Get Your Power On! Read online

  Financially informed

  Able to live within means

  Realistic or productive debt

  Income commensurate with value (paid what you’re worth)

  Able to have conversations around finances

  On the opposing end of the continuum, we would write:

  Uninformed, inattentive to finances, tendency to defer financial matters to others

  Living beyond means

  Unproductive or large amounts of debt

  Not paid according to worth

  Inability or unwillingness to have conversations around finances (with partner, children, or boss)

  Financial empowerment is an area often overlooked by women, especially within the home. There is a strong tendency for women to defer to their partners in the financial arena, often because they feel less capable.

  Or women may track their financials at work, but take a more hands-off approach at home. This is a critical area of personal power, and I encourage all women to know their financial situations and be involved! Find a financial planner you’re comfortable with, or read books, so you can be educated and informed.

  Sarah’s personal power on the financial dimension is relatively low. Her self-doubt about her worth translates into charging less than other photographers of her caliber. She also compensates financially for her missed deadlines and difficulties scheduling.

  Sarah doesn’t talk openly about money with either her clients or her partner. We might expect that if Sarah demonstrated more personal power in some of these other areas, she might feel better about charging what she is worth and having those necessary conversations.

  7. Capacity for Taking Risks

  Capacity for risk-taking, the seventh dimension of personal power, includes a willingness to be vulnerable, to move forward with your goals and desires, to be authentically “out there” and not hide. Sometimes we don’t know our inner desires, but, when we do, the question becomes whether we’re willing to pursue them.

  On the continuum of capacity for taking risks, we would write on one side:

  Willingness to be vulnerable

  Willingness to be authentic

  Willingness to risk failure (and trust our resilience)

  On the other side, we would write:

  Tendency to hide

  Tendency to play it safe, avoid risking rejection or failure.

  Sarah’s capacity for taking risks seems fairly low. She is attentive to her skill development as a photographer, but doesn’t really go for it. She treats her work more like a hobby and doesn’t reap the rewards that she’d like.

  —Journal Junction: The 7 Dimensions and You—

  In response to these the seven aspects of personal power, let’s pause, reflect, and write.

  As with every strategy, exercise, and Journal Junction given in this book, this writing exercise is available and already formatted for you, in the free companion workbook. The workbook lays out these seven continuums, along with their detailed characteristics, so you can easily begin the task of rating yourself in each of the seven aspects of power. Click here to download the workbook.

  The other option is to create these continuums yourself. To do this, you’ll take out a journal, draw seven lines, and put a 1 at the left side of each line and a ten at the right side. Then you will label each line with one of the seven dimensions of personal power.

  Now go ahead and rate yourself on each of these dimensions. Use the detailed characteristics given for each dimension to help you better evaluate yourself. You might be tempted to be way too hard on yourself, so watch that.

  For some, you might have really different answers depending on whether you’re talking about your work or personal life. Feel free to rate these separately, one for home and another for work, and then give yourself an overall rating in that category.

  Your journaling here might take 10–30 minutes. If you find it hard to do, you can go one of two ways. You can do the quick overview approach and just go with your inclination without thinking too hard or too much about it.

  Alternatively, you can really delve into the exercise, using it to explore these aspects of your life with some depth. You may decide to write about certain aspects that may have pleasantly surprised or troubled you. In addition, you may want to talk your discoveries over with a trusted friend or someone who is also interested in developing more personal power.

  The important take-away of this exercise is to develop awareness of these various capacities within you. In the process of building greater personal power, you want some kind of a benchmark of where you are right now. And at the end of this journey, you’ll see how your capabilities can and will increase across these different dimensions.

  Up Next . . .

  In the next section, we’re going to talk about five widely held beliefs among women that limit personal power and may even stop the desire for developing more personal power. We’ll talk about two more beliefs that can have quite a destructive impact, especially when they exist below the level of conscious awareness. So do the rating exercise, then read on!

  Chapter 3

  Five Limiting Beliefs, Plus Two Destructive Beliefs

  The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.

  —Alice Walker

  So why don’t all women possess personal power? Why are some more empowered than others? Why are some women more advanced in all seven dimensions of power while some struggle with all but one?

  Why are some women able to say what needs to be said in the moment while others go home and ponder, wishing they had said what finally comes to them?

  What does it take to be able to think on your feet? To trust your judgment in the face of opposition and challenge? To go with your intuition even when it breaks the norm? What allows us to be able to speak up and ask for what we want or what we think is fair?

  In my readings and in my work with women over the years, I’ve identified five beliefs that seriously limit the development of personal power. I’m confident you’ll recognize them as soon as I name them.

  Until we challenge these beliefs and resolve them, we will limit how powerful we can be in the world, and we will continue to limit the amount of impact we have.

