Grace Essen

By Grace Essen

In one of our women empowerment workshops, a guest speaker in response to a question from one of the participants asked, “Do we have a lawyer here?” Silence.  ”Any lawyer here?”  She asked again. And then one woman raised her hand, but only half way. The speaker noted how that was so typical of us women, and that if it was a man he would have raised both hands confidently. After the event I got to know we had a second lawyer at the workshop!
It is so ‘like us’ to shy away and hope the spotlight doesn’t get on us, we’re reluctant to take leadership positions, we’re reluctant to put ourselves out there, we have all manner of ‘coverings’ we conveniently hide under as reasons why we just can’t be, do or have whatever is out there is for us to grab. The #1 excuse being ‘motherhood’!
Women want respect, success, happiness and fulfillment yet we find it so hard to get ourselves to take the required action to do sometimes even the most basic things we need to do on a day to day basis. Reason? We don’t take ourselves seriously. Most of our goals remain wishful thinking or recurring items on our to-do lists. When this becomes a trend it throws up feelings, attitudes, reactions and behaviors we don’t want.

Let’s take a look at a few of them:

– We form the habit of spending a lot of time dreaming but actually not doing. We come up with ideas or make a new business connection but we stop ourselves before we even take a step.

– When we decide to try something and manage to take action we give up too quickly because we decided along the way it wasn’t good enough, no one would like it, and it was a stupid idea anyway.

– Other times we jump right in and not give ourselves time to learn the necessary skills, or do it the right way. And when it doesn’t turn out the way we wanted we decide it was a total waste of time from the onset.

– We feel we have ended up with a life we aren’t so happy with and not all that proud of. We really want to do those things that we’re passionate about and do those things that will make us feel successful and fulfilled but we feel like we lost the opportunity, because someone said: opportunity comes but once!

– Consciously or unconsciously we fill up our time with a bunch of activities and stuffs we think we have to do, but not really things we want to do. We work hard at being a good mum, wife and everything else, we spend so much time on household chores, we attend all religious activities even when we don’t have to, and we do a damn good job at those, yet we feel trapped inside because we know we’re only putting up a show that we are really very busy.

– Then we bump into someone else who had the same idea we had, but decided to something about it. “But it was my idea!” We’d say. Yes, it was – but the other person took it seriously and did something with it.

– We become envious and resent people who do things we would have loved to do but never did. We look at such people and their ideas and we think they’re arrogant or annoying. We lament the fact that we could never ever accomplish what they have.

– We get depressed, disappointed and angry at ourselves and wonder why we haven’t done anything meaningful with our lives.

When we live like this we are so easily tripped off, we overreact to the slightest confrontation or ‘unacceptable’ behaviors from our spouses, children, domestic staff or other people around because we are not happy with ourselves. It’s never late to be what you could ever be. The best time was probably five years ago, but the next best time is NOW!

Every little thought you’ve ever had is filled with possibilities. You have no idea what that simple thought could lead you to, though you might not yet know where to start from. But when you take yourself seriously, you give yourself enough credit to know that you can figure it out. When you know in your heart that you and your ideas are important, you will give every idea you have a fighting chance.

That might mean finishing that one thing you started in the past. It might mean picking up an old idea and giving it some life, it might mean making a call to ask for help, it might mean using your social media account to share your thoughts, your products or services with the world. The worst part happens when years later you look back on an idea you had and you realize there was really something there and it wasn’t half as bad as you thought and had you stuck with it you might have really accomplished something huge.

So, what choice are you willing to make today?

Check out Grace’s blog @Mum2MumAfrica.com. You may reach Grace on 08061367203, or via email: [email protected]. Follow her on twitter @GraceEssen, friend her on Facebook.