Is good girl conditioning getting in your way?

In writing Good Girl Deprogramming, I realised that almost all of my career had been preparing me to write this book. Let me explain!

In all my jobs before I became self-employed, I felt out of place, as though I was always striving for something perpetually out of reach and slightly unknown. I did know that if I could just do a “good” job, eventually someone would notice and reward me accordingly.

What does doing a “good” job mean? Here are a few things, maybe you could add more from your experiences.

• Keep your emails friendly, not too direct
• Be confident, but not too confident
• Stay within the process, don’t question things unnecessarily
• Be the first to arrive and the last to leave
• Be likeable, but not too likeable
• Stay in the background, don’t seek the limelight
• Don’t make a fuss, don’t be emotional
• Take on more work and responsibilities, trust that you’ll get the recognition you deserve
• Don’t bring your personal life into work, and especially don’t bring up your kids!

Like many women at work and in life, I was walking a tightrope of likeability and credibility, and constantly falling off.

Now, I can see all of these behaviours were Good Girl Conditioning.

Everything I’d absorbed as a child, and everything society had taught me about being “good” was actively getting in the way of my own success, happiness and authenticity.

Keeping me small, quiet and full of self-doubt. Knowing what was happening in my career on the outside wasn’t aligning with how I felt on the inside, and having no idea that I could do anything about it.

Good Girl Conditioning is particularly pernicious in the workplace, keeping women in their place impacts financial freedom, independence, self-esteem to name but a few. And of course, maintains the status quo in the boardroom.

So, what to do? We must deprogram. And here we are, full circle - how my career prepared me to write Good Girl Deprogramming.

If this is touching a nerve or you’re resonating with anything here, from your past or your present, take a moment to reflect using the questions in my latest article . There are four areas to think about, and they’re a gentle starting point to deprogramming.

• Decision-making
• Communication
• Conflict
• Perfectionism

Let me know how you get on with these questions or what they bring up for you by hitting reply.

A couple of bits of news from me

It’s eight weeks, yes eight(!), until Good Girl Deprogramming is published and it really is all systems go.

Last week the manuscript went off for design and typesetting, the perfect time to have a crisis of confidence. Was I waking up in the middle of the night with a list of things I should change before it’s finalised? Sure. Did my editor have to talk me down from a complete rewrite? Perhaps. It’s a journey!

My first book Good Girl Deprogramming comes out in November, and I’m lucky to have had a good number of pre-orders which makes everyone happier! You can pre-order your copy on my website .

I also had a most marvellous chat with Andrea Newton on her podcast recently, talking about the book ‘proper’ for the first time. I’m on the latest episode of Really Useful Conversations , with the lowdown on what it means to be a Good Girl and how to break free.