Girl on girl crime is rampant.  I am consistently asked during my trainings and coaching sessions why women are often the harshest critics of other women.  The multi-layered problem is driven by the idea of scarcity: that there are only a few spots at the top for women, and in order to obtain a coveted place on the podium, you must compete with other women.  The commodifying language often used in male dominated work spaces further contribute to this myth: Which one are you?  The one from Michigan or Northwestern?  As though the leadership team is comparing tomatoes at a farmer’s market when talking about the few women on the team.

There’s one thing commonly at the core of our hesitations. It’s why we don’t take that step forward, try that new yoga class, launch a new product or service or look for a new job.

That one thing? Fear.

Fear is a natural response to the world around us. After all, our brains use fear to keep us safe. Think about it: when you’re about to get on a roller coaster or give a presentation to a new audience, you start to feel the physical symptoms of fear, like fast heartbeat, sweaty palms and butterflies in your stomach.

That’s normal. But, we run into trouble when we’re held back by our perceived fears. The fears that we worry about and agonize over that aren’t really things we need to be afraid of.

Things like public speaking, interviewing for a new job, asking someone on a date. Those are perceived fears. We fear the end result – something that hasn’t even happened!

The bad news is that those fears can cripple us, cause anxiety, depression and keep us in our comfort zones.

The good news: fear is only as powerful as we make it.

There's actually something to those magazine collages you made in summer camp as a kid.

Are you a Goal Getter? If you're anything like me, you love setting and achieving goals.

I'm super competitive with myself, so I'm always thinking about what I can do next; how can I improve? How can I reach even further?

But for some of us, goal-setting doesn't come as naturally.

Luckily, there's a simple tool you can use to set and achieve goal with ease. And I bet you already have all the supplies around your house.

“You’re not good enough.”

“No one will pay you for this.”

“Who are you to give people advice on being confident?”

These are just a few of the thoughts that run through my head on a daily basis.

As soon as I became a full-time entrepreneur, I started to question every move, every decision, every program or service I designed.

As a healthcare executive, I rarely questioned myself. I believed in my ability to be successful in my job, and I often heard great feedback on my programs and training from colleagues and supervisors.

But even though I still hear great feedback from my clients and friends, I don’t believe them.

Ever have one of those days where you don’t know where to start?

You look at your to-do list, and there’s so many different and competing priorities that you start to feel anxious about how you’ll get it all done.

And in the throes of anxiety, you give up. You relinquish your stress to your couch and start binge-watching Netflix instead of hustling for your goals.

Trust me. I know this story all too well.

Oh boy, this is a big one.

We’ve all had moments in our lives when fear stopped us from doing something. Whether that was setting up an online dating profile, buying a new car or starting a new job. Think about a time in your life when fear stopped you in your tracks. What thoughts ran through your head? What emotions did you experience?

I’ve pushed through a lot of fearful thoughts in my life: I was afraid to go to college 10 hours away from my family, I was afraid to leave my six-figure job for an uncertain future, and I was afraid to start coaching. My dad passed away in 2011, and the one thing he taught me that I continue to teach others is to always do the thing that scares you.

Because here’s the thing about fear: it’s only as powerful as you make it.

My high school career aptitude test said I should be a fish & game warden. After frantically googling what that meant, it was clear that my responses on the “Do you like the outdoors?” section may have skewed the results.

Obviously, a test can’t tell you what your life’s work should be, but I so desperately wanted clear direction that I briefly considered this career path. Alas, a jumpy person alone in the woods does not mix well with firearms. So fish & game warden was out. On to the next idea.

Trial and error would become the theme of the next few years of my life. I changed my major multiple times in college before graduating with degrees in Economics and Marketing. I took a job in sales, got promoted twice, and quit within three years. I tried to “find myself” by traveling around Europe for a few months. You get the idea. I was literally and figuratively all over the map.

Ever have that feeling that you just don’t fit in?

Maybe it’s at work or with a new group of friends. You try really hard to impress them, you give up part of who you are to be like who they are, but at the end of the day, something doesn’t feel right.

That’s how I felt in my last day job. I knew the organization’s values were different from my own, but I didn’t want that to be an issue because I cared deeply about the work I was doing.

But it was always an issue because I wasn’t being true to myself. My confidence plummeted, I felt like I could never live up to who my boss wanted me to be, and I lost a sense of who I was.

That sense? That’s self-awareness. That feeling that what you’re doing isn’t matching up with who you are on the inside. That inner wisdom that you stand for something bigger, or you’re meant for something more.

Self-awareness is the most important quality any woman can have. When we focus our attention on ourselves, we evaluate and compare our current behavior to our internal standards and values.

Knowing and understanding ourselves are powerful guides toward living our best life. Improving our self-awareness builds confidence to help direct us on our life’s path.

The TV show "Mad Men" shows, in part, the journey of Joan Holloway from stereotypical secretary who dreams of nothing more than being the pampered housewife of a wealthy doctor into a bad-ass single mother and entrepreneur. Through the course of the show, she manages to climb the ranks until she becomes a partner in her firm and even brings in her own clients. At the end of it, her company is taken over by a larger company which refuses to take her seriously and essentially pushes her out simply for being a woman in a high power position.

“Ugh, how is it I am so successful in so many areas of my life, but taking care of myself?”

Did I see a hand raise?

Are you one of those overly worked career people, who get everything done above and beyond the call of duty? Your boss praises you. Your friends love and adore you. Your family thinks the world of you. Everyone wants to be around you. The outside looks great, but you’re a freakin’ mess on the inside! If they only knew… you almost laugh, or maybe you do, out loud at the comments, “How do you do it all?” You do and you do it well, but at what cost?

