You can never get yesterday back. Do you ever find yourself wishing you had done something differently and getting stuck in that hamster-wheel of regretful thoughts? Or even worse, how often have you had a friend share a huge win that they had with you and externally, you told them how proud you were of them and how amazing it was for them to have had this success only to leave the conversation feeling LACK?
We all get one life, just one. We can’t go back in time and take something we said back. We can’t go back and change how we did something yesterday, BUT we can use what we learned from it to step into TODAY with a better intention and by growing and learning from our past actions and feelings.
Friend! We have ONE LIFE. Don’t you want to live it in joy, with people you love, doing the things you love, and aspiring to be the best you that you can be? How amazing to know that as you set your head down on your pillow at the end of the day, you did your best, learned small lessons, and made other people feel better about themselves as you lived true to who YOU are and desire to be? You are never too old to commit to changing your life and your thoughts for the better.
This past weekend, I attended an all-day summit called Magnetic Mentalities with the Ladies Lifestyle Network. It was everything I had hoped for and more. I felt poured into by the speakers and panelists and met some amazing women who are just looking to meet other like-minded women with like-interests as well. THAT is powerful. When you are with others who match your energy, you connect in such an impactful way. You develop resonance. It was an extremely high-vibe resonance on Saturday.
As I went into Sunday, I spent a few hours with a couple of my Clients for a Spring Style Preview . It was such a great energy to be around. That evening, the Grammy’s were on. I was really looking forward to watching for the first time in quite awhile and it did not disappoint! Now, I am a big Taylor Swift fan. I think she is a brilliant businesswoman, an excellent marketer, an amazing singer and songwriter, and a “girl’s girl” who just loves on her girlfriends in the most amazing way. As I watched the awards show, every time an artist was on stage singing, Taylor was standing up, singing their song in the audience and truly enjoying the experience and showing her support. Now, I don’t know if she knows any of these other artists personally or not, but it was striking to me the support she was showing to them as they were performing and she was doing it with such enjoyment!
My experiences from the weekend are what inspired this blog today. As women, it is so important to stand beside one another (sometimes behind, letting someone else shine in their moment), celebrate each other’s accomplishments, and use all of that positive energy to fuel us and our personal growth too.
Rising tides lift all boats.
This quote attributed to John F. Kennedy is so powerful. Stop and read it again. It is really easy to get into comparison-itis in life and wonder why great things are happening for others and not for us without realizing that when you celebrate other people’s wins, you are drawing that very energy to yourself and when you allow time for your plans to develop, you will get what you desire too.
When the tide comes in from the ocean to a river or inlet where there is a dock, the tide doesn’t choose one ship to go under and raise up, it raises all that are near it at the same level. As such, life delivers energy to us in the same way.
When we see another woman succeed, it is absolutely detrimental for us to see that success as anything but a win for us too. It’s toxic to not celebrate those wins and let me tell you why. When you try to push down the success of another woman, what energy are you putting out? What words are you saying? Your words are negative, right? The feelings you feel sit heavy in your gut and feel like they are pulling you down, you feel heavy. When you continue by allowing these feelings to sit inside of you, you physically put out the energy of negativity. There is scientific proof that like energy attracts like energy. So, when you stifle someone else’s success for whatever reason (which I will address later on), you are shifting the energy within and around you to be negative as well. Below, I have attached a quick video that shows how energy frequencies that are similar attract and speak with one another.
If you desire to live a life of joy, pleasure, and success, you must surround yourself with things that bring that feeling to you. When you celebrate someone else’s success wholeheartedly, you will magnetize that success and that happy, positive, successful energy to yourself.
What are the stories we tell ourselves?
Shining a light on someone else doesn’t diminish mine. Take time here to encourage people and lift them up.
-Bernice King
Here are some common negative thought patterns that can show up when we see someone else’s success and the reasons that these thoughts do not make sense:
- “Her success makes me feel like I’m not doing enough or that I am less successful.”
- Why it doesn’t make sense: Every woman has a unique journey and we don’t know how many steps they have gone through to get to this success. Her life goals are likely completely different than yours. Do not compare what may be her Chapter 15 in a completely different story to your Chapter 1.
- “Her achievements really highlight what my shortcomings are.”
- Why it doesn’t make sense: Your potential and your abilities have nothing to do with hers. Success isn’t something that only one person can have, it is not a finite resource. You may be gifted and successful in areas that she can only dream about.
- “She is so successful and that means there is less available for me.”
- Why it doesn’t make sense: As I mentioned previously, success is not a finite resource. When you live in a place of abundance, you will see that you too can be successful. In addition, when you celebrate every single small win as though it is a big win, you will naturally draw the energy of more and bigger wins.
- “I don’t deserve the success she has achieved. I am not as capable as she is.”
- Why it doesn’t make sense: You have strengths that she does not have. You are deserving of all of the greatness that you want to achieve. You just have to know it and move forward planning for it.
- “She is successful because she knows the right people.”, or “She clearly does not have the same challenges that I do.”
- Why it’s a flawed thought: You have NO IDEA what steps someone else has taken, how much time they have spent, how much sleep or family time they have given up to find their success. You also don’t know how hard she has worked to get into rooms with people that opened the door for success. Her sacrifices are not something you are privy to. It’s not a clear comparison.
- “If I celebrate her success, others may think less of me.”
- Why it’s flawed thinking: Like energy attracts like energy. There are many “competitors” who celebrate each others success because there is plenty to go around. When you have the confidence in yourself to celebrate other women’s successes, it shines a glowing light on you and grows a beautiful reputation for yourself as someone who is genuinely happy for those who precede you. It will come back to you tenfold.
