Grabbing The Glory And Own Your Success
Every month when it’s time to pen my thoughts for SHEROES, I rely on the SHEROES in my life for inspiration and ideas. This month was no different. Just as I sparked the conversation on a WhatsApp group on what is the first thing that comes to their mind when I speak of ‘Grabbing Glory’ – 2 out of the 3 members spoke of how men and women behave differently when it comes to celebrating themselves. The conversation left me wondering about some of my acts and decisions that perhaps also contribute to this phenomenon.
Research has pointed out time & again, that in their professions, men are more comfortable accepting their success as an outcome of their own efforts. They also tend to glorify their achievements often and sell themselves in a manner that makes them appear as superheroes. Whereas women, even after putting in the effort and hard work, live in self-doubt when success comes their way. They demonstrate a certain confidence gap in taking on leadership roles (Read full story here: The Confidence Gap)
Why do we hold ourselves back when something is rightfully ours? Why do we shy away from taking credit for our efforts and attributing all the success to our own perseverance and hard work? Interestingly, there is scientific evidence that women feel embarrassed to be singled out in the crowd and have a general discomfort with recognition (Read full feature here: Lean In is Filled With Flawed Advice)
Personally, I am not a super-confident woman myself. I try to find confidence through my spouse/friends’ encouraging words. I try to validate my feelings with many before expressing or writing them down. I talk less about my work and believe that my work will talk for itself. I am a regular woman as under-confident as any other, about running a house and a job together. Then, what is it that holds me together? And the answer to that my dear friends, is INTENT. An intent to not harm anyone, an intent to give in my best to both work and home and an intent to excel. My confidence stems from my intent because my intent keeps me guilt-free. That bit on guilt is what we kill ourselves with. But the moment we stop taking that guilt and appreciate what all we are able to manage with our time, we will begin to appreciate ourselves a lot more, be confident in our lives and also tend to be less judgmental of those around us. Everyone is living a life largely similar but minutely very different from us – what gives you confidence is that we are all in it togetherJ.
So what are the three things that you can do to grab the glory that is deservingly yours?
1) Do not hesitate to do new things: This is important because when our strength doesn’t lie in self-promotion, doing a variety of work that includes stuff that you haven’t done before, speaks for itself
2) Take responsibility for your success: If you know you have done good work, don’t be shy of accepting the accolades that come your way
3) Take the blame not the guilt: Lastly, as a work ethic and also for gender equality, we should be mature enough to accept when things go wrong because of us. If something goes wrong, take the blame if you committed a genuine mistake/error and, not the guilt that it happened just because you are a woman. Everyone makes mistakes all their lives, only women tend to live with the guilt. So let’s get rid of that habit J
Until next time, let’s keep owning our success!