  Five Beliefs that Limit Personal Power

  Selfishness is bad and hurts those you love.

  Ambition makes you bitchy.

  Guilt should be avoided at all cost.

  Strength means not showing weakness.

  Self-compassion is self-indulgent.

  So who doesn’t want to have personal power? Surprisingly, many of us shy away from the prospect of being powerful. When I talk with my clients about this, many of them don’t think of themselves as powerful and aren’t even comfortable with the term. Many of us have attitudes about selfishness, ambition, strength, self-compassion, and self-love that not only interfere with our acting in powerful ways, but also curb our desire to become powerful.

  Most of us, if we drilled down even deeper, would find that we have core assumptions about ourselves that sound something like these: “I’m not enough” or “I’m not worthy”—therefore I must give, therefore I must defer, therefore I must bend over backwards to make things happen for my family, for my friends, for my co-workers or boss.

  The Narrow Bandwidth of Acceptability

  When I was exploring the whole phenomenon of shame, I found that for myself and many women I talked with, shame lurks on either side of an attitude or aspiration. What I mean by this is we allow ourselves a moderate amount of a quality but monitor ourselves so as not to have too much or go overboard. One example of this is ambition.

  No one dreams of being completely lacking in ambition. Without it we might sit around on the couch all day and not have goals we strive to reach. We would likely feel shame if we had no ambition at all. But, if we exhibit a high degree of ambition, we might also feel shame. When someone tells you that you’re “very ambitious,” it can be hard to know whether thi
s is a compliment or an insult.

  This is true for a number of other qualities as well. Think about the ability to make money. If you bring in no money (even if this is your pre-planned arrangement in your relationship), it can take a toll on self-esteem. Many women struggle with this and may begin to defer to their partner (even subconsciously) because they feel less than equal in their relationship.

  But on the flip side, women aren’t necessarily comfortable making a lot of money either. Even if you enjoy good things that flow from having an abundant income, you might also feel slightly embarrassed or ashamed about making so much.

  When women are looking ahead and setting their income goals, they tend to put a ceiling on their goals. This is often the result of hidden shame. Hidden because women have no idea it’s there, but it’s influencing their decisions nonetheless. It takes attentiveness to the financial arena to develop or remain at a high level of functioning on this dimension of personal power.

  It’s important to explore what your attitudes are about being healthy, physically fit, physically attractive, ambitious, selfish, and self-compassionate. Look at these in some detail, exploring what your attitudes are about having an abundance of these qualities versus little to none. And see if you, too, restrict what you allow yourself.

  Here are some examples of how we might keep ourselves within a narrow range. With regard to fitness, “I can be focused on my fitness to some extent, but if I really made it a priority, I would seem obsessed or self-centered.”

  In terms of ambition, “It’s okay for me to have goals, but if I start really focusing on achievement, I might get ‘too big for my britches.’” (Is anyone else familiar with that term and with that concern?)

  Regarding financial success, “I want to be paid fairly for my work, but I’m not comfortable being paid more than I’m worth.” Women in particular have concerns about their value and often underestimate their worth.

  With regard to clarity, “It’s okay to say what I want as long as I don’t sound mean.” So many women I know curb their clarity and assertiveness out of a fear of being or sounding mean. What is the real fear behind this? In what ways are our lives worse off if someone experiences us as mean? Perhaps this is, at its deepest level, a fear of being rejected and alone.

  Let’s consider each belief in turn and how it limits our desire and development of personal power. Grab your journal, so you can explore your own attitudes and beliefs and see where they might limit you.

  Belief #1: Selfishness Is Bad and Hurts Those We Love.

  Consider Jill who longs to start a business but feels she can’t use family funds to get the training she needs. If we talked with Jill, we might find out she believes anything smacking of selfishness is bad. She might tell us that her mother often instructed her not to be selfish, to look out for her sister’s feelings, and to accommodate her goals accordingly.

  At the time of writing this, I was prepared to put in a good word for selfishness. To question how it got such a bad rap! But then I looked it up in the dictionary and saw that the definition is completely negative! “Self-interest” was portrayed equally poorly. Yet, of course, we have to attend to our own self-interest. If we do not, who will?

  We need to distinguish between productive selfishness—acting with prudent self-interest versus blatant, uncaring selfishness. Productive selfishness is when you act in your own best interest as a way of taking care of yourself.

  Productive selfishness can actually make you more generous! It’s a common misunderstanding, especially among women, that selfishness in any degree makes us self-centered and hurts those we love.

  In actuality, however, when we make decisions that serve our best interest, we can free up our time and energy for those we love. We come to our loved ones in a less depleted state. We show up because we want to be there and while we still have something left in our tank.

  Acting through productive selfishness actually helps us gain personal power in practically all of the seven dimensions, and, in particular, increases our personal energy, capacity for taking risks, and ability to set clear boundaries. And that makes all the difference. Being selfish can actually help those we love.