- “It’s not fair. I wish that I had what she has.”
- Why it’s flawed thinking: When you come from a place of jealousy, it hinders the growth that you can experience for yourself. Use those thoughts and turn them into inspiration from watching her success into taking the next leap forward in your path toward your dreams.
- “She has seen success doing what I want to do, which means there is no space for me to succeed. I’m going to fail.”
- Why it’s flawed thinking: You have to play your own game. The people that are attracted to you want to work with YOU because of who you are. They are attracted to YOU and the way that you speak your message and your truth. See her success as proof that what you dream of accomplishing can be done successfully.
When we learn to celebrate one another in a real and honest way, it makes it easier to borrow those feelings of success as powerful motivation that YOUR dreams will come true sooner than you know. I know that in the styling world, we all are doing similar things, but we do those things differently. The energy that I bring to my Clients is different than the Stylist a few miles away. Each of us has different offerings or specialties. When we collaborate together and learn from each other and are OPEN to that, we can either decide to expand ourselves and business from what we have learned from them OR when we run across a potential client that we cannot serve based upon our offerings or gifts, we know someone we can send them to. It’s all about serving people to the best of our ability and making others lives better.
As an example of this, I had a friend recommend me to a woman who was looking for a stylist who could work with her Trans child to shop for and develop a style that was authentic to them. This is not a specialty area of mine, but I know of a couple other stylists whose focus is completely on this group. I recommended these other stylists to the Mom because I want for ANYONE seeking assistance with their style to be met with a stylist who can serve them the very best. Hiring a stylist can be a vulnerable experience and I want for everyone to be met with kindness and the best possible experience for them.
Women are a force
When we decide to celebrate each other and come together, we are unstoppable. Here are some statistics that reflect the power we have as women.
- Globally, women control about $20 TRILLION in consumer spending (Boston Consulting Group).
- According to Forbes, women influence 70 – 80% of consumer purchasing decisions, including 85% of luxury purchase decisions.
- Women are often the primary decision-makers when it comes to household spending, equaling about 85% of all household spending including home improvement, healthcare, and family vacations.
- There are over 12.3 million female-owned businesses in the United States along, making a significant impact to the economy.
Knowing how many important decisions we make around finances and how much we contribute to the economy, you have to realize our impact in other areas of life is incredibly vast. Think of how much MORE impact we can have, how many lives we can change, how many people we can serve, and how much good we can do when we do it hand-in-hand with other women!
In order to really attract that like energy and manifest the life of our dreams, we need to see the importance of not just including other women in our lives, but in celebrating all of the great things they have accomplished and brought into the world.
Take the Reigns: How to get out of your own way
Now that we realize how powerful our thoughts are when it comes to how we relate to other women and how we experience their success, I want to share some positive affirmations that you can repeat to yourself to help you to reframe the negative thought patterns that are bound to rear their ugly heads as you hear of the success that other women around you are having. I recommend that you either copy and paste these affirmations into the notes on your phone OR record yourself saying them on your phone’s audio recorder.
When you see a woman living her success and start to feel the gremlins trolling around inside of your brain, actually say “STOP” either out loud or in your head (if you are with others). Open your notes file or play your affirmation audio file right away. Here are some powerful affirmations to help you reframe your thoughts:
- Her success is not a measure of my worth. We are on different paths and I celebrate my unique journey.
- I am enough just as I am. Her success does not diminish my own value or potential.
- Success is abundant and there is enough for all of us. her achievements inspire me to reach for my own goals.
- I acknowledge my accomplishments and abilities. I am deserving of success just as much as anyone else.
- I recognize the effort and challenges that are behind her success. I honor my own hard work and my own unique journey.
- I find validation from within myself. My worth is not determined by external opinions, and I celebrate my own achievements.
- Celebrating others’ success showcases my confidence and my abundance mentality. I am secure in my own journey.
- I use her success as inspiration for my own growth. I am grateful for what I have and am optimistic about my future.
- Success is not a competition, and supporting others does not hinder my own growth. We can all rise together and celebrating her success will ultimately lift me and my goals up even higher.
- My path is my own and my journey will lead me to my greatest aspirations and will teach me the lessons I need in order to arrive at the destination meant for me.
Remember that replacing negative thoughts with positive ones will raise your energy and your vibe. The more you surround yourself with others who shine their light brightly and also choose to celebrate you when it is your time to shine YOUR light, the quicker your dreams will become a reality.
One Final Thing
You may be wondering what all of this has to do with style. While it does not directly correlate with style, it 100% indirectly does. As a Trained and Certified Style Coach™️, my styling process is holistic which means addressing what is happening between our ears as much as the clothing that we are putting on our bodies. The two are strongly interconnected. In my studies of Psychology of Fashion (and as a Psychology minor), our closets are a direct reflection of what is happening in our lives and inside of our minds. If your mind is cluttered with feelings of negativity, your closet and wardrobe certainly will be as well.
All-in-all, it’s important to remember that as women, we are stronger together. The more we can celebrate the women in our life, the more impactful we can be to others.
We only get ONE LIFE. I encourage you to really think about how you want to live it. What do you want your life experience to be? Do you want to be constantly struggling and filled with negative thoughts and feelings of lack or do you want to live fully, learning from each moment, growing, expanding, and attracting joy and happiness to yourself every day?
The choice, my friend, is yours.
Stylishly Yours,