Ever have one of those days where you feel like you’re floating through time: struggling to start a project, lacking the motivation to get out of bed, facing a blank screen without a clue what to write.

That’s where I am this week. Sometimes, when I feel stuck like this, I don’t even know what day it is!

It can be difficult to pull ourselves out of the cycle of overwhelm, confusion and disinterest.

The good news is that there is one simple thing we can do to give our brains a break and let inspiration flow naturally: practice self-care.

It may seem counterintuitive to allow yourself the time to step away from your work when you have competing deadlines and demanding clients. But it’s time to lose the guilt.

Making time for self-care will improve your productivity because it allows you to focus on the most important asset in your business – you!

You made it! You’re traveling the world and living your dream life. Remember back in 2016 when you first dreamed of this moment? Remember sitting in your blue paisley chair visualizing how it would feel to make an impact on millions of lives?

You inspire women across the world to believe in themselves and have the confidence to pursue their goals. You teach women in Cambodia, Myanmar, Thailand the skills they need to start their own business. Many underserved communities benefit from your work.

As you know, this didn’t happen overnight. The road to success was not an easy one; there were potholes, pitfalls, ditches, sudden turns.

“Courage is what a woman has left when she’s lost everything else.”

On Tuesday, May 1, 2018, Women for Women International celebrated the courage of women everywhere at their 10th annual Match Her Courage Luncheon in New York City.

Internationally-acclaimed author and spiritual teacher, Marianne Williamson, joined the event as an ambassador for Women for Women International. When asked what this event means to her, she said, “If we want peace, we can have it. It’s not a mystery; it’s a lack of political will. There is no force more important than the awakening of American women to what’s happening in the world.”

Mother’s Day is the perfect time to celebrate the wonderful women in our lives who love and care for us unconditionally. Women who bring us hope, joy and meaning. Women who comfort us when we’re sad and know just the thing to make us laugh. Women who walked before us to give us a better life.

This Mother’s Day, consider giving another woman a better life. As we celebrate and honor the women who made an impact on us, we can partner with Women for Women International to make an impact on the world.

Photo credit: Monilekan/Women for Women International

I’ve been reading since I was 3 years old. That’s not an exaggeration.

My mom and dad used to read to me every night. Sometimes my dad would make up something in the story, and I would say, “that’s not how it goes, Daddy!”

Books have always been a huge part of my life.

I have books piled in my nightstand, on bookshelves, on coffee tables. I can never have too many books.

There’s nothing quite like the feel and smell of a new book, bursting with possibility, just waiting to be opened.

I always share what I learn in books with my family and friends, and I love giving books as gifts, especially when I know a book can make a difference in someone’s life.

My life is better because of the wisdom of countless books, and in honor of World Book Day, I want to share some of those books with you.

I’ll be the first to admit it – I don’t always believe in myself.

My inner critic tells me I’m too young to be an expert. That I don’t know enough about business or marketing. That no one will want my services. That I’m not pretty unless I’m wearing makeup.

Sound familiar?

That nasty voice in your head that tells you you’re not good enough to do the thing you want to do is stealing your confidence.

You likely have an idea of how more confidence would impact your life – or you wouldn’t be here.

In case you need a reminder, confidence improves your chances in the dating game and in relationships. It increases our perceived physical attractiveness by others and improves our performance at work. It even improves our mental and physical health.

But we can’t live healthy, confident lives when our inner critic is screaming that we’re not enough.

So much of what we say about ourselves is negative. Affirmations give us the opportunity to choose words that help create or eliminate something in our lives, such as creating success or confidence or healthy relationships, and eliminating low self-esteem, destructive behaviors and even pain.

Affirmations help us retrain our thinking and speaking into positive patterns so we can truly transform our lives. We can get more of what we want and less of what we don’t.

But be careful because everything we say is an affirmation. Every thought, every sentence is just confirming what we want in life.

So, if you say “I’m so happy and grateful now that I lost 20 pounds,” one minute, then say “this won’t work” the next minute, which one do you think will win out? The second one!

Negative thought patterns are so deeply ingrained in all of us, and it’s really hard to break them. Practicing positive affirmations is one way to break that cycle.

Equal Pay Day symbolizes how far into the year women must work to earn what men earned in the previous year. This year, that date fell on April 10th, meaning women must work more than 3 extra months to earn an equal salary to our male counterparts.

The gender pay gap – which states that women, on average, make 77 cents for every dollar that men earn – is often mocked as a myth, a mistake or a lie. And not just by men; my female boss didn’t believe me when I shared this statistic with her.

In a recent blog post, I shared an even more deflating statistic: at this rate, gender parity is over 200 years away!

A few weeks ago, my mom was in a car accident which left her car totaled, her back fractured and fractured fingers on both hands. My sisters and I were very upset about the situation, because we all realized that if she had a different car, things could have been much worse.

We were all so angry when we heard about the accident. There was a terrible snowstorm that day, and another driver was driving too fast and lost control of his truck. He left the scene without a scratch on him, and my mom was rushed to the hospital in a neck brace.

We were angry at the other driver because he almost took away our only living parent. We were angry that she was the one who was hurt and would be out of work for 4 weeks. We were angry that he was driving so fast during a snowstorm, that he was even on the road at all.

But all that anger left us feeling helpless, depressed, frustrated. We were powerless to change the circumstances. Meanwhile, the man driving the truck doesn’t even know we exist.

We’ve all had those days where we feel like we’re floating through time: struggling to start a project, lacking the motivation to get out of bed, facing a blank screen without a clue what to write.

That’s where I am this week. Sometimes, when I feel stuck like this, I don’t even know what day it is!

It can be difficult to pull ourselves out of the cycle of overwhelm, confusion and disinterest.

The good news is that there are simple things we can do to give our brains a break and let inspiration flow naturally.