The Book That Taught Me To Play Big by Blogging
How women can overcome barriers and find their voice with Tara Mohr’s ‘Playing Big’
I am very grateful to Tara Mohr for writing ‘Playing Big: Find your voice, your mission, your message’. For writing for women like me who are afraid to share their voice. Thank goodness for her bravery and inspiration to share her voice on the topic of sharing your voice! I enjoyed reading the different stories from the women who had been coaching clients in the ‘Playing Big’ course. I always find real life examples comforting in books and realize I am not alone. Telling my story has been such a difficult journey for me. The fear I have is greater than anything I have encountered, and I have done some hard things in my life; moved countries, earned a PhD, left my 20-year career.
Your Inner Critic
I love that the book started with the inner critic. I agree that has been one of my most troublesome sources of limiting self-beliefs. My inner critic may have taken over because my training and job also taught me to be critical. I have practiced some of the techniques recommended in the book to recognize and tame my inner critic: drawing her and naming her. I started to make some progress with her when I used an Improv Comedy technique. She said, “You’re fat and ugly”, and instead of fighting with her I responded, “YES AND, I am fit and strong.’ This worked for me somewhat. It wasn’t until I started to ask her what was upsetting her, what was she trying to tell me and what could I do to help her feel safe, that I started to make progress. My inner critic is a witch, so I imagined her flying around all bent out of shape and inviting her for a cup of tea. I could imagine her calming down and being grateful for the attention and conversation. Once I started to see her in this way, I was able to talk to her. This dialogue inspired me to prepare a TED talk with the witch hurling insults while I try to take the audience through my burn out journey. She represents my fears but also so many of the social critiques that working moms face. That is one of my Playing Big goals, to do a TED talk about burnout in working moms and the internal and external pressures we face. It’s a tragic comedy.
Your Inner Mentor
This book introduced me to the concept of an inner mentor! I had not come across this idea before so I was really delighted to hear about it and to think there might be someone that could be there for me. I have had many helpful mentors over the years, but the hierarchical nature of those relationships did not always result in my needs being cared for. I have done visualization exercises before and always felt somewhat stumped. And when I wrote a letter from my future self, did I not find the guidance reassuring. I could not envisage a future “me”. And I felt jealous when other women succeeded in describing magnificent future scenarios. I decided that listening to the visualization exercise at bedtime might help me let go of my thoughts. I fell asleep, of course. But I woke up in the night and realized my inner mentor was a writer. It made sense as I had written letters as a child from boarding school, and I was a scientific writer. The inner mentor writer, however, let me trust that writing was my safe space. I used to feel uncomfortable writing and sharing personal stories, but she told me to write about those feelings too. She taught me that it is not the writing that is making me uncomfortable but the feelings, and I can write to understand and process them. I feel much more confident about writing my book now, knowing her steady hand is guiding me.
Why Women Stay Small
I also welcome new insights on criticism. I wrote down the times I have been criticized and not affected and the times when I am deeply hurt. I could see that my self-beliefs were determining how I received the criticism. The book’s examples of being able to ignore criticism from women who were not the target audience were very helpful and made me realize even more clearly that I need to talk to burned out moms who love self-help books. Not ones who hate reading and are doing ok with their work/life balance! In particular, I need to get away from my white board! I spend a lot of time conceiving ideas on my own.
Working alone at the whiteboard is just one in the list of ways women hide to avoid sharing their voice. Getting more education and curating other people’s ideas was another. I have 3 degrees, I have read 150 books in the last 3 years and I have curated all the content into a searchable database! The specific examples she gave: don’t get the perfect website, don’t write a book, and don’t read 100 books was a summary of my life at the moment. This was when I thought Playing Big had been written just for me! I think part of my calling is to write a book as I love the process and think it will help prevent burn out in working moms. I felt distraught when my previous passion, public health research, waned during my burn out (cynicism being a key criterion for burnout). But reading the chapter on finding your calling, made me realized that my desire to change the world through behavior change was still present and strong. It was helpful to know our callings make us feel small. Although I can see that I am more comfortable writing my book (at the whiteboard) and that submitting blogs would be a stronger leap for me – something I could achieve in 2 weeks instead of 2 years. The book provides several inspirational leap examples and gave me the confidence to start blogging.
Building a Collaborative World
I really appreciated the vision Tara provided: for her son to live in a world that is more collaborative than competitive. What a simple check in that could be: am I creating a collaborative or competitive environment? And although I succeeded in competitive environments e.g., boarding school, academia, I ended up burning out. Recently I helped a mentee to complete her promotion package. I shared an example from a man to help her see how she could lead with “I-statements’. I also advised her to have a glass of wine and write as though she was “god’s gift to women”. (I think that’s a British phrase). Having burned out from this competitive environment, I am now on the outside and I can see it from a different perspective. I hope I can still inspire change in such institutions. But I also realize that I lost my opportunity to create transformation from within the organization, because I no longer wanted to play the game. Now I want to build a nurturing environment where women don’t have to self-promote and take credit for everything to advance.
To be honest, until I moved to the US from Europe, I didn’t think being a woman was any different. But living and working in male dominated environments in the US has taught me how little I knew and how unprepared I was to recognize and challenge the biases. It is exhausting. And I think my confident language resulted in men perceiving me as aggressive. The book discusses what words to remove from our language like ‘just’, ‘does that make sense’, but also acknowledges that some women are penalized if they talk confidently.
Finding Self-love
Finally, the book’s perspective on behavior change was fantastic. Several popular books on habit formation, although they present similar content, did not have this insight and the female perspective. How many of us set goals based on self-criticism instead of self-love? I also appreciate that compassion was included, which is not in the scientific behavior change models. As a behavior change expert, I know that behavior change is hard, but the book describes the supports and scaffolding, like accountability partners, that could make it much easier. These are the components in my behavior change guides, that I also try to incorporate into my work and my vision for a world where working moms can thrive.
Tara ends the book describing the birth of her son and admitting that she is a mother who is not overwhelmed. I agree a flexible job is key, and a helping husband. Although my career in academia allowed me some flexibility, the work hours and performance metrics meant I always felt not enough. I am grateful to have the opportunity now to write, to work from home as a consultant, and have time with my two kids on my terms. But I still feel the conflict in these two passions, my kids and my work calling. No wonder, I am fighting both perfectionism and patriarchy!
