Early in my career, I worked for a woman who was smart, kind and incredibly good at her job.

She was someone people trusted and genuinely enjoyed working with. She was also generous with her time and always willing to help—qualities I admired then and still do now.

One day, she handed me a book called Why Good Girls Don’t Get Ahead… But Gutsy Girls Do.

She told me she wished someone had given it to her earlier in her career.

I was probably 22 or 23 at the time, but I never forgot that conversation. Looking back, it was one of the most valuable pieces of career advice anyone gave me.

She wasn’t telling me to stop being kind, helpful or collaborative. She was helping me understand that those qualities, on their own, wouldn’t necessarily move my career forward.

Being the “good girl” can work for quite a while.

You do what is asked. You make life easier for everyone around you. You avoid conflict, quietly pick up what someone else dropped and make sure the work gets done.

And you are rewarded for it.

People call you dependable. Collaborative. Easy to work with. A team player.

Those are all good qualities. Until being easy to work with starts to mean you are carrying work that was never yours. Until being collaborative means you never advocate for your own ideas. Until being dependable means everyone depends on you—but no one considers what it is costing you.

Eventually, competence can become endless usefulness.

I’ve had to unlearn some of this myself.

As I moved into bigger leadership roles, I realized I could no longer spend so much energy trying to make sure everyone saw me as sunshine and roses. Leadership required me to make decisions people didn’t like, hold people accountable and say no when yes would have made someone else’s life easier.

That didn’t mean I had to become cold, difficult or someone I didn’t recognize.

It meant I had to stop treating everyone else’s comfort as my responsibility.

One of the clearest signs that you may be doing this is resentment.

Resentment shows up when you say yes but mean no. When you take on one more thing even though you have no capacity. When someone fails to follow through and you quietly step in—again—because dealing with it feels harder than doing it yourself.

We tend to judge ourselves for feeling resentful, but resentment is often useful information. It may be telling you that a boundary has been crossed—or that you never communicated one in the first place.

You don’t have to transform overnight into a boundary-setting badass who says no to everyone and terrifies the neighborhood.

Start with an experiment.

Pause before automatically saying yes.

Ask someone else to make the coffee.

Let a person be disappointed without immediately trying to fix it.

Notice what happens when you stop performing the role everyone has grown comfortable seeing you play.

Some people may not love the change. That doesn’t necessarily mean you’re doing it wrong. Sometimes people resist our growth because the old version of us worked very well for them.

In my conversation with psychologist and author Michelle Minnikin, we talk about good-girl conditioning, people-pleasing, resentment, boundaries and what it means to enter your “villain era.”

Although, this isn't about becoming the villain. It’s about becoming willing to disappoint people when the alternative is continually disappointing yourself.

🎧 Listen to the full episode:

​Spotify​
​Apple​
​YouTube​

Lead louder. Grow stronger. Don’t do it alone.

And if you’re in Central Pennsylvania and looking for smaller, more meaningful connections with other women, email me and I’ll send you details on upcoming events.