You don’t have to believe everything you think.

Our minds are powerful, constantly generating thoughts and beliefs that shape our perception of ourselves and the world around us. 

But not every thought that arises deserves our unquestioning belief. Especially all of those negative thoughts that are constantly racing through your head.

Because your brain isn’t generating them out of nowhere. 

For example, you logically know perfection doesn’t exist, but you still constantly think you should somehow be better than you are, be doing something better than you are, and be doing more than you are. Probably in a myriad of ways. 

And of course you think that. 

You didn’t stand a chance.

People who are socialized as women are taught to believe that there is something fundamentally wrong with them.

We deal with rigid gender roles and gendered expectations that reinforce traditional notions of femininity that were never meant to serve us. 

We are taught to suppress or downplay our emotions because our emotional expression, no matter how rational or warranted, is often stigmatized or dismissed as irrational or overly sensitive. 

We’re bombarded with unrealistic beauty standards that perpetuate the idea that our natural appearance is not good enough. 

We have to reckon with the Gender Pay Gap. The Mommy Track/Maternal Wall. The Authority Gap. The Glass Ceiling. The Glass Wall. The Affinity Bias. The Tightrope Bias. The Tug-of-War Bias. The fact that the percentage of women coming out of law schools and into law firms is far higher than the number of women equity partners.

We regularly receive messaging that we are never enough, and yet still too much. 

And the more marginalized identities you live in, the more you have to deal with in the way of biases, obstacles, and unhelpful messaging about how you aren’t good enough. 

Yes, it can be exhausting. But part of that exhaustion is buying into the messaging.

So question everything in your head that says there is something wrong with you. That you are incapable. Or inferior. 

Where did that thought or story come from? Do you want to buy in?  

Because you don’t actually have to.