is an important receptive, “grace-full” aspect to change. Rather than will ourselves into a different color, we first need to allow our dominant hues to recede. Change starts with letting go.
Here’s an example from my own life. “Effort” is one of my dominant personal traits; it’s my “color green.” I tell myself that applying maximum effort to everything I do is the key to my effectiveness. In part, this serves me and others well, because it causes me to strive for high quality in everything I do. But there’s a huge downside. I often expend more energy on something than is necessary or useful. I can get wound up in perfectionism and over-thinking, which often detract from the quality of what I’m doing. So this strong trait of mine, which has worked so well and so often, can also tie me and others up in knots.
So it’s time for a change. I’ve tried willing a new ‘zen me’ into being. And you can imagine how well that’s gone. Any shifts that I have experienced have arisen gradually from relaxing my cherished ways. Letting go has allowed other colors to emerge: colors that are more interesting and effective than I could ever have manufactured.
Relaxing my grip on efforting, I become naturally a bit more open, more collaborative, less tight. I waste less time and drive myself (and others) just a little less nuts. And often, the quality of what I’m doing is as good as or better than what I produce when I work something to death. I haven’t made change happen; I’ve simply eased up a bit on my dominant hues.
It’s a gentle process, but it is not easy.
It takes awareness to notice our “color green” moves.
It takes intention to resist engaging our default.
It takes a bit of courage. If we relax the grip on our ‘color green,’ how do we know what hues are lying in wait? What if we don’t like them? What if they don’t work?
It requires restraint and patience to let go of our dominant moves in small increments, so that our ‘green’ can fade gradually.
If you want guidance on how to make a natural and lasting shift in how you manage or live, watch the leaves and follow their lead.
What about you?
What aspects of yourself do you feel have outlived their usefulness as dominant characteristics or habits? (Not ones that you would want to lose altogether, but that you’d like to augment with other hues.)
What mechanism might you set up to notice when you’re leaning into your “color green” yet again?
Once you notice that you’re “greening” again, what small experiment could you make to simply relax that pattern just a bit?
When you relax your pattern, watch what new hues emerge: within you, in the quality of your actions, and in your interactions with others. Don’t look for radical change, but rather for small hints of something new.
And in case you need more inspiration, here’s a wonderful song by Carrie Newcomer about leaves, letting go and and the emergence of something new. Happy fall!
“The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend”
— Henri Bergson
According to the media, the battle of the sexes continues and women are the underdog. We often hear messages that present women’s situation as lacking compared to men.
After reading a few of these, one has to wonder, do women do anything right?
Women are following a path defined by men – a path they have been paving for a long time. Many women respond by rejecting femininity to be like men.
The feminist movement brought many vital and valuable gifts to women, but instead of liberating the feminine, it locked it away and adopted patriarchal norms, believing that masculine is better than feminine. Instead of bringing the gifts, strengths and powers of femininity into mainstream expression, women changed to succeed in a man’s world. We gained in rights and opportunities and abandoned femininity.
Others respond to the man’s world with fear of losing what they already have, believing that they are not enough to be in his world and it’s impossible to have enough in it. They then enter battle against men to get a fair share of what has been historically denied women. Some become equality warriors, fighting for a 50/50 share in everything from wages, jobs, positions, networking and more.
In the end, all this really does is feed women’s lack of confidence.
…somewhere between the classroom and the cubicle, the rules change, and they don’t realize it. They slam into a work world that doesn’t reward them for perfect spelling and exquisite manners. The requirements for adult success are different, and their confidence takes a beating.
Without confidence, a solid identity and self-esteem (lost when we relinquish our femininity), it becomes difficult to define goals.
… if you determine that you are in some way deficient and cannot reach your goal, you are more likely to make less resolutions and goals. If you fall into this category [low self-efficacy], you are one of those people who tends to give up rather than fight and push toward your efforts.
Some women who do not achieve their goals may find comfort in the media’s inequality messages rather than face their own low confidence or self-esteem issues. If these women perceive these same media messages to be consistently correct over time, those messages will transform into beliefs, even if the true reason for not achieving a goal is something else.
For example, let’s look at Jennifer Lawrence’s story of pay inequality.
“When the Sony hack happened and I found out how much less I was being paid than the lucky people with dicks, I didn’t get mad at Sony. I got mad at myself. I failed as a negotiator because I gave up early. I didn’t want to keep fighting over millions of dollars that, frankly, due to two franchises, I don’t need. (I told you it wasn’t relatable, don’t hate me).”
Through one set of eyes, Jennifer Lawrence experienced sexism – she shouldn’t need to fight for money and she was treated unfairly. But through another set of eyes, her eyes as well, her pay was less because she decided not to continue negotiating because she was happy with the money she was already getting.
If we believe what we read about women’s wages, her problem is society’s fault and a legal problem. But given her perspective, is it?
It makes one wonder if women are seeing battles that don’t really exist because we keep hearing that’s how we should be seeing them.
What if we saw the world in a different way?
A way where we are winning and succeeding? A world where there is possibility and abundance?
Hear more about how women are solving the problems – Knowing that some women have achieved their goals gives others hope and inspiration to do this themselves.
Hear more positive messages – from articles to affirmations. I’m a strong believer in affirmations – for ourselves and complements towards others. We know that they work because of how people respond to positive feedback at work and in school.
“Only positive feedback can motivate people to continue doing what they’re doing well, and do it with more vigor, determination, and creativity.”
We can’t depend on the media to change how they write. Negativity gets a lot of attention and can be great for profits.
Instead, women need to take responsibility to shift their own thinking – stop listening to how we are deficient and hear more about how we are overcoming challenges, solving problems and exceeding everyone’s expectations. We need to stop the negative talk to ourselves and other women and ask – How are we enough? How are we winning? What are we doing right? How can can we improve step by step, everyday?
Guide to Women in Leadership
Organizations with women in their executive suites regularly out-perform others. Yet rising female executives (and their mentors) are frustrated at how hard it is to break through the glass ceiling. In this extensive guide, Executive Coach Dana Theus shares her tried and true strategies to help women excel into higher levels of leadership and achieve their executive potential.
We’re all surrounded by goals. ToDo lists. Management Objectives. Career Goals. Personal Goals.
[Tweet “You name it, we’ve got a goal about it.”]
Why is it we feel sometimes that achieving your goals is so hard?
In my experience, our biggest limitation when it comes to setting goals is that we make it a completely left-brain, intellectual exercise and we fail to engage our creative, intuitive, innovative and excited right brain.
When we do this our goals sit on a sheet of paper, lifeless and unmotivating. If we’re not careful we can begin to feel the stress of becoming separated from our sense of purpose. This is not a good place to be.
The good news is that you can easily create goals—for yourself and others—that are intuitively energizing, meaningful and motivating.
The secret is to focus on understanding what your success looks and feels like—deeply. Explore it and imagine it. Keep that feeling of success close and personal as you move towards it.
At InPower Coaching we have a formula for setting goals like this called InPower Intentions. How to use the formula is the focus on this month’s Drop-In topic in the InPower membership community. Come join us to learn the secrets that make achieving your goals not only more probable but more fun too!!
Take charge of your career development to get the job that supports your work and your life. Check out the tools and resources in the InPower Coaching Career Center.