  —Journal Junction: On Selfishness—

  In the complimentary workbook or your journal, take 5–10 minutes to write about the role of “selfishness” in your life. What is your attitude about productive selfishness? What opportunities that promoted your positive self-interest have you accepted or denied? What was the aftermath of accepting/rejecting the opportunities? Take some time to figure out your stance around this common belief.

  Belief #2: Ambition Makes Us Bitchy.

  While we’re examining attitudes, we’ve got to look at ambition. Just notice what you feel inside when you read the word. Any little jolt in your gut? Anything get fired up?

  When you think about leading with your ambition, what’s your reaction and what reaction do you anticipate from others? Maybe you anticipate judgment about having a big ego, maybe a little suspicion.

  In my own life, a little ambition, if it wasn’t too noticeable, was acceptable, but having a lot of it raised suspicion among my family and friends, sometimes creating envy, sometimes distance, and sometimes outright criticism.

  Yet we know in our heart of hearts that ambition is good. Ambition creates drive and is fueled by desire. Our ambition can lead us to tackle fears, to stretch into territory we might never otherwise venture.

  This certainly increases our personal power in our capacity for risk-taking as well as increasing our personal power in cognitive and emotional functioning. If you have negative attitudes about ambition, it’s time to explore them deeply, so you can let them go. It’s time to embrace your ambition without apology or reserve.

  —Journal Junction: On Ambition—

  In your workbook or journal, take 5–10 minutes to write about “ambition” in your life. Write about a time when you or a woman you know acted on your/her ambition. What was the response? What are you ambitious to do? What ambitions have you buried and what ambitions have you pursued? Explore the relationship between your ambition and how it relates to your levels of power in each of the seven dimensions.

  Belief #3: Guilt Should Be Avoided at All Costs.

  Consider Rachael, who continues to say yes to volunteering at her kids’ school, even though she wants to do less and be with her kids more. Rachael might tell us that if she said no, even if the reason for saying no was to spend more time with her family, she would feel guilty, which for her is just as bad as feeling overworked.

  Countless women that I have worked with over the years have told me that they cannot make different decisions regarding their life, often with regard to their families, because they would feel too guilty. The guilt would ruin whatever experience they were trying to create for themselves, so it would not be worth it.

  Here it’s important to distinguish between the short view and the long haul. When asked, probably none of us would say we should allow guilt to dictate our behavior. We might even scoff at the idea of guilt running the show. (Or we might nod our heads in commiseration!)

  In a later chapter, we’re going to talk about the repetition compulsion and how it compels us to continue with the status quo—even while presenting us with repeated opportunities to make things different.

  Guilt is one of the feelings that keeps us locked in the status quo. Guilt keeps our power in the dimensions of boundaries, personal energy, capacity for taking risks, and emotional functioning quite low.

  The remedy for this? We must learn to tolerate the discomfort of guilt in favor of acting in accordance with our inner wisdom and desire. Is this an easy thing to do, especially in the beginning? Not at all! But, if you can learn to tolerate guilt in the short run, you create freedom and choice for yourself down the road.

  So for Rachael, even if she feels guilty about choosing to do less at her kids’ school and it interferes with her enjoyment of her time at home, it breaks the cycle of
making decisions based on guilt. The next time she chooses something by carefully checking her inner voice, she will have a little easier time with the guilty feelings that follow. And the next time, maybe a little less. This is how change happens. And this is how we break the bonds of guilt and increase our personal power in a multitude of dimensions!

  We will talk more about this in Chapter 5 where I’ll introduce a useful tool for determining what really is motivating our behavior. But for now, think about incrementally shifting out of letting guilt decide!

  —Journal Junction: On Guilt—

  Explore the place of “guilt” in your life. In your workbook or journal, take 5–10 minutes to write about a time when guilt motivated you to do (or not do) something. Explore how guilt plays a role in both big and small ways in your life, how it affects you in terms of your boundaries, personal energy, capacity for taking risks, and emotional functioning. Where and when can you say no to guilt and yes to yourself more often? What would the consequences be? Write about it.

  Belief #4: Strength Means Not Showing Weakness (and Not Being Vulnerable).

  Sitting with Caroline, I heard a familiar story. She was talking about her exhaustion at work and at professional conferences. She was fighting with herself and her own anxiety, willing it not to show when she spoke in front of others. In exploring this, she expressed her fear that if her weakness showed, she would not be selected as a leader in her field and would ultimately be rejected.

  How many of us don’t worry about this? How many of us worry if there are any chinks in our armor, we will get passed over, denied, rejected, or fired? It is such a common story that I hear. Many of us really believe that strength is a complete absence of weakness and that any show of vulnerability is unacceptable.