We need to stop being good girls in order to become great women

I am sure that most of you are familiar with the so-called ‘good girl syndrome’ - and that most of you have a personal experience of living under the pressure of it. From infancy, women are raised to become good girls - productive, reliable, ambitious. These are not bad qualities in and of themselves, but under the constant pressure of the good girl expectations, great women are being reduced to anxious over-achievers. 

I’ve battled with the good girl syndrome most of my adult life, and it's a battle I’ve far from won yet.

However, one thing I have learned is that I need to stop being a good girl in order to become a great woman. 

So, what does this translate to in reality? First, we need to stop overextending ourselves to meet the expectations that don’t deliver us any closer to our personal goals: like working 50h weeks to impress our boss without getting paid overtime for it, saying yes to all new assignments, giving our all for someone else's benefit (or paycheck), and keeping from rocking the boat by suppressing our true thoughts and feelings for the benefit of everyone else's comfortability.

What we need to start doing is to be OK being mediocre in things that are mediocre to us in return. Is your job not paying you overtime? Don’t work overtime. That is time spent being a good girl, that you could have spent on being a great woman. Leave work after you’ve spent your 8h and go home and do some great woman things: paint a painting, take a walk, read a book or take a language class. 

We need to stop wasting our time being high-achievers of other’s wishes.
We need to learn how to be mediocre for others so that we can begin being remarkable for ourselves.